The Piano Student’s Community

Instrumentalists have always had band and orchestra as their “communities.”  The string players look forward to ‘districts’ and ‘regionals’ every year. Our high school chorus had an opportunity to perform ‘Carmina Burana’ with the Philharmonic. A piano student who also played clarinet once told me, rather proudly, that she was a ‘band geek’ and her favorite time of year was ‘football’ season. These kids bond by participating in rehearsals, performances, parades and even field trips.

But what about the piano students? A shy student may go through all of high school without anyone knowing that they even play piano. They attend their weekly lesson and practice (alone) at home…until they play in the big recital. And then, the audience is pretty much limited to their teacher’s other students and their parents.

But a new generation of young pianists is finding their own community through social media and it’s a global community. In addition to YouTube and Twitter, pianists are discussing all aspects of playing the piano from suggesting fingering for specific passages to analyzing proper finger, wrist and arm motions through some very active online forums.

Here are links to just a few of the most popular and active forums for pianists:

• Piano World
• Hear and Play
• Piano Street
• Talk Classical
• Magle International Music Forums
• 8Notes

Maybe I’ll see you there….