Many students write in to me every week asking how to improve their piano playing. In this article, I’m going to lay out some of my ideas and the concepts that I’ve learned over the years that will help you improve your piano playing skills. Step 1) Be Realistic This is not meant to sound harsh,…
What is MIDI? MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface and it is a way for computers and keyboards to talk to one another. When recording a keyboard (digital piano), we normally think of recording a sound file like an mp3 file. The limitations of a sound file prevent us from effectively slowing it down…
A student asked me in the forum to share a little about my background. So, here is a little bit about how I learned the piano, what I’ve learned as a teacher and why I almost quit the piano when I was a kid! When I was a kid, I didn’t learn piano in the…
My Least Favorite Question At the height of my time as a working musician, I was 22-years-old. I was a college graduate, fresh out of school and clinging to the idea that my roots rock outfit, which I had formed my sophomore year, soon would be signed to a major label. Anytime anyone asked about…
How Piano Projects Keep You On Track While teaching a private student this week, we were discussing the value and merit of practice. Basically, “Why do all of this practicing in the first place?” The piano is a lonely instrument, you can play piano without the accompaniment of other musicians. In fact, you often find…
Eli, Tom Hanks, and two Mona Lisas, part three Recap: For those who have not read Part One or Part Two of this trilogy, this column may not make sense. Then again, it may make perfect sense for that very same reason. Regardless, both parts contend that, for a variety of reasons, there are no…
Eli, Tom Hanks, and two Mona Lisas, part two Recap: For those who have not read Part One of this trilogy, this column may not make sense. Then again, it may make perfect sense for that very same reason. Regardless, part one’s contention was that, for a variety of reasons, there are no great songs,…
One important, often overlooked, topic in piano performance is how to avoid injuring ourselves at our instrument. Piano playing is not a natural process. We are not born with the ability to play the piano…we learn it. Therefore, we can easily suffer from repetitive use injuries if we are not careful. In this article, I’ll…
Eli, Tom Hanks, and two Mona Lisas, part one I have never courted controversy. I don’t really like those that do. I write this because this first article in a series of three will present an idea that may be controversial to some of those reading this. I’m not doing this for affect. I know…
The Circle of Fifths The circle of fifths is a fantastic practice tool. It can help you practice scales more effectively, learn key signatures and even learn basic and advanced harmonization techniques. In this article, I am going to show you some circle of fifths “tricks” that will help you maximize your practice. What is…
Since starting work here at JAZZEDGE as the Student Services Representative many of my daily tasks have involved communicating with students and researching new ways to connect with not only our students but our community. Willie and Valerie have been interested in doing more piano workshops and giving back to the community for awhile, it…
Somewhere over the Hollywood sign There was a time in my life when I was in my late teens-early twenties that I felt fairly certain that I would be the subject of many interviews in my career. Already, I’d been on a few radio shows and in several local newspapers, and I figured it was…
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