Piano Guidance
Piano Guidance
Photo: Ono Kosuki
Re: Too late to be a concert pianist? Yes it's definitely too late to become a "concert pianist", in the sense of someone who makes a living and/or has a name for solo performances of classical music. People don't just pick that up at your age after a long break and minimal pianistic background and get to that level.
As with the cantata, in the mid-Baroque there was a tendency to divide trio sonatas into two categories: sontata da camera and sonata da chiesa....
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Simply Piano: Membership Three months is the shortest duration, which costs $59.99 every three months until you cancel. To save money you could get...
Read More »I am a bit annoyed by the myth that pianists themselves are so willing to keep alive: Pianists are not mortals like the rest of us (non-pianists, happy pianist amateurs etcetera). Which means that you cannot become a pianist unless you did not start playing as a 2-year old and cried for hours whenever they took you away from the piano, you turned out to be a progidy who practiced for 5 hours a day at the age of 4 and got raving reviews at your recitals at the age of 8, and of course had your life-time career plans fixed and ready before you learned to spell your name properly. (Sorry - of course you could spell your name properly before you left your mother's breast, because you are a proooogidy, that is, a GENIOUS in all aspects of life that matters.) Come on. Let's kill this myth here and now. Being a pianist is a JOB, like any other jobs. Pianists are normal people, and some of them have bad grades in school and are not very wise overall. Some of them are not even very good, but they do gigs and they make a living out of it, even if they are not exactly wealthy. They sell pianos, they play in bands, in bars, in shopping malls, at funerals, in schools, sometimes even in the radio or on a big stage, in TV shows - musicians are needed in many, many occasions. Some of them play in big concerts from time to time. A few are "stars" who travel all over the world. But still, even the stars are normal human beings and their job is still a job. I got a master of science degree in applied physics some 22 years ago and that was not because me and my study mates where some Einsteins. The studies were tough, they lasted for a few years and needed preparations all way back to high school, but I did not have to whisper "engineer" when I was a toddler, I went through school like normal kids do and I chose my career when most people do, that is, at the end of my teens. (Later on I left that career, I am a technical translator now.) I am also a fiction writer and yeah, I wanted to be a writer when I was very young and I was also told that this profession was not for mortals either. Baah. There are writers everywhere, and some of them earn some money and many of them don't ... and a few of them make enough money to make a living of it, but most of them have other jobs as well. But it is still just a job. And it is hard to learn how to write well, and it is very hard to study for a M. of Sc. degree, just as it is hard to become a decent pianist. Neither of these jobs can be successful unless you don't get really devoted and work very much for a long, long time. I laugh every time people tell me that they also want to write a novel, "but I don't seem to have the talent for it". Yeah, because they don't understand that even a writer must practice and educate herself. You are no novelist just because you can write a long post in a stupid Internet discussion board ... Just as you are no pianist just because you know where to find the keys and can plunk your way through Für Elise. And you are not an engineer just because you know Ohm's law.
Touch-typing helps hand-eye coordination, which might mean that you might not have to look at the piano keys so much when learning. Your fingers...
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The 8 most useful piano skills Inventing. Keyboard skills. Expressive playing. Listening. Theory. Geography. Technique. Practising skills. Aug 15,...
Read More »So, I will not deny that a pianist career will demand an awful lot of you, but it is still a job. It is OK to be a normal stupid mortal, it is OK that you start later in life than toddler age BUT ... it will probably require your full-time devotion and committment for a very long time. I did not get my degree by lying on my bed and read comics, I studied day and night for years. I suppose that is what you have to do if you want to become a good pianist as well. To me, it seems that the OP aims to become a good amateur. That is all right. There are many amateurs out there that are very, very good and sometimes they earn money too on their playing. But they don't work full-time with piano playing. And they don't play in Carneige Hall and they are not on the never-ending "Who's the best pianist" lists on Piano Street.
Being able to read music means you can see and understand the structure of the piece and how it's put together, allowing you to develop a greater...
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The major pioneers of rapping were Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Kurtis Blow, and the Cold Crush Brothers, whose Grandmaster Caz is...
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There are 12 major chords that you can play on the piano. To make a major chord, you play the 1st, 3rd, and 5th notes of a major scale together....
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Using Sonata places patients at risk of the following: Daytime drowsiness. Dizziness. Memory loss, or lapse in memory. Unsteadiness, or loss of...
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