Rainbow Figures for Piano Scales

I've been using Grimm's Rainbow figures for explaining scales to my piano students for years. I love that these figures come in the seven colors of the rainbow which typically matches the number of different scale tones in Western Music. I like that the figures don't have faces and can be configured to represent many different types of scales. For instance, I like to count half steps and whole steps using the figures to create both minor and major scales and sometimes even whole note and mixolydian scales. And because Newton chose the original seven rainbow colors, I also like to arrange the figures in light wavelength order (rainbow color order) with the longest light wavelength (red) being the tonic. That way it matches the longest light wavelength with the lowest and longest sound wavelength in a scale (because sound wavelengths get shorter with higher tones). It is kind of fun to inject a little science into the piano lessons!

However, these figures have a slightly larger diameter than I would like and they take up more than one white piano key width and they have trouble balancing on a black keys. So, I recently ordered a batch of plain wooden peg dolls from Amazon and colored them myself using paint pens. The new peg dolls have a smaller dimension and will fit on my piano keys much better (plus they are a lot cheaper than the Grimm's Rainbow figures). I'm pretty excited about this project.

Materials for making your own rainbow figures:

Plain wooden peg dolls

Paint Pens

The wooden peg dolls I ordered came in a box of 50 with various sizes, so I'm able to make multiple sets of rainbow figures at different sizes. I also looked to make sure that the paint pens I selected had the official 7 colors of the rainbow. I needed red, orange, yellow, green, blue (light blue), indigo (dark blue), and violet (purple). It didn't take me too long to make these figures once I had the supplies, but it did require a steady hand.

So, these are my new rainbow scale friends and they fit on my piano keys so much better. 

Here are some some suggestions for ways to use Rainbow Scale Friends:

1. Talk about the tonic or home of your scale with the red rainbow figure. Mention that the home of any scale can be any note on the piano and discuss what makes that note the "home" of a piece of music.

2. Arrange your rainbow scale friends in rainbow color order. I always have two red color figures so that we can talk about octaves (double the frequency - double the fun). I like to talk about how western scale tones have a lot of different names.

* 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, Octave

* Tonic, Supertonic, Mediant, Subdominant, Dominant, Submediant, Leading Tone, Tonic

* Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do

* Major Scale - half steps and whole steps

3. Introduce the minor scales

* Minor Scales - half steps and whole steps

* Solfege the minor scale as appropriate: Do Di/Ra Re Ri/Me Mi Fa Fi/Se Sol Si/Le La Li/Te Ti Do

4. Create the different scale modes simply by keeping the steps and skips the same and moving the tonic around - Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, Locrian

5. Whole note scales

6. Pentatonic and Blues Scales

It is also great to use your rainbow scale figures for intervals and chords:

1. Create a scale using intervals. 2nd, 3rd, etc.

2. Create a scale and then start to remove figures to create chords. I really like doing this because it helps students visualize how scales help you to create chords.

I adore my new smaller rainbow scale friends and use these figures with my all my students regardless of their age because they fit well into my multi-sensory learning approach. They are a different sort of scale visual, tactile if the students place the figures on the keys, and aural if you use solfege.

Maestro by Peter Goldsworthy

This easy to read fiction book is very well known in Australia. It has appeared regularly on school curriculums and is often described as a "coming of age" book. The basic plot is about a young boy (Paul) growing up in Darwin and his relationship with his mysterious piano teacher, known as The Maestro. Available study guides talk about Darwin's weather being hot and humid mirroring the young pianist's budding sexuality, the student's fruitless quest for musical artistry and achievment along with themes of escapism, guilt and regret.

When I originally read the book, I found the plot clever and creative, but what really interested me and has stayed with me long after reading the book were the little nuggets of piano pedagogy tucked into the story. It turns out that Peter Goldsworthy, a medical doctor as well as an author, is the father of Australian concert pianist Anna Goldsworthy (whom I saw play at a Western Australia Piano Teacher Conference). He seems to have picked up some wisdom from her or her illustrious piano teacher, Mrs. Sivan, and inserted it into the story.

THE HAND:

When the young boy starts taking piano lessons from the Maestro, he has quite a few lessons where he is not allowed to play the piano even though he already is a pretty competent musician. Instead, the Maestro only discusses the hand and has many individual lessons about each finger without allowing the boy to play any music. It is very striking because it seems quite cruel to have piano lessons without allowing a student to play. However, it made this part of the story get into my head and got me thinking about how does the hand relate to the piano.

In the story, the fingers are described as:

Thumb: "Thumb is...too strong. A rooster, a show-off. Sultan of the harem. He must be kept in place."

Forefinger: "This finger is selfish. Greedy. A....a delinquent. He will steal from his four friends, cheat, lie."

Middle finger: "Mr. goody-goody....Teacher's pet. Does what he is told. Our best student."

Ring finger: "Likes to follow his best friend.... Likes to....lean on him sometimes."

The fifth finger is not described because as part of the story, the Maestro has cut off his fifth finger and tells the boy that it is unnecessary because many great pianists from previous eras never really used their fifth finger. Although that is kinda true, it would have been fun to also have a colorful description of the fifth finger from the Maestro. Maestro then describes the fingers as the pupils, the elbow as the teacher, and finally the brain as the headmaster.

Later in the story when the boy is describing his lessons to his parents, he says that the only thing they talked about in his initial lessons were the lengths of the fingers and that not all fingers are the same length. It was also pointed out by the Maestro that all the keys on the piano are the same length and the student is asked what could be done to remedy the mismatching.

From my point of view, this one the most basic issues at the heart of all piano playing and it has caused me to think a lot about how pianists do deal with the issue of having fingers with different "personalities" and lengths. I've thought about how we move our hands at the keyboard to compensate for those differences. It seems a very useful way to describe the hand early on in piano lessons to my students because it makes you consider how to best use your mismatched hand from the very beginning.

POSTURE AND HAND POSITION: Early in the piano lessons, the boy wants to play Chopin for the Maestro and gets ready to play when the following exchange occurs: 

Paul: "I, too, would let my hands do the talking. I dropped them to the keyboard. But before a single note had been played he reached over and seized my wrists.

Maestro: "No," he said. "No more. I do not like your Chopin." 

Paul: "But I haven't started!" 

Maestro: "You have of course started. Your hands are in the wrong position. Also your fingertips. Your elbows. I do not have to listen. I know how your Chopin would sound."

I love this exchange and wish I could be so very knowledgeable as to definitely be able to tell how something will sound on the piano simply by looking at a student's hand position and posture. However, in real life sometimes people can sound amazingly good with poor hand position and/or posture. Nevertheless, I still always try to teach my students to have good posture and hand position because I believe it can help prevent injuries and also because most pianists do sound better if they have what is considered proper hand position and posture.

THE QUEST FOR MUSICAL ARTISTRY: One of the main plot points in the book is the student's quest to become a classical pianist and how he continually falls short of his goal. There are a number of great quotes in the book that describe that quest:

“We must know when to move on. To search too long for perfection can also paralyse.”

“Only the second-rate never make mistakes.”

"No advance in art is possible for the self-satisfied... A step back is often as useful as a step forward."

"What is the difference between good and great pianists?" ...."Not much"....."Just a little."

"Perhaps there can be no perfection. Only levels of imperfection. Only.....differences. Each time we move closer and closer - but can never be satisfied. A piece is never complete, only at some stage abandoned."

There is also a very telling exchange between the boy and the Maestro which illustrates Paul's fruitless quest for music artistry:
Paul: "I played Beethoven that night as well as I had ever played, and turned afterwards, smiling, ready for praise."
Maestro: "An excellent forgery .... Technically perfect".
Paul: "At such moments I always remember a forged painting I once saw. In a museum in Amsterdam: Van Gogh. A fascinating art work. Each violent brushstroke was reproduced with painstaking, non-violent care. The forgery must have taken many many times longer than the original to complete. It was technically better than the original."
Maestro: "And yet something was missing. Not much - but something.... And that small something may as well have been everything."

I love the allegory of the Van Gogh painting because it helps explain why some performances although technically perfect, don't move you as a listener. This book allows it's main character to not quite make it as a classical pianist, to fall just short of the quest. It speaks to all of us about the struggle for musical artistry and how appreciative we should be of the great classical pianists over the ages who have manage to achieve such elusive artistry even if only for a short time.

There are of course many more nuggets of musical wisdom in this story, like the importance of listening, how becoming a concert pianist is always a gamble, etc. For me, it is wonderful how all of these important musical concepts are woven throughout a compelling story rather than a more "dull" book on piano pedagogy. This is a book that music and especially piano students can read for the story, but through osmosis learn important aspects of piano study and start to appreciate the rigors of a pianist's search for musical artistry.

I actually only have one minor quibble with this book. How could the Maestro possibly have an authentic autograph of Czerny, all the photos of his past life, the two pianos, etc. in his Darwin apartment if the ending of the book really happened?

I want to blame Beethoven (for my injury)

I was working earlier this year on learning the awesome third movement of the Beethoven Moonlight Sonata Op 27, No. 2. There is a section where your hand is stretched an octave wide, its forte, and you have to jump around on the keyboard. I was having some trouble making the jumps accurately at speed and had intensified my practice on this section in preparation for performance and suddenly and unexpectedly felt something give on the top last knuckle (distal interphalangeal joint) of my pinky finger on the right hand. Unfortunately, I was then a bit reckless having never experienced an injury of this sort before and continued playing despite the small initial pain and feeling of the tendon tearing. I should have known better.

Injury Analyzation:
So, of course I thought a lot about my technique when analyzing why the tendon on my pinkie finger ripped. "Move with every note" and "be ahead of the sound" were some excellent axioms from my piano teachers which came to mind immediately after my injury. After a lot more thought, I realized I was doing three things wrong during my practice.

1. I didn't warm up properly prior to practicing. I had done some warmups prior to playing Beethoven, but I didn't start my warmups slowly and work up to speed gradually. I had tried to play my warmups as fast as possible to work on speed and to get on with practicing my music. So, my finger tendons were a bit strained before I even started my Beethoven practice.

2. I was setting my fingers to reach the chords and keeping my the ends of my fingers curled in a fixed position as I moved between one chord to the next.  So, I had constant tension at the end of my knuckle as I played the chords over and over for accuracy. As Thomas Mark says in his book, What Every Pianist Needs To Know About The Human Body, "You can allow your hand to fall on the chord or octave without setting it in advance, and you'll play with less tension........An image that helps many pianists open the hand by just the right amount is "let the piano open your hand". Be sure to think of the opening of your hand not as a spreading of the fingers but as an opening from the CMC (Carpometacarpal - inside the palm of your hand) joints, like an umbrella."

3. I didn't take enough breaks when practicing this particular passage. Some music passages are physically difficult to manage and a pianist risks injury when practicing them for too long a time in one session. Shorter, but still intense practice periods can be just as effective. I should have worked on this passage for a bit, realized my fingers were tired and then worked on a different section before come back.

Recovery:

My recovery was very uneven. I had never had an injury to my hand like this and in the beginning I felt the injury was perhaps just a strain. Consequently, I tried to treat it like other injuries I had experienced previously. At first, I just tried to rest my finger and stop playing piano for a while. Unfortunately, injuring your hand is definitely not like other injuries. It was virtually impossible for me to stop using my right hand. I still needed to prepare and cook food, do the dishes, clean the house... and eventually weed the garden. Weeding the garden several weeks after quite a bit of recovery caused me to re-injure myself badly. That's when I realized I needed to protect my finger somehow to help it heal. I tried some finger braces, but they were simply too big, uncomfortable and awkward. I tried some elastic ace bandages for fingers, but they quickly ripped at the seam and I didn't like it when they got wet. Then I tried just using some cheap 1 inch wide strapping tape and that worked great. I replaced the tape several times a day, but I had a lot of tape and it really prevented me quite well from bending my dip joint unnecessarily. I would wear a disposable latex glove over the tape when cooking and doing the dishes to keep it from getting wet. I could even play the piano with my finger taped which was a great relief to me. So, once I found the tape solution, I was finally able to heal my finger properly, but it did take a long time.

Now my finger is all healed up and I'm finally thinking about working on that Beethoven Sonata again, this time with better warmups, technique, and practice habits.

Piano Glasses

One of my new adult piano students is learning the piano for the first time in her life. This means she's starting of  slow process learning a new musical language. She's a great student, getting a lot of joy from her efforts, and working hard to learn her new language. However, learning to read music means that you need to identify the location of little dots on a bunch of lines quickly and accurately. The speed of note identification can be significantly impacted if those notes are just a little bit blurry, especially for a novice. Also, those blurry notes means your brain takes just a little bit longer for note identification (not to mention eyestrain and possible headaches). The note identification delay will impact how quickly you can read your music even if you know your notes well. We talked a little bit about this fact in our lesson and she then consulted her optometrist who said, "So, do you want some piano glasses?". 

What a concept! I had never heard of piano glasses. I knew about reading glasses (been using them a bit longer than I care to admit) and computer reading glasses, but piano glasses....interesting. The idea of having glasses especially made for the piano has stayed with me and I started to do some research into the idea. I found that the traditional distance for reading glasses is about 14-16 inches and the distance for computer glasses is about 18-20 inches. So, I sat down at my piano (using proper posture) with a tape measure and found my piano music reading distance to be 22-24 inches. That is significant focal length difference and will definitely impact an eye prescription. (Here's a pretty interesting article for optometrists on eyeglasses for musicians.) I imagine this difference can vary depending on the individual, so it is probably important to measure yourself at your own piano.

So, I have been noticing lately that my own eyes have been changing a bit with respect to my reading (and piano) focal length. It has been harder to practice my own music because the musical notes have become a bit more blurry. So, I'm going to have to schedule an appointment with my optometrist for a new glasses prescription and this poses a bit of a dilemma. Glasses are expensive, should I get a pair of reading glasses and a pair of piano glasses? Upon reflection, I think I'm probably going to get a new pair of blended bifocals and a separate pair of piano glasses, which means I'm buying an extra pair of glasses. However, I love my piano, I think it will be worth it. 

What is Piano Technique?

This blog post was originally going to be a glowing book review of my favorite reference book on piano technique - "What Every Pianist Needs To Know About The Body" by Thomas Mark. However, upon further investigation, I realized this book never describes itself as a book on technique, but rather as a book about how to move at the piano. When I reread the introduction, Mark actually says:
"This is not a book about piano technique. I say little about how to play arpeggios and nothing about fingering the B-flat major scale in thirds."
"The information in this book... brings about improved bodily awareness, a better quality of movement, and better piano playing."
So, what is piano technique? I thought that how you move at the piano was imperative for proper technique which makes Thomas Mark's book definitely a piano technique book for me. Reading that passage made me feel a little confused as to the definition of piano technique. I began to ponder the different definitions of piano technique (not for the first time) and subsequently felt need to create a definition that works best for me and my teaching.

Wikipedia's paraphrased definition of piano (musical) technique is: "Musical technique is the ability of pianists to exert optimal control of their instrument in order to produce the precise musical effects they desire." That's a very broad definition and it includes all the mechanical ideas like posture, breathing, hand position, and even scales, but it also includes exactly everything. Its kind of a wimpy definition because it is too general. For my teaching, I wanted a more workable definition of piano technique

Another favorite reference book of mine is Gerald Klickstein's book, "The Musician's Way" and he defines technique a little differently:
"The term “technique” refers to the means for executing musical ideas."........."When we acquire robust technical skills, barriers to musical expression drop away. We internally “hear” musical gestures, and then we make those gestures ring out with a natural quality that seems effortless. Yet despite the spiritual nature of technical mastery, I find that aspiring musicians often confuse “technique” with “mechanics.” As a result, many students don’t develop the technical command that they need."
So, if I interpret what Mr. Klickstein is saying, then he is admitting that having good technique means you have good mechanics, but that good mechanics is not enough. He wants to add an element of artistic vision to his definition of technique, because he thinks you can't develop mechanics in total isolation from musical ideas. For instance, if you can play an absolutely beautiful arpeggio isolated from any composition, does that mean that your arpeggio will sound beautiful when trying to play Chopin's Aeolean Harp Etude? I agree with Klickstein that this is an important concept. It means we have to keep in mind the reasons why we are working on particular aspects of our mechanical technique and realize that technique is always subservient to the artistic demands of the music.

One of the greatest books ever written on piano technique is "Famous Pianists & Their Technique" by Reginald R. Gerig. This book is a compliation of insights into piano technique over the centuries of piano playing and pedagogy by all the great masters of the piano. Even better is that Chapter One discusses "The Meaning of Technique" with many useful quotations. After perusing this chapter, I discovered my favorite quote of all time on technique from Josef Hofmann:
"Technique represents the material side of art, as money represents the material side of life. By all means achieve a fine technique, but do not dream that you will be artistically happy with this alone... Technique is a chest of tools from which the skilled artisan draws what he needs at the right time for the right purpose. The mere possession of the tools means nothing: it is the instinct - the artistic intuition as to when and how to use the tools - that counts. It is like opening the drawer and finding what one needs at the moment."
I love this definition and allegory because it acknowledges that you do need a "mechanics" tool chest of technique just like you need money to live and fulfill your life. It also helps my understanding of technique to think that you could imagine a beautiful artistic vision inside your head, but without having a good technique tool chest, you may well lack the ability (or tools) to execute your vision. It makes having a good technique tool chest very appealing, so when you open the drawer, there is a tool already available to help.

Along the line of creating tools to fit the vision, Leon Fleisher says:
"It's your musical ideas that form or decide for you what kind of technique you are going to use. In other words, if you are trying to get a certain sound, you just experiment around to find the movement that will get this sound. That is technique."
I like this definition as well because it makes you realize that on some level you have to discover your own technique and when to use it. Even when a teacher shows you an excellent example to follow, you still have to make any technique part of your own personal tool chest. I have found in my practice that even if a teacher shows you how to move in a good technical way at the piano, you still have to understand how to make those movements and sounds your very own through practice and self-discovery. In addition, this quote implies you will encounter musical problems for which you don't have a ready made tool in your tool chest. A musician should expect to constantly being figuring out new tools and/or new uses for old tools for the various musical challenges posed by music.

And then there is this from Arnold Schultz:
"The general hostility to the idea of method derives much of its vitality, I believe, from a half-conscious and almost universal suspicion that there is a fundamental incompatability between a mind interested in the mechanical phases of playing and a mind filled with what is loosely known as musical temperament. There is a fear, furthermore, that a persistent use of the reasoning mind in reference to the objective phenomena of technique results finally in the deterioration and atrophy of the subjective emotions upon which the interpreter's art depends. This is not, I believe firmly, too bald a statement of the case. It explains the widespread custom of camouflaging purely technical instruction with references to expression marks and with what are often entirely gratuitous rhetorical flights on the beauty of the music in hand." So, Schultz is highlighting for us suspicions that musicians who concentrate too much on the technical aspects of playing (left brain) and developing their tool box somehow forgo their ability to play with grand artistic vision (right brain).

Fortunately for us in the Gerig's book, he examines both the empirical and metaphysical musical approaches and believes them to be entirely compatible and I agree. I don't think concentrating on technical aspects of playing music will necessarily impair your artistic ability. However, I will admit that as someone who tends to be very analytical (left brained), I do need to practice being an artist and work on getting in touch with my emotional temperament (right brain). I freely admit to being jealous of my musician friends who just seem to have an effortless understanding of musical interpretations (right brained people), but I also think everyone brings something to the table and that helps to make every musical interpretation unique. Perhaps artists and teachers that don't analyze their music thoroughly and just try to feel and hear the music in their heads are also missing certain elements of interpretation that would be available to them otherwise.

"Mastering Piano Technique" by Seymour Fink is not a book I refer to a lot, but it has a wonderful description of technique in its introduction and how it applies not just to the mature artist, but also to the student of piano.
"Technique is like grammar; once it is a part of you, you speak without conscious attention to it. In the same way, technical matters function below the conscious level in mature pianists. Experimenting first one way then another, pianists mine their deepest, most intuitive feelings about the music, seeking out a particular mood, tone color, or expressive nuance. Ultimately their inner musical thinking triggers the requisite movement so they experience no separation between muscular exertions and musical goals.
The circumstances of the novice differ radically from those of the seasoned player; consistent technical training must be made an integral part of the learning experience. When first coming to grips with the relatively awkward conditions surrounding purposeful movement at the keyboard, students should be instructed in a healthy and efficient use of their bodies. Poor technical training slows their rate of progress and inevitably limits pianistic growth."

I love this description of technique because it applies to everyday pianists - the vast majority of us - piano mortals. I have discovered that many of my piano teacher colleagues were students of accomplished teachers and were well-trained technically from an early age. For those lucky few, they learned early how to move well at the piano. Unfortunately, when I was younger, I wasn't taught a usable piano technique and consequently thought I was not a "gifted" pianist. I never learned to play scales and arpeggios with ease at a young age. I thought my fingers were slow and didn't realize that I could do exercises to work on finger speed and efficient movement. I simply didn't know to listen for many of my thumb accents and even if I heard them, I didn't have a lot of previous practice or tools for dealing with this issue. It is only now after many years of persistent practice and effort along with sound pedagogical instruction that I have managed to correct a lot of my original poor piano technique. So, you can understand why I'm a great believer in good instruction and understanding of technique. While I agree with piano pedagogues that talk about understanding their artistic interpretation before thinking about technique. I also believe it can help a lot to fill your technique toolbox early in your piano study, so your tool box isn't empty when you finally start to think about your artistic visions. Not only that, but when you play with poor technique, its really hard to hear what you are playing without bias. You hear your thumb accents in your scales and believe it is normal. It is then difficult to develop an artistic vision of musical scales that really flow.

Getting back to "What Every Pianist Needs to know about the Human Body" by Thomas Mark,  I'm going to disagree whole-heartedly with his narrow definition of technique. I believe understanding how your body works should be considered to be part of a pianist's "technique" and a useful tool for the technique toolbox. For instance, if you understand that your body follows your head, it makes sense that when you are playing high notes at the piano, you would move your head to the top of the piano and your body will follow. I believe technique encompasses everything about how to move at the piano because having a basic understanding of your hand anatomy, how to sit, and how to move (as covered by Mark's book) means you have a solid foundation from which other aspects of your own personal piano technique can extend.

So, what is my new definition of piano technique?
Piano technique is the body positions and movements used to exert optimal control of the piano in order to produce desired musical ideas. Sound technique includes healthy and efficient use of the pianist's body and needs to be taught from the very beginning of a student's piano study. Pursuit of an excellent technique is a continual quest for an ever more complete chest of tools from which the skilled artisan draws what is needed in pursuit of an artistic vision.

Making a great practice space

The essence of learning to play music is practice. No one learns to play an instrument without a significant amount of time spent practicing and a typical student will spend many hours of time on their instrument in their practice space. It then follows that having a comfortable and organized practice space can help make practicing easier and more productive. You can think of it as the work office for a music student. It can be quite difficult to get the optimal practice space in a home crowded with other family members, but that doesn't mean you can't try to optimize a practice space to become a place where musical inspiration flows and lots of learning takes place.

A few years ago, I came upon this webpage of the key components of a great practice space from author Suzy S. I loved all the common sense advice and especially the opening comment, "If I had a dollar for every time a student told me, “I didn’t practice because my piano is stuffed away in a dark, cold basement,” I wouldn’t be rich, but I’d be able to buy something really nice." I've thought about this article a lot and have used the website drawing of an optimal practice space with my students many times, but I always have to notate it to include a few other items that I deem essential and finally, I wound up drawing my own image of a great practice space...

Here's an explanation of my 12 elements of  great practice space:

1. Piano - The practice instrument should be a full length with weighted keys and at least one pedal (the damper pedal). I generally recommend a good quality digital piano or a nice sounding acoustic piano.

2. Piano Bench - A chair is typically not a good idea because they aren't adjustable, so they will be at the wrong height and chair arms will impede arm movement at the piano. I recommend an adjustable piano bench so that you can be at the right height for playing the piano and prevent injury.

3. Music Stand - Almost all pianos will come with a music stand, but if for some strange reason there isn't one available, a band instrument music stand can be used by standing it behind the piano.

4. Pencils - When practicing, it is important to take notes. On Noa Kageyama's wonderful website, The Bulletproof Musician, he has a great blog post about "8 Things Top Practicers Do Different Differently". Item Number 3 in this wonderful blogpost is "Practice was thoughtful, as evidenced by silent pauses while looking at the music, singing/humming, making notes on the page, or expressing verbal “ah-ha”s." Give yourself a chance to have thoughtful practice by keeping writing implements handy.

5. Metronome or Cell Phone - One of the most important aspects of being a great musician is being able to keep a steady tempo. In fact, audiences will typically notice mistakes in rhythm and tempo more easily than wrong notes. So, having a metronome available to check your steady tempo is useful. Having a smart phone available during practice with a metronome app is even better as then you can also use the smart phone to make audio and video recordings of yourself and access any other useful apps.

6. Good Lighting - Effective lighting will allow you to read your sheet music easily and prevent eye strain.

7. Comfortable Temperature - Glenn Gould famously used to soak his hands in hot water to make sure they weren't too cold prior to his performances. Maintaining a comfortable temperature in your practice space will make sure that you aren't thinking about the temperature in the room instead of the music. It is also very important to have consistent temperatures for acoustic pianos, so they don't go out of tune too quickly.

8. Cozy and Inviting Space - Having your piano in an inviting location in the home (I personally like having a window), means that sitting at your piano is not a hardship. Being at your instrument in a lovely location in the home is continually tempting someone to sit down and play or practice. However, think carefully about where you place the piano. Does the piano need to be near the kitchen so a parent can hear a child practicing? Is your best practice space really in the living room near a noisy TV? Carefully consider the options available before making the best choice possible within your home.

9. Glass of Water - I always have a glass of water near me when I practice, but not on the piano in case of spills. Being hydrated while practicing can help with cognitive performance according to the NIH study of Water Balance and Cognitive Performance.

10. Speaker - Many piano method books come with mp3 music demonstrations and accompaniments. It can be very useful to be able to play these files near your practice instrument. It can also be useful to hear professional recordings of your pieces from YouTube or Spotify. I like to keep a bluetooth speaker near my practice instrument so I can hear any useful recordings or especially recordings of myself playing a piece where I can evaluate my own progress. If a digital piano is being used as a practice instrument, it can also be used as a speaker through an audio input.

11. Music Book Storage - It can be very helpful to have music and lesson books near your practice instrument. Piano students tend to acquire music and music notes as they progress with their studies and having close access to their music makes it easier for them to practice without having to move too far away from their instrument.

12. Clock - Even though I have a smart phone next to my practice instrument, I still like to have a separate clock nearby to note the time. I always record my practice time at my instrument, so I know how much time I am spending on my practice every week.

* One more thing....everyone is unique individual and what each person wants in a great practice space will accordingly differ. Use this list as a starting point, think deeply about what would make your own great practice space, and then make it happen!

How to host a Virtual Recital using YouTube on Zoom

Hosting a virtual recital is quite a bit different than organizing a physical recital. Everyone's internet connections are at different speeds which affects both the sound and image quality, its hard to hear an audience clap, there are all kinds of audio feedback pitfalls, and if people are unfamiliar with playing the piano for the computer - there could be delays and tech issues. These are all good reasons to have students record a YouTube performance instead of playing live during a Zoom recital. If all the participants upload their performances to YouTube, then you have a lot more control over the tempo and quality of the recital.

A YouTube recital may seem like the student isn't getting an authentic recital experience, but there are a lot of positives with a pre-recorded recital. First off, it can be easier for the music teacher because you don't have to organize (and pay for) a venue, print up programs, decide if there are refreshments, etc. It can also be really good for some of the performers who suffer from performance anxiety. With a YouTube recital, the students can make several takes and choose the best one. Then on the day of the recital, all the pressure is off and they can relax and enjoy the experience more. Another positive... I have a student who lives far away and normally has Zoom lessons even during non-pandemic times. They were able  participate for the first time in the Zoom recital and it was very fulfilling for them. Finally, family members like grandparents who can't normally attend physical recitals are suddenly able to attend the Zoom recital. Considering all these positive aspects of a Zoom recital, maybe its worth having a few even during normal times!

I recently co-hosted a Zoom and YouTube recital with my fellow EMTA teacher, Amber Saldivar, and we both thought it went really well. Here's some of our recommendations for hosting your own Zoom and YouTube recital:

1. Have your students record their recital pieces, upload them to Youtube, and email you the link. Check the link to make sure it works. The link should be unlisted if the recital piece is still in copyright. Also, make sure the YouTube video isn't labelled for kids or it can't be put into a playlist.

2. Make a Youtube playlist and make sure all the videos are listed in the order that you want them to play, just like a program for a live recital. Instructions for creating a Youtube playlist are at:  https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/57792?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en
Its also a good idea to make a printout of the recital playlist and have it beside your computer so you know the playlist order without looking at the YouTube browser window.

3. Create a plan for the recital. In a recent online recital, we had the following structure:

• Opening remarks were made by the organizer of the recital welcoming everyone, introducing the recital, and telling everyone what to expect.
• Prior to the playing of each piece, the performer was asked some questions about their piece, like "How did you pick this piece?", What do you like about this piece?", What did you think about making the YouTube recording? Was it easy or hard and why?
• The YouTube clip was played and we asked everyone to use sign language applause, which is basically holding your hands in the air on either side of your head and twisting them with a big smile. (You could practice this during the opening remarks.) This is helpful when everyone is muted.
• Continue through the playlist.
• After all the performances are over, call on everyone individually and ask them to make a positive comment about their performance or someone else's performance.
• Finally, open the floor for anyone who wants to say something and make sure to thank everyone for participating.

4. Once the plan for the recital has been created, tell the participants what questions they will be asked during the recital so its not a surprise to anyone at the event. Also, make sure everyone already knows how to use Zoom so you aren't providing tech support during the recital.

5.  Most importantly - practice holding the recital with a friend to check all your Zoom settings prior to the event. If possible, try to test at the same time of day that you will be holding the recital because your internet speeds may vary due to the time of day. A paid Zoom account will be necessary if you don't want to have a 40 minute time limit on the recital. During your test, go to speedtest.net to check that your internet speed is fast enough to play YouTube clips well. (Zoom recommends a minimum 1.5Mbps up and down)

The following YouTube and Zoom settings to worked best for Amber and myself:

• Prior to the recital, make sure to open your browser to the YouTube recital playlist. Select the first performance on the playlist and set volume on the YouTube clip to maximum. Then make sure the performance is paused and set to the beginning of the clip. Now set your Zoom audio settings to original sound (although during my tests, this didn't seem to make a big difference in sound quality. There is a Zoom support article on this subject: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115003279466-Enabling-option-to-preserve-original-sound ) After that, make sure your computer audio source is set to computer and test your computer audio volume to make sure it is set at a good level. There is also a Zoom support article on this subject: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362283-Testing-computer-or-device-audio

It is imperative that you test your settings because as the host sharing the video clip, you will not be able to tell how well the video is playing for other people during the recital. It will always sound good to you because you are at the beginning of the transmission point.

• During the Zoom recital, Mute all participants including yourself prior to playing every YouTube clip. If people can talk during the video, it can create audio feedback loops which will make the audio noisy. It may be helpful to announce what you are doing during the recital so people can understand the steps you will be taking to play the YouTube clips.
• Activate the screen share button, then select the YouTube tab on your browser as the share source and MOST IMPORTANTLY! check the small box at the bottom of the share window that optimizes the video for sharing. Finally enlarge the YouTube clip in the browser window take the entire screen otherwise everyone attending the recital will see your entire browser window and not just the YouTube clip. Zoom has a support article on optimzing screen sharing for a video clip: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/202954249-Optimizing-a-shared-video-clip-in-full-screen .
• YouTube will start auto-play of the next video in the playlist and there is no good way to disable this, so the best thing is to pause the video that plays next and then stop the screen share. Then when you go back to the playlist, restart the next video at the beginning. Just FYI - if you stop your screen share, and the next video is playing, no one will hear the YouTube audio even though you will still hear it on your computer (assuming you are still muted).
• One more thing, the video that the recital attendees see tends to be a little bit jerky in our experience. I believe this is because the YouTube video is being streamed over the network through the host so there can be a lag in transmission, however it didn't seem to impact everyone's viewing experience unduly.

Now that you've run all your Zoom tests and are prepared - Good Luck and enjoy your online recital!

The Prague Sonata

I received The Prague Sonata book as an unintentional Christmas present one year from Amazon. I had ordered a number of books as presents for members of my family and had considered this book as a possibility, but I didn’t actually order it. Then it showed up in my package from Amazon. So....Thanks Amazon! I think I didn’t order this book originally (even though I love interesting books about pianists and musicians) because I have been disappointed in the past with some books that simply use a piano teacher or musician as a character in an otherwise uninteresting story or it becomes evident to me that the author doesn’t really have a good understanding of music in general. When I read reviews of this book, the subject matter seemed promising, but the biographical details of the author were mostly about his distinguished literary credentials and I was worried that the book wouldn’t have enough musical credibility. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I enjoyed the book a great deal. The writing was clear and the narrative moved along at a good pace. The characters were interesting and the story was absorbing enough that I was able to pleasantly spend time totally immersed in my fictional setting. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who likes their fiction to include musical elements.

According to an interview with the author , Bradford Morrow, the plot is a quest epic. During the Nazi invasion of Prague in 1939, a woman named Otylie Bartošová is forced to break up a treasured eighteenth-century musical manuscript, a handwritten piano sonata she inherited from her father. Much later, a young New York musicologist (and former aspiring classical pianist) named Meta, comes into possession of part of the manuscript and begins a quest to locate the rest. Meta’s journey takes her to Prague and other places in search of the other movements. I found the story very convincing for the most part, however if I’m going to nitpick:
1. The evil musicologist was a bit of a stretch for me. I guess the author felt Meta needed an antagonist to make the “quest” a little more difficult.
2. The romantic interest in the novel being a journalist seemed fine for me, but it seemed a little self-conscious to have him taking secret notes about writing a book about his experience with Meta at the same time.
3. Although the novel does not really mention a timeframe, I found it difficult a bit difficult to believe that so many of the original people involved with the manuscript from WWII were still alive during Meta’s quest.

I think the part I enjoyed the most about the book was its setting in Prague as well as the plausibility of an actual lost sonata by a great composer as presented in the book. I have previously visited the beautiful capital of the Czech Republic and it was great fun to recognize landmarks like Lobkowicz Palace, where we also saw rare musical manuscripts as a tourist. I also agreed with descriptions of the Nazi occupation and the Velvet revolution that were part of the story. During my personal visit to Prague, I attended a lecture about the communist occupation and details included in the Prague Sonata book dovetailed very well with local opinions presented to me during my own visit.  The back story to the manuscript coming into the hands of Otylie managed to seem like reasonable conjecture. In addition, the descriptions of the musical manuscript were authentic sounding. Consequently, I feel Bradford Morrow did a very good job with his book research especially in his description of Prague as well as with the details of the lost musical manuscript. This story makes you wish a lost Sonata by such a famous composer had really been found.

Some Favorite Quotes from The Prague Sonata:
• All wars begin with music….The fife and drum. The marching songs, sung to the rhythm of boots tramping their way to battle. The bugle’s call for an infantry to charge. Even the wailing bassoon sirens that precede the bombardment and the piccolo whistles of the falling bombs themselves.
• Why do people fight wars? The girl asked. Because God lets them, he answered, suddenly quieter. But why does he let them? Her father thought for a moment, tucking the wool blanket under her chin, before saying, Because God loves music and so he must abide war.
• “Prague? Wow Meta. Can you really afford to do that?” “I’ve got some money saved up. Not a ton, but if it came down to it, I could always sell my piano.” “Never. You’d sooner die,” Gillian insisted.
• Her student was as earnest as death. He knew all the notes, had memorized them like multiplication tables. One day, he would grow up to be a damned good industrial engineer.
• Scales, she wrote in Czech in her diary. Jakub, I had forgotten what soulful things scales are! The perfection of flowers here in this park, the flowers that know just how many petals and leaves are needed to grow every spring to find their way into the sunlight, that’s what scales are.
• …luck is the progeny of persistence.
• “His piano was his saddest loss. It was all burned, but the brass pedals and part of the – what do you call this? – music board with the Bosendorfer?”…. “The label on the soundboard didn’t burn completely, so he saved that.”

My Favorite Piano Literature Sources

I have such a huge library of music already, why do I keep acquiring new music? Well, because I love new music and because my students often want to play a particular piece at a particular level. So this post contains some of my favorite sources for written sheet music.

Free music is great, but there is good free and bad free music. The good kind of free music is music that is either out of copyright and in the public domain or has a type of copyright where people can print off the music for their own use. The bad kind of free music is stuff that has been posted online by random people who have transcribed the music without permission from the copyright owner. FYI - The Music Teacher National Association has a great information page here on music copyright.

IMSLP - The ultimate goal of the IMSLP is to gather all public domain music scores in addition to the music scores of all contemporary composers (or their estates) who wish to release them to the public free of charge. However, another main goal of IMSLP is to facilitate the exchange of musical ideas outside of compositions: for example, the analysis of a particular piece of music. IMSLP uses a Creative Commons License. Typically the music scores available on IMSLP are scans of old out of copyright editions of music, so you do need to be careful in case the edition is careless.

Mutopia- The Mutopia Project offers sheet music editions of classical music for free download. These beautifully clean copies are based on editions in the public domain, but a team of volunteers typesets the music using LilyPond software, so its easier to read than the IMSLP scans.  Mutopia also offers some number of modern editions, arrangements and new music where the respective editors, arrangers and composers have chosen to make these works freely available. Most of the music is distributed under Creative Commons licenses.

Musescore - Musescore.org is a composing software (which I use and love). It is an open source desktop software application that supports more than 50 languages and is available for PC, Macintosh and Linux. Musescore.com is a sheet music sharing social platform. Anybody can create a free account and upload their music, to share with the world or to be kept as a private backup. Musescore claims to work closely with copyright holders to make sure that the music is appropriately shared.

Folk Songs are another great source of non-copyrighted music for piano students and teachers. Songs like London Bridge, Hot Cross Buns, Greensleeves etc. can be used by students for arranging their own music or can be arranged by a teacher for use by a student. And don't forget all the Christmas carols... many of our favorite Christmas Carols are very old songs and well out of copyright.

Sometimes the music you want is definitely not out of copyright. For instance, at one point I decided that I wanted to play the theme from the HBO show, "Game of Thrones". So, I went to the ubiquitous Sheetmusicplus.com. Sheetmusicplus is a great online music store that has almost everything you can want (and you can get a discount as a piano teacher). The main downside is that the website is kind of klunky in general and their search function could definitely use some improvement. However, I have ordered quite a lot of music from them over the years. Something nice that they've done relatively recently is created SMP Press. SMP Press is a global community of independent composers, arrangers, and songwriters creating and selling their digital sheet music. Interestingly, SMP has secured rights to over 1.8 million copyrighted songs and anyone can legally start to create and sell arrangements of these copyrighted songs exclusively on Sheet Music Plus. Now some of the arrangements are better than others, but I found a really great arrangement on SMP Press of the main "Game of Thrones" theme. Someday it might be fun to browse the available titles and see if I can sell my own arrangements....

Musicnotes is a great website when you want to find a particular piece. They are partnered with tons of companies and arrangers, so they have a large inventory of legitimate sheet music. All the music can be downloaded directly upon purchase, so you don't have to wait. They do try to get you for an extra charge to download a pdf, but I just print straight to pdf, so that's a fee I avoid. Some of the arrangements are definitely better than others, so its worth your while to look over the arrangement choices carefully. MTNA and NAfME are coroporate partners, so they are definitely legit.

I still like books though and books are a cheaper way to go for music if you like the composer and will purchase more than one piece. For instance, I paid about $7.00 (with tax) for my digital download of Summertime by Gershwin at Musicnotes. I could have purchased Gershwin's Complete works for Solo Piano edited by Maurice Hinson for around $20.00 on Amazon. (Although, supporting your local music store is a much  better idea than ordering on Amazon.) Unfortunately for me, Summertime isn't actually one of Gershwin's piano works (it comes from the Porgy and Bess Opera), so I needed a piano arrangement. In this case, Musicnotes was handy because I was able to find a wonderful Phillip Keveren arrangement there.

Tips for students making piano performance videos using a phone

Make sure your piano performance space is quiet and without noise distractions including pets, appliances, and other people.

The camera on the back of the phone (non-selfie) has better image quality, use that camera side for your videos.

Make sure you are videoing in landscape mode. Iphones need to make sure that the portrait mode lock is not "on" in settings.

Make sure the phone is at right angles to the piano keyboard. This is the standard view for pianists and was invented by Liszt, piano's first rock star.

Make sure the phone is slightly higher than the piano keyboard so we can see both hands and the top of your head. (You can use an ironing board as an adjustable stand.) If possible, showing your feet and the pedals is also desirable.

Make sure the phone is stable and the phone microphone at the end of the phone is unobstructed. Don't cushion your iphone with extra padding that blocks the microphone end of the phone. Try to make that end of your phone as free as possible for good sound capture.

Put your phone in airplane mode before videoing and make sure it is well-charged.

Make sure your lighting makes you look visible to the camera. You may need an extra lamp or to close curtains on windows behind you. After you adjust your lighting, put your phone into a constant exposure mode before each video take.  For constant exposure and autofocus with an iphone: First point the camera at your subject and choose the area you want to focus on. Put your camera in video mode, then instead of tapping, press and hold until the camera locks on to it. You will know this has happened because a yellow box with the words “AE/AF LOCK” in yellow will appear at the top.

Don't put your phone on the piano because the audio may pick up vibrations from the piano.

Don't use the digital zoom on your phone, it lessens the quality of the video. Just move the phone closer if necessary.

Place your phone near the treble end of the piano for best sound and if you have time, take a couple of test recordings from different locations and check the quality of sound before starting your actual performance recordings. If you are using a digital piano, try recording with different volumes to see what sounds best.

Remember no performance is perfect. Do whatever number of takes you can stand to do and settle on the best. “If everything was perfect, you would never learn and you would never grow.” – Beyoncé

For people who want more tech to improve their recordings:

Use a standard camera tripod for your phone with a phone mount.

Use a start and stop bluetooth camera button for your phone.

Use a plug in microphone for your phone for best audio quality.

Use video editing software for your phone either as a iphone app or computer software.

My online lesson technology

Like many piano teachers, I've moved all my piano lessons to the internet during the current health crisis. I have been teaching a small number of piano students online for a number of years now, so its not a big transition for me. In this blog post, I'm going to discuss my standard lesson technology.

Video Conferencing Software: In general, I'm not very found of internet lessons because the audio quality always seems terrible to me despite my best efforts. The main problem with the audio in any video conferencing software is that the sound is optimized for voice transmission which typically includes limiting the audio frequency range transmitted. Basically, you can hear a lot more sound than is being transmitted in any video conferencing software. You wouldn't think this lack of frequency range on both the upper and lower end would make a big difference, but unfortunately it does. However, we don't have a lot of choice in this area at the moment and there are websites that have tested the main two competitors, Skype vs. Zoom, for audio quality and the consensus is that if you configure all the audio settings in Zoom appropriately, then Zoom is superior. The three key audio settings in the Zoom audio advanced tab are: 1. Set "Suppress Persistent Background Noise" to "Disable", 2. Set "Suppress Intermittent Background Noise" to "Disable", and 3. Make sure there's a blue checkmark in the "Show in-meeting option to 'Enable Original Sound' from microphone" box.

USB Microphone: I use a Yeti Blue USB microphone as the audio input to my computer and love it. The microphones built into laptops are pretty poor generally and as a musician you need good audio quality. As a side benefit, this microphone is great for making recordings of yourself or students playing the piano. When I want to make an audio recording of myself, I hook my Yeti Blue microphone into my laptop and use it as an input to Audacity (a free music recording software for windows and mac computers) and Voila, I have a recording of myself with great audio quality. The other wonderful feature of this microphone is that it has a headphone jack. Because the headphone jack is on the microphone, you don't get a lag in time from the sound going into the computer and then going out to your headphones. Basically, you hear what is going into your computer. The only downside to this microphone is the price, but because I use this microphone a lot and audio quality is important to me, this item is an example where I went high end in my online lesson technology. If you can't afford a high end microphone, acquiring an external microphone is still an excellent idea, look for one that has a usb connection in your price range.

Good Quality Headphones: Headphones can also make quite a bit of difference in what you hear. If you have a great quality input going through your USB Microphone into poor quality headphones, the sound will also suffer. I splurged a number of years ago on Sony MDR-7506 professional headphones. In my home studio, I have a big grand piano and a digital piano. Sadly, I often practice on my digital piano because my family also lives in my house and the grand piano is very loud. Studio quality headphones have great audio response and  are headphones that don't generally hurt your head or ears even if you wear them for hours. I also like having a cord because I can plug the headphones into my Yeti microphone, laptop, or my digital piano. These headphones are also expensive, but I've been using them for over 10 years now (and replaced the ear pads once), so its an investment for the long term. Once again, if you can't afford a high end headset, get the nicest headset that has a wired connection and will plug into an audio jack.

Adjustable Laptop Stand: I have a Samson LTS50 adjustable laptop stand for my piano studio mostly because I like to teach standing up instead of sitting down. That way I can stand back from the piano to hear the total sound a bit better and I can also move around the room more easily. I use Onenote (try evernote if you are a mac user) software for all my student lesson records and with a tall laptop stand, I can put my Microsoft Surface Computer on the stand and take notes with my electronic pen (and send them to the student using an email link). With online lessons, I adjust the stand down and it sits by the piano ready for my computer. The other great feature for me with this laptop stand is that it folds up so I can put it into the closet when I'm done with my teaching for the day. Fortunately, this laptop stand costs a lot less than my headphones or microphone. A lot of my musical friends don't have an adjustable laptop stand, so they are using ironing boards for this purpose which is cool.

Microphone boom stand: I wanted a cheap way to hang an additional webcam over my piano for my online lessons. However, sometimes I think you could do a lot of teaching just fine without the additional camera. I have recently noticed some nice internet lesson setups where the teacher has a camera on an adjustable arm that connects to the piano reading desk, but I do love my boom. Its very inexpensive and I like the fact that it doesn't actually attach to my piano. I'm very protective of my instrument and prefer not to have objects make a lot of contact with the finish on the piano surface. So, how do I rig the webcam on the end of the arm? Well, I went into my toolbox in the garage and found some velcro strips and jump rings. So, I attached the webcam to the end of the boom using those. Its generally very stable and I can adjust the angle of the camera a good bit which is very helpful when trying to make sure that the student sees the keyboard instead of the top of my head. I do have to use a USB extension cord from the webcam to the computer because the webcam cable wasn't long enough. In addition, I had to test a number of USB extension cords to find one that would transmit the video properly.

Additional webcam: I went low end with my additional logitech webcam because I really don't need great video quality for my online lessons, average quality is plenty good. I do like the arm coming out of the camera because it gives me a way to attach it to the boom stand arm with velcro. The webcam has a usb connecting cable.

Powered USB Hub: My computer only has one USB input, so I use a powered USB Hub (it looks similar to this) into my computer. Using a hub allows me to connect my USB microphone and the second USB webcam into my computer at the same time.

Brydge Bluetooth Keyboard: I love my Surface, but I bought it originally to be a big tablet so I could use it to read music and turn pages using a foot pedal. My Surface came with a rather flimsy keyboard  as shown in the first photo, but I found out that there are other sturdier keyboards like the Brydge that you can attach to your surface (or ipad) and the great thing about being attached to a sturdy keyboard is that I can angle the camera. So, I put my Surface on my laptop stand and angle it up for my head at the start of the lesson and I can easily angle the laptop camera down (without adjusting the stand) so that it can look at the piano keys from a side view. One camera, two views and now my Surface doesn't fall on the floor when I try to reorient the camera. Yeah! Brydge also makes similar keyboards for ipads.

In a conference call with my fellow EMTA music teachers discussing online lessons, some people mentioned using their cell phone as a camera that could be handheld and moved around to highlight specific items or even specific measures in a student's music. This is a great way to get an additional camera for your studio, but make sure to "mute" the audio so you don't have feedback. Zoom is currently free to use for an unlimited amount of time if you only have two people talking to each other, but if you add a third person (like your iphone as an attendee), then you need to pay for a subscription or keep your lesson under 40 minutes. To add my camera as an attendee, I would click on the lesson link in the email or call into the lesson on my phone and use the phone camera video. Also, when you are using your iphone as the second camera on a zoom call, make sure that your control panel setting allows the screen to rotate between portrait and landscape mode.

And one more idea, maybe you happen to have an old webcam roaming around your home gathering dust. Any spare webcam could be plugged into your computer (nice to have the extra USB ports for this) as a spare pointing camera instead of having your iphone attend your zoom lesson. Then, you would just go to the video ^ arrow inside Zoom and toggle between the video sources to access the camera.