Piano Practice

The Rule of Three

2023-03-16T08:54:36+00:00

I was watching a video recently about an Olympic athlete talking about their training. Right before they went to the last Olympics, they had a training session and, in their words, "was like a trainwreck'. They, of course, want to go to the Olympics in peak condition to have the best chance of winning and the worry was that they were behind in their progress. Their coach, however, had some great advice to give. She said when you are training at your upper levels of performance, not every session is going to be perfect and called it "the rule of [...]

The Rule of Three2023-03-16T08:54:36+00:00

How To Improve Your Memory For The Piano

2023-01-30T05:19:04+00:00

Improving your memory can be a great way to enhance your piano-playing skills and I am here to provide you with a few tips to achieve just that. Practice Regularly Consistent practice is crucial for improving your memory when learning to play the piano. When you practice the same pieces repeatedly, you are strengthening the neural connections in your brain that are responsible for muscle memory. This allows your fingers to move easily and smoothly over the keys, making it less challenging for you to recall the notes and fingerings as you play. In order to see results, try to [...]

How To Improve Your Memory For The Piano2023-01-30T05:19:04+00:00

The Importance Of Understanding And Interpreting Your Piano Music

2023-01-03T21:18:09+00:00

As a musician, learning how to play the piano is a rewarding and fulfilling journey. But, simply being able to play the notes on the page is not enough – it is equally important to understand and interpret the music you are performing. Understanding and interpreting your piano music allows you to bring your own unique flair and personality to a piece, and helps you to connect with the music on a deeper level. So, What Does It Mean To Understand And Interpret Piano Music? To understand a piece of music, you need to have a basic knowledge of its structure [...]

The Importance Of Understanding And Interpreting Your Piano Music2023-01-03T21:18:09+00:00

Coping With Stress In Practising/Performing

2022-10-31T12:57:37+00:00

With this article, I would like to share a few things that I found extremely helpful over the years- when it comes to coping with stress. Performing and practising can be highly demanding, and synchronising everyday life with the discipline of piano playing can be a true challenge. It is important to distinguish different types of stress in different fields of music making, so I will focus mainly on the quality of practice time as that is a good base for any further topic. The difficulty in maintaining a quality practice session stems from several aspects… the amount of work that [...]

Coping With Stress In Practising/Performing2022-10-31T12:57:37+00:00

Practising Piano Techniques – Part 2

2022-08-30T20:37:26+01:00

Hello again and welcome to part 2 of practising techniques! If you haven’t already checked out part 1, please do so as I shared some of the practising principles that I find super important. We covered the essence of concepts like searching, listening, identifying the problems and repetition. All of these concepts are somehow a core of practising any instrument. What I would like to further focus on is again both practical advice as well as a general concept. 5. Physical Awareness I find that physical awareness is often overlooked as a concept. Maybe more so with teaching children as they [...]

Practising Piano Techniques – Part 22022-08-30T20:37:26+01:00

Practising Piano Techniques Part 1 

2022-08-30T20:36:33+01:00

Practising is a highly sensitive topic. In my experience as a teacher and a performer - there are thousands of ways to do something on our instrument. Finding those shortcuts that make everything efficient and better,  with true clarity that can later turn into a method - proves to be a challenge. Let’s first examine a little bit what practising is. When we say “I have to practise “ - we already automated the action, I have to be by the piano (or any other instrument) and do some work. I find that some essential understanding of what work needs to [...]

Practising Piano Techniques Part 1 2022-08-30T20:36:33+01:00

10 Reasons (Out Of 100s) Why Concert Attending Is Really Important For Musical Development – Part 1

2022-04-25T15:25:41+01:00

Music Came Before The Language Music is not consumed just for fun as it might seem now, at the present time. Netflix, cinema, a night out... Music has changed its role drastically, in this century specifically. If we try to imagine our life without it - at first it wouldn’t seem that bad. Maybe it would be strange to exercise without music, or we frequently wouldn’t understand the context of a specific movie scene as many movie directors heavily rely on music to tell us the emotion of the scene. Imagine weddings, celebrations, birthday parties... the fact that music is everywhere [...]

10 Reasons (Out Of 100s) Why Concert Attending Is Really Important For Musical Development – Part 12022-04-25T15:25:41+01:00

Why Scales?

2022-03-30T13:30:40+01:00

Scales can be seen as a tedious task by many people who choose to study the piano but without them your technique and knowledge will never reach its full potential and no one wants to be held back! I get asked frequently by students ‘why do I have to play scales?’ ‘What do they even do that benefit me?’ I usually struggle to find one short answer when this happens because there’s a whole list of reasons I could dive into…. And I do. The main reason for practicing your scales is to build up your finger technique. If you take [...]

Why Scales?2022-03-30T13:30:40+01:00

Sound as a central part of music making – Part 2

2021-07-19T14:41:28+01:00

Dear pianists! In the previous article we have covered how to start developing your sense of sound and aware sound production. I also shared some practical tips that personally helped me and some of my colleagues. Please do consider this article inseparable to part one! Just to refresh the previous topic - practical tips included the following: recording yourself, mindfulness, visualisation, among many other advice. In part 2 I would like to focus on the physicality of piano playing - specifically in relation to sound production, more than any other correlation (articulation, stylistic approach, or technical issues... those topics will be [...]

Sound as a central part of music making – Part 22021-07-19T14:41:28+01:00

Playing faster slowly

2021-04-21T20:10:46+01:00

I hate running. Whenever I do it, it never feels natural and when I run, I feel ungraceful and run like a cow- it can move quickly but it just doesn't look coordinated. The only bit I like about running is the bit afterwards when I get to take a bath! But you know, running is something I always wished I was better at. So enter a great book called, "80/20 running". In it, the author explains that the majority of people who run are moving too fast. When we run at too high an intensity, the body does not have [...]

Playing faster slowly2021-04-21T20:10:46+01:00

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