It gives me great pleasure to introduce a new series on my blog. Pianist and piano professor Jan Loeffler teaches the piano at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in the UK where he works in both junior and senior schools. A significant number of Jan’s pupils have won awards both domestically and abroad. He reflects on a wide range of subjects relating to piano study in this series of four interviews. The differences between studying in the UK and Germany, the value of arts financing, pedagogical influences, piano competitions, and the connection between students and teachers are just a few of ..read more

Chetham’s School of Music’s majestic entrance gates. Many will know that I taught at the 2021 Chetham’s International Piano Summer School; you can read my blog post about it here. This course provided a great opportunity to meet and chat with all types of students, but particularly the adult amateur player. I teach few adult amateur students, as most of my pupils are either children or teenagers; teaching adults requires a totally different approach and perspective to that of working with younger students. Students and faculty members all ate together on the course in the school canteen, and I ..read more

A very happy World Piano Day to all piano lovers around the world. We celebrate today because it’s the eighty-eighth day of the year, corresponding to the piano’s eighty-eight keys. Piano Day provides the perfect opportunity to evaluate why we play the instrument and what makes it the perfect hobby. In my Facebook group, Adult Piano Returners, we often discuss the beauty of playing the piano and why we are all so drawn to it. Here are my five favourite reasons for learning to play, alongside a short video I recorded for Schott Music last week. Sense of satisfaction Learning any instrument prov ..read more

Over the past few years, several of my younger students have expressed a desire to participate in a summer course, and I’ve always been supportive of what I consider an extremely useful extracurricular activity. Those who have attended have invariably improved their playing, sometimes substantially. The opportunity to play regularly with new or different teachers and students throughout a week’s course really encourages students to raise their game. However, finding suitable courses for those between the ages of 6 and 18 takes some investigation. Many establishments offer summer classes and le ..read more

It’s been two years since Schott and I published our three-book series featuring music by women composers from over four centuries, Women Composers: A Graded Anthology for Piano. This publication has proved most popular, not only winning a Presto Music Award but, more importantly, reaching out to a new audience of pianists, whether they be professionals, students, teachers, or hobbyists. Since then, numerous books have appeared highlighting women composers, and it’s wonderful to see this ‘movement’ gaining traction around the world. My hope is that one day there will be as many women in every ..read more

This month’s 5 tips article for Pianist Magazine’s website focuses on voicing. This is a vital role in piano playing and will determine a pianist’s artistry and musical phrasing. I hope the following ideas are beneficial. Voicing, or the highlighting of various musical lines or strands of music, plays a crucial role in good piano playing. Voicing allows us to ‘sing’ a melodic line so that it sounds clearly above any accompaniment. As pianists and piano teachers, we must learn, and be aware of, how to balance piano texture, or else a performance is in danger of sounding dull. Most students need ..read more

I’m fortunate to enjoy most aspects of my work. I hesitate to say ‘job’ as being a musician is so much more than that. It’s most definitely a vocation. As expected with any type of work, some parts of my ‘job’ are more interesting than others. Adjudicating, or judging piano competitions, is a favourite element alongside writing. I’ve adjudicated at various competitions and festivals of all levels and abilities around the world for the past fifteen years; it’s compelling and always varied. There are positive and negative facets to piano competitions. Many dislike the competitive concept, believ ..read more

The Oxford Piano Festival, held annually in Oxford, UK, is one of the few educational courses to film almost every session during their festival, and this allows us to hear a wealth of extremely interesting piano classes given by renowned pianists, all at our fingers tips on YouTube.  Russian pianist Nikolai Luganksy has been a favourite for many years, and I particuarly appreciate and admire his Rachmaninoff readings. In this class, he discusses Chopin’s Second Sonata in B flat minor Op. 35 and the Scherzo in B flat minor Op. 31, Rachmaninoff’s Études-Tableaux Op. 39 No. 1 and 9, and Prokofie ..read more

I was recently interviewed about the value and benefit of learning the piano later in life. Many students play as children taking up the hobby again years later, whilst others learn from scratch. Is it a good idea? Can you succeed as an adult learner? Is anyone ever too old to play the piano? Here are a few thoughts… Why should people learn to play the piano?  The love for and study of music encourages a special emotional outlet; it opens the world to our ‘creative’ brain. Learning to play the piano can open the door to our soul and provides us with that satisfying, happy feeling, especia ..read more

Pianist, teacher, and composer Rami Bar-Niv continues his journey into piano technique and today’s post is the fifth in the series for this blog. Many thanks to those of you who’ve written to tell us how much you have been enjoying these articles. To browse all the guest posts on this site, click here. The fifth pillar of my five main piano-playing-technique pillars is the butterfly technique. OK, so we can’t fly… but we can use this technique to our advantage in our piano playing. In this technique we flap the hand vertically out of the wrist like a butterfly’s wing. It is great for double o ..read more