The Horror of Traditional Piano Lessons
Now that Halloween is over, it’s safe to talk about traditional piano lessons - the tedium, the boredom, the overbearing teachers with their incessant metronome beats.
Do we really need this? Do we really need yet another polished perfomer who can play Czerny and Beethoven on cue? Don’t we have enough of these skilled typists already? I think so. And frankly, I just don’t get it. I don’t get why anyone would want to learn how to play other people’s music.
Of course this music is worthy of preserving, but I’m speaking about being creative at the piano. I’m talking about the ability to sit down at the keyboard and just play without forethought or planning.
Is there value in this kind of
...For many kids, it's the only thing they were ever able to play. And many of these kids think they know the story of how that song was recorded. Yes, there was a fire, a bad one. But what most, ...
It doesn’t have to be this way. We can lead with an emphasis on creativity first! To do this does not require more than a very rudimentary knowledge of chords, a way to play them, and a guided instruction on how to improvise. Imagine the joy students will feel when they realize how easy it is to create music!
Edward Weiss is a pianist/composer and webmaster of Quiescence Music’s online piano lessons. He has been helping students learn how
...to benefit the Foundling Hospital that Messiah was heard at all!Music historians have recently discovered an embarrassing credit error. Cleric Isaac Watts published Psalms of David, based on Psalm 98 of the Old Testament, in 1719. In 1839 American composer ...