I’ve heard that our lives renew every seven years. So far this seems to hold true for me. Buying and selling houses, changing jobs, raising kids, etc. 2012 marks the beginning of another 7 year cycle for me (I’m not saying which one) and already I see the changes. Today I’m closing The Music Studio and moving my teaching to my home. I’m selling the piano I’ve used for the past (almost 7) years and using the one I have in my living room. I’ve also started a year long recording project that’s bringing me back to the piano bench and the pieces I love. Of course, I had to start a new blog about the project… so I invite you to follow along and see where this leads…Come visit me at The Go Play Project.
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Like many piano teachers I rely heavily on the compositions of Dennis Alexander, Melody Bober and Robert Vandall to light a fire under my students. Their music is fun to perform and has a big sound. It’s very approachable music and the musical patterns make much of it relatively easy.
However, I realize it’s also necessary to challenge my students with some meatier classics. I remember performing the Ravel Sonatine in high school and having a heck of a time hearing all the inner voices, let alone trying to isolate them and “bring them out.” But this week I realized how lucky I was that I could pull out the Sonatine and whip it into shape for tonight’s “Go Play” upload. Hard to believe, but it was still in my fingers (wrong notes and all) but this time around, it was so much easier and more enjoyable to play.
Let’s make lessons fun for our students, but let’s not forget that they might sit down at the piano thirty or forty years down the road and want to be able to play a Chopin Nocturne, a Bach Fugue, or a piece by Debussy or Ravel.
You can hear this week’s Go Play installment here – Ravel Sonatine II: Mouvement de Menuet.
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This week I dealt with a bout of the flu, drove my son back to college, got back to my full teaching schedule….OOOPS. I FORGOT! This is a no-excuses piano year. And I’m happy to say, even with the exciting Denver-Pittsburgh game on in the next room, I managed to meet my self-imposed Sunday night deadline and uploaded my piece for the the second week of the Go Play 2012 Project. As I mentioned before, I’ve made it my New Year’s Resolution to learn (and record) one piece a week during 2012. The best part of the project is that I can choose whatever I want to play!
This week’s piece is Moszkowski’s Etude Opus 72 No. 6 in F major, a piece Horowitz compared to an “after dinner mint.” I call it one of my Twitter Pieces because I first heard about it through James Rhodes, one of the many fine pianists I follow on Twitter. His tweets about piano, practicing and a musicians life have motivated me to sit down and pull out some of my old favorite pieces as well as assemble a binder of music that I’ve downloaded from IMSLP including this etude.
Anybody care to join me in this one-a -week by-the-seat-of-your-pants recording project?
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Like many piano teachers, over the years my own piano playing has taken a back seat to teaching and all the administrative work that goes along with running a music studio. This year I’ve decided to change that. I am making a commitment to record one piece a week in 2012 and upload it to Soundcloud. Piano teachers, would you care to join me in this challenge? Here’s what we’ll get out of it:
- A cure for those of us who are procrastinators or perfectionists.
- An chance to share our favorite repertoire and learn new pieces.
- An opportunity to show our students what they can accomplish if they practice.
Who wants to join me in the “Go Play Project 2012?”
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