Piano Lessons

I had a dear student fall backwards off the bench at our piano lesson, and it was terrifying for both of us. I was afraid that he was having a stroke, but it turned out that he was simply dehydrated. He had to be hospitalized for a couple days until he stabilized…

It’s super important to maintain good posture at the piano. Hiking up your shoulders or hunching your back over the keys can cause neck, back and shoulder pain, so you want to keep your shoulders relaxed, your back straight, and your elbows slightly…

It is lucky Lesson 13, and we are going to continue learning the Bass notes C, D, E, F and G this week. Sometimes our ears help us to remember melodies so that we are not practicing our reading skills as much. This week we will be playing random…

It is the first day of summer as I am posting this in the USA, woohoo! I hope that you are warm and safe wherever you are, and you are enjoying playing music on your piano or keyboard. I think music makes everything a bit better, don’t you?

Many of you report to me that you are taking your lessons more slowly than I am posting them, and that is great, and completely expected! There is no set timeline for your learning as long as you are able to maintain consistent practice…

It’s WALTZ WEEK for our Sixty and Me Piano Lessons! This week we will be playing three Waltzes on p. 39-40 in Upper Hands Piano, BOOK 1. Waltzes are pieces written in a ¾ Time Signature (which means 3 beats per measure) that are played…

When the piano was invented by Bartolomeo Cristofori in Italy in the early 1700s, it was a revelation! The instrument that preceded it, the harpsichord, was much less expressive. No matter how forcefully one pressed a key, the volume remained the same…

It’s Lesson 8 and today we’re debuting a new note Bass F in the song Goodnight Ladies. Remember the song Goodnight Ladies from the musical The Music Man? I loved the original film starring Robert Preston, Shirley Jones, Buddy Hackett…

Beethoven advised his students to work hard at learning how to play music, but also to notice the profound beauty of the music, and to connect to it emotionally. He believed that music could elevate humans to the level of gods!

In music there are stronger beats and weaker beats. In 4/4 time (4 beats per measure), beat 1 is generally the strongest beat and beat 3 is the second strongest. This point is well illustrated in this video. When conductor Gustavo Dudamel turns around…