Piano performance tips

My Clacking Shoe

My Clacking Shoe

Over the years of playing the piano in public, I’ve passed through many stages of performance anxiety. Perhaps the most difficult time was early on, when I expressed my stage fright through visible physical reactions. I will never forget my adult piano recital of Debussy’s Rêverie, in particular, my clacking shoe.

Piano Performance Tips from Veteran Gregg Kallor

Piano Performance Tips from Veteran Gregg Kallor

In the summer of 2013, composer and pianist Gregg Kallor set out with filmmaker Alan McIntyre Smith to make a music video of “Broken Sentences,” a classical cum jazz inspired composition that is the second movement of Gregg’s Carnegie Hall-premiered suite, A Single Noon.

My First Piano Performance

My First Piano Performance

Three weeks ago I played piano in public for the first time. Much to my young children’s disappointment, my debut performance wasn’t in a recital room at my music school, nervously awaiting my turn to showcase my beginner skills among a lineup of their elementary school classmates.

Practicing in Performance Mode

Practicing in Performance Mode

After I learned the second movement of the Schubert Sonata in A Major, D664, my new piano teacher, Mark Pakman, explained I would now shift my practice of the Andante into “performance mode.”

A Fresh Approach in Adult Amateur Piano Competitions

A Fresh Approach in Adult Amateur Piano Competitions

The Bradshaw & Buono International Piano Competition judges amateur adult contestants on the basis of a submitted video. The philosophy underpinning the competition is that pianists often lack the time and funds to travel long distances simply to compete.

An Amateur Pianist Creates a Concert Series

An Amateur Pianist Creates a Concert Series

When Glenn Kramer visited London in 1999, the noontime classical piano concerts enchanted him. In London for six weeks while on a summer sabbatical, he checked TimeOut London in the mornings and attended the concerts, usually free to the public, during lunchtime. At Wigmore Hall, he heard Liszt’s “Benediction de Dieu dans la Solitude” for the first time.

How to Perform a Piano Concerto

How to Perform a Piano Concerto

For years, Ricker Choi, an amateur pianist from Canada, wanted to play a concerto with an orchestra, a dream shared by many students of adult piano lessons.

Losing Control in Adult Piano Lessons

Losing Control in Adult Piano Lessons

Matthew Harre, one of the most well-known teachers of adult piano lessons in the Washington DC area, prescribes scales, patience, and practice like many of his music-teaching brethren.

This Sounded So Much Better at Home

This Sounded So Much Better at Home

This past August, when our music director, Julie, asked me to play during the Offertory, I decided to dust off a Chopin piece in my repertoire, the Nocturne in E-flat Major.

Body over Mind When Performing

Body over Mind When Performing

For over a year, while studying Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude in my adult piano lessons, I often stumbled into an A-flat trap. In the expansion of the dreamy, opening melody, I launched off a bass A-flat into nowhere, flummoxed on which notes I should strike next.

Press Record to Improve Your Sound

Press Record to Improve Your Sound

Several years ago, my piano teacher, Stephen Wu, suggested in his low-key manner that I record myself when I practiced. I allowed a lot of time to elapse before I finally worked up the courage to follow his suggestion, despite his occasional, gentle reminders.