Put away studies by Czerny. Put him and the others into a closet and turn the key. Instead, use these passages from music you intend to play-music by master composers-as building blocks for technique and musicianship. Suppose for a moment that we don't accept the notion that a good piano technique requires strength training, or that it is even really possible to "strengthen" the fingers to any noticeable degree in the way that authors of yore would have us believe. Those concepts indeed have long ago been discredited. Suppose, too, we discard the notion that independence of fingers is a...

Put away studies by Czerny. Put him and the others into a closet and turn the key. Instead, use these passages from music you intend to play-music by master composers-as building blocks for technique and musicianship. Suppose for a moment that we don't accept the notion that a good piano technique requires strength training, or that it is even really possible to "strengthen" the fingers to any noticeable degree, in the way that authors of yore would have us believe. Those concepts indeed have long ago been discredited. Suppose, too, we discard the notion that independence of fingers is a...

Put away studies by Czerny. Put him and the others into a closet and turn the key. Instead, use these passages from music you intend to play-music by master composers-as building blocks for technique and musicianship. Suppose for a moment that we don't accept the notion that a good piano technique requires strength training, or that it is even really possible to "strengthen" the fingers to any noticeable degree in the way that authors of yore would have us believe. Indeed, those concepts have lng ago been long ago discredited. Suppose, too, we discard the notion that independence of fingers...

VIDEO DEMONSTRATIONS, RE-IMAGINED AND RE-RECORDED WITH NEW INFORMATION, NOW AVAILABLE SEPARATELY ON DVD. Praise fort PIANO TECHNIQUE DEMYSTIFIED: "This book is a delightful collection of helpful insights. A terrific aspect is its inclusion of online video demonstrations. Many of the fingerings, note-grouping concepts, rotational ideas and so on make the passages in the examples easier to play than when approached with more traditional ideas." American Music Teacher, Feb./Mar., 2015*** INCLUDES LINKS TO VIDEO DEMONSTRATIONS, NEW AND EXPANDED CHAPTERS, MORE DETAILED INFORMATION ON FINGERING...

Learn to sight-read more fluently by practicing with a partner, an experienced guide at your side. Of course, we know to keep our eyes on the page and look ahead. We know to begin by scanning for surprises of meter, accidentals or key change. We know, too, that setting a reasonable tempo based on the fastest note values ensures a successful performance. But in the final analysis we must learn not to stop for mistakes, the wayward flat, the dangling mordent or what-in-the-world-kind-of-scale was that, anyway. It would be rude to abandon a partner in search of the aforementioned and if social...

Improve your sight-reading by practicing it with a partner, a partner who helps keep the pulse moving. Of course, we learn to keep our eyes on the page and always look ahead. We know to scan for surprises of meter, accidentals or key change. We know, too, that setting reasonable tempos based on the fastest note values ensures a successful performance. But in the final analysis, we must learn not to stop for mistakes, the wayward flat, a dangling mordent or what-in-the-world-kind-of-scale was that anyway. It would be rude to abandon a partner in search of the aforementioned, so it is the duty...

Rarely do scales and arpeggios occur in music the way we learn them in books, that is, until now in this book. When we encounter a scale or an arpeggio in a piece of music, we should be prepared to first notice that it is a scale or arpeggio, or part thereof, and consider it on its own terms. Does a particular routined fingering work here? How can we efficiently negotiate its twists and turns? I promise you the scale in your piece will not proceed innocently from G to shining G with a prescribed fingering and no detours. At least, not very often. But, really I hear you ask, are scales and...

Learn a song a day or a sonata movement a week. Use this material to systematically explore the many different techniques required of the collaborative pianists, and in the process expand your range of expression in solo repertoire. Collaborative pianists need all the same technical skills required of soloists, and some would argue that they need to be able to play mezzo forte and under. If you doubt this, look at cello sonatas of Rachmaninoff and Chopin, violin and cello sonatas of Brahms and songs by Strauss and Wolf, all of which are contained in this volume along with all the other major...

FULL SCORE. VOLUME 1 OF 4. Bach wrote in the preface to the Sinfonias that we should work above all to "achieve a cantabile style in playing and at the same time acquire a strong foretaste of composition." It's this endeavor to achieve a singing style that gave me the idea to transcribe these little gems, part of the pianist's catechism, for "singing" instruments-that and my desire to have more repertoire to play as a cellist in a string trio. Often referred to as three-part inventions, Bach's Sinfonias (Sinfonien) reflect the master's continuing concern for the complete education of...

DVD OF iDEMOS NOW AVAILABLE SEPARATELY Knowledge is a wonderful thing. Have you ever noticed, though, that the more you have, the more you seem to need? In an earlier volume, "Piano Technique Demystified: Insights into Problem Solving," we learned that it is more efficient to move than to stretch to an extreme and how to make decisions regarding fingering. We learned how to "get after" a passage and to play "honestly." We learned that mindless-rote is more likely to produce technical vagaries than reliable passage work. Perhaps most importantly, we learned that if a passage doesn't feel...