New 2-part Tutorial: Accompaniment Styles for 50 Great Songs
I’m excited about my latest videos. Rather than focus on just one song, they help you play a huge variety of songs both slow and fast, including pop, rock, folk, blues, Broadway–you name it. Continue reading
Improvising and the Pattern Play Series
Do you want to learn to improvise? Do you need help in teaching improvisation to others?
If the answer is yes to either question, you may be interested in the Pattern Play series of books by Akiko and Forrest Kinney, Continue reading
The Top Three Myths About Learning to Play the Piano
(NEWER POSTS ARE BELOW THIS ONE)
I keep this old post up top because, as one of the commenters says, it looks at the BIG picture of how we learn to play. You’ll find practical tips here as well as exercises, resources, and the philosophy behind the DoctorKeys piano courses.
Whether you’ve been playing the piano for years or are just getting started, what you think you know may be holding you back.
Here are the common fallacies we’ll debunk:
• It all starts with learning to read music.
• It’s all about the fingers.
• Practicing means playing a piece over and over.
New Ode to Joy tutorial: Beethoven made simple but beautiful
So far, the lessons on DoctorKeys.com have focused on piano accompaniment–using chords to back up your own singing. But this lesson is different. It teaches you to play a piano solo. Continue reading
New theory tutorials on DoctorKeys
It’s been a a while since I’ve blogged and I’d like to fill you in on some new videos. All these lessons can be accessed by subscribers from the main course list. Continue reading
Accompanying yourself: it’s a giggle
Here on DoctorKeys.com, you can learn to use chords to accompany your own singing. To show you how approachable and fun this can be, here’s 8-year-old Ali to demonstrate. (I couldn’t bear to edit out the opening moments of this video, and I think you’ll understand why when you see it.)
Catch me on YouTube & PianoSociety.com
My new YouTube channel has two playlists: one for tutorials, and one for videos in which I’m performing music my students and I love to play. In the second category you’ll find everything from baroque to jazz.
If you’d like to hear me playing standard (more difficult) repertoire, you can do that at PianoSociety.com, where I’ve recently become a contributing artist. Continue reading
Two secrets to better sight-reading
I sometimes participate in the great forums at PianoWorld.com. Recently, one of the posters wanted to know how she could improve her sight-reading. I responded, and since I’m basically a lazy guy and this is easier than writing a new blog post, here’s what I said to her. Continue reading
An academic recommends learning music by ear
One of my biggest gripes about piano teaching as a whole, is that students are almost always taught to read music before they learn to play by ear. That’s why I was thrilled to hear this interview with Rob Cutietta, Dean of the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California, Continue reading
Playing Chopin and Clementi on the Steinway (that lives in my Mac)
It’s a quandary. I need to make recordings for this site, and I’ve been trying to decide what to use: my Yamaha upright piano, or my keyboard-plus-virtual-Steinway setup.
The Steinway in question is the library of recorded samples from Garritan. I trigger them by playing my Roland FP7 keyboard and record my performance as a MIDI file using ProTools.
Here are two movements of a Clementi Sonatina I just recorded using the Garritan.
Allegro
[audio:http://doctorkeys.com/newblog/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Clementi-Allegro3.mp3|titles=Clementi-Allegro3]Andante
[audio:http://doctorkeys.com/newblog/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Clementi_Andante4.mp3|titles=Clementi_Andante4]You can hear the Chopin (a gorgeous mazurka) on this page. Continue reading