Unfortunately, playing by ear is really hard for a lot of classical musicians. It’s something that they don’t typically learn. They can get by without it. If they do practice ear training, they try to improve their ear by repeating interval drills over and over again.  Is it possible to get a good ear this way? Well, yes. Very few people actually see this type of ear training through to a point that they can play music competently by ear …

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If you’ve read around the internet, including this blog, muscle memory for musicians often gets a bad rap. It’s the worst kind of memory. Muscle memory causes memory slips, and you should never rely on it. It’s a horrible no good very bad thing! Avoid it at all costs. None of that is true. Muscle memory is actually needed more than any other type of memory. It’s just easy to acquire. What Exactly Is Muscle Memory? Muscle memory is referred …

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Ever watched Peter Bence in a piano cover tickling the keys with his fast fingers and thought, “That’s it! That’s exactly what I want to do”?  Chances are, if that reason or a similar one is your motive to learn how to play the piano, you’re older than the standard age people usually start learning piano. And that can be disappointing if you leave yourself to the beginner’s frustrating thought that musical instruments should be learned earlier in life.  Well, …

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Why you should you care about how you sit? It’s not about how you look. It’s about health and freedom of movement. Correcting posture issues can go a long way in relieving common pains and injuries while practicing. What is Piano Posture? I don’t know if “posture” is the best word to describe it. “Technique” may be a better term, but then it is often confused with actual technical facility, like playing quick and accurate scales or octaves. When I …

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Do you sit down and practice your instrument, or do you just play it? Growing up, I don’t know if I knew that there was much of a difference. Practicing just meant that I was making music, or at least sound, on my instrument. Somehow I will get better. Right? Both practicing and playing music have their place, but if you want to get better quickly, practicing is where you should spend most of your time. What Does it Mean …

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Music is made up almost entirely of patterns. Patterns can be defined as notes that are organized in a predictable manner. If you are able to find these patterns in music, you can often predict what is coming next. Understanding patterns can also help in learning and memorizing a piece much faster. Many students of music understand that patterns exist, but they fail to use them to learn their music, instead of relying on learning one note at a time. …

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If you play the piano, or if you’re a teacher, you’ve likely been taught in the classical tradition. You predominantly learned to read music. By reading music, you translate the notes on the page into music on the piano. That’s the only way that I was taught to play the piano. I was never taught to improvise or play by ear.  It’s a different skill set. Most often these skills are not found in classical pianists. Does that mean they …

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Learning technique for your instrument is often one of the most boring things you can practice. People tend to avoid practicing their technical exercises. For the most part, that may not be a terrible thing. There are usually better ways to spend your time practicing than working on unmusical technical exercises all day. There are two important exceptions to that though. Those exceptions are scales and arpeggios What Are Scales? A scale is simply an ordered set of notes. Most …

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Serious musicians can practice for 4 or more hours every day. The idea is that if you practice more, you’ll progress faster. It makes logical sense. If you practice for 4 hours, you will progress 4 times faster than the person who is only practicing one hour. It doesn’t always work that way though. The musician that practices for 1 hour efficiently, can easily learn more than a musician that practices for 4 hours inefficiently. Can you learn how to …

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If you just started learning piano, or your child is getting lessons for the first time, it’s important to be aware of common mistakes that beginner pianists make. Most of the time students progress much slower than they need to because they are making mistakes that misuse their precious time. Don’t be one of those people. 1. Playing Too Fast This is definitely the number one problem among new and young pianists. Playing the piano isn’t a race. The reason …

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