The Piano Lab Blog
Featuring fresh ideas, tips and inspiration for piano teachers and students. Find older posts by category or keyword by visiting the Categories and Tags sections in the right sidebar. Welcome!
The Harmonic Series
It can be fun and enlightening for piano students to learn about deeper musical concepts such as the overtone series, more correctly known as the "harmonic series." The harmonic series can help piano students understand such intriguing subjects as the origins of...
read moreMindfulness of Emotions for Musicians (Part 2 of 2)
In Part 1 of this post I explored the benefits for pianists and other musicians of cultivating mindfulness of emotions. In this part, there are two exercises to explore and practice mindfulness of emotions – a guided audio exercise for everyone, and a written exercise...
read moreMindfulness of Emotions for Musicians (Part 1 of 2)
From 2007 to 2014, I taught an undergraduate mindfulness course at Indiana University Bloomington that was academic yet also highly experiential. Not surprisingly, a number of talented IU Jacobs School of Music students took my class through the years. Emotional...
read moreStrategies for Maintaining Student Interest In a Piece
Every piano teacher has experienced the frustration of a student losing interest in a piece before he or she has mastered it. At worst, this becomes a pattern and the student rarely or never truly reaches mastery – sometimes even proficiency – before boredom or ennui...
read moreUpper Hands Piano (Piano Method Review)
It's always pleasing to discover a new piano method, especially one for adults. These days there are only a handful of relatively popular adult methods, and teachers of adults know well that using the same method for months and years can become tedious. Therefore I'm...
read moreHow to Succeed As an Adult Piano Student
What does it take to succeed as an adult piano student? This simple formula gets to the heart of it: adult piano student success = long-term goal orientation x quantity of practice x quality of practice Long-Term Goal Orientation Long-term goal orientation includes...
read moreAn Organized Approach to Teaching Rhythm (Part 2 of 2)
This two-part post will be useful for teachers who would like a thorough and organized approach to teaching basic rhythm skills, as well as students who want to improve their understanding of rhythm and rhythmic skills. In Part 1, I presented the 10 basic rhythms and...
read moreAn Organized Approach to Teaching Rhythm (Part 1 of 2)
This two-part post will be useful for teachers who would like a thorough and organized approach to teaching basic rhythm skills, as well as students who want to improve their understanding of rhythm and rhythmic skills. The piano, and so much music written for it, is...
read moreDeliberate Piano Practice (Part 2)
In Part 1, I discussed performance guru Geoff Colvin's assertion that superior performance is associated with "deliberate practice." In this post I'll consider how a pianist (indeed, any musician) can change his or her practice habits so they more closely resemble...
read moreDeliberate Piano Practice (Part 1)
In his book Talent Is Overrated, author Geoff Colvin considers what makes world-class performers different from everybody else. It's an intriguing thesis and obviously highly relevant to musicians. Numerous theories have been proposed to explain why only a small...
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