Trusting Your Inner Voice - Key to Success at the Piano
We all have so many critical voices in our heads.
Telling us what’s good, what’s not, and what should be. We must stop the criticism if we are to play the music that is inside of us - but how? How do we turn off the inner critic and start to trust our inner voice? By listening to it. Most of us are taught not to trust our initial impulses, but it is these innocent prodding’s that bring authenticity in our improvisations and musings at the piano.
To deny these impulses is to deny yourself of what is truly rich and necessary for creating a music that is full of both joy and longing. Combine these two and you have the secret
...new age piano piece.First, understand that most music is composed in sections. In fact, musical composition is just the art of repetition and contrast. The first thing I have students do is learn how to complete an 8-bar phrase. Once ...
Whenever you want to create something you set yourself up because you block that small inner voice that says. “Let me go where I will.” Your ego may think it won’t be happy with the results. Your ego wants people to say “Ah what a great job you’re doing. You really can play well.” These comments can set you up to think that you are really great. This is
...cannot resolve it overnight. I am an African. I do things the African way. I cannot write about African American music like a Western scholar. In my culture we live the past and the future in the present. When I ...
Puff yourself up all you want, but if you want to really feel the connection between you and the music, you will have to abandon what you want and, instead, let your inner voice decide. It may not be the kind of music that will get you on American Idol, but it will be the kind of music that will get you to a special place few can know - that place where you disappear and the music appears out of thin air. The feeling you will get from this will far surpass any kind of ego gratification that may come from fame or fortune.
Edward Weiss is a pianist/composer and webmaster
...my first piano class. It was at the Community College of Philadelphia 1984. It was a group class with 20 or so electronic keyboards arranged around the room. We each received a class text book titled "Class Piano." No shocker ...