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At Forte-Piano-Pianissimo.com by Leni Bogat, I recently came across a nice introduction to Moura Lympany playing Chopin :

“Here Moura Lympany plays a selection of Études, Nocturnes, Préludes and Waltzes by Frédéric François Chopin. She makes such lovely music of the Études, all the melodic lines in these pieces floating above a shimmering texture, that one must remind oneself there are great technical difficulties to overcome. The Nocturnes are alive with song, rhythmically unequivocal, and not at all sentimental. Under her guidance, these are not charming salon pieces but poetic utterances of great and beautiful importance. In her performances of the Préludes, each tells its own dramatic story, none is incidental. And the Waltzes dance, even the lyrical Opus 34 N°2.

It’s a shame I have no Mazurkas to share with you. I also regret that I have not found some of Chopin’s larger works, Ballades, Scherzi, the Barcarolle, or the Fantasy in F minor. It would be wonderful to see how she handled a longer work from a structural standpoint.

…….”

This is Moura playing Chopin’s Etude no 4 op 10, in C# minor :

And in contrast here is Chopin’s Nocturne No 8 D flat Op 27 No 2:

From Wikipedia, an excerpt of her biography:

“Dame Moura LympanyDBE (18 August 1916 – 28 March 2005) was an English concert pianist.

She was born as Mary Gertrude Johnstone at Saltash, Cornwall. Her father was an army officer who had served in World War I and her mother originally taught her the piano. Mary was sent to a convent school in Belgium, where her musical talent was encouraged, and she went on to study at Liège, later winning a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music in London.

After auditioning for the conductor, Basil Cameron, she made her concert debut with him at Harrogate in 1929, aged twelve, playing the G minor Concerto of Felix Mendelssohn, the only concerto she had memorised up to that point. It was Cameron who suggested that she adopt a stage name for the concert and an old spelling of her mother’s maiden name, Limpenny, was chosen.

She went on to study in Vienna with Paul Weingarten, in London with Mathilde Verne, who had been a pupil of Clara Schumann and Tobias Matthay. In 1935, she made her London debut at the Wigmore Hall, and in 1938 she came second to Emil Gilels in the Ysaÿe Piano Competition in Brussels. By the Second World War, she was one of the UK’s most popular pianists.

In 1940 she gave the British premiere of Aram Khachaturian‘s Piano Concerto in D flat, one of the pieces most closely associated with her. In 1944 she married Colin Defries, but they divorced in 1950. In 1951 she married Bennet Korn, an American television executive, and moved to the United States. Lympany very much wanted to start a family but she had two miscarriages, and a son who died shortly after birth. She and Bennet Korn divorced in 1961. Some years later she became a close friend of the politician and amateur musician, Edward Heath, and mutual friends expressed hopes that they might marry, but this did not happen.

…….”

Sources: Forte-Piano-Pianissimo.com, Wikipedia.

In your Manchester piano lessons, are you recognising patterns of notes rather than as separate, individual notes? Knowing chord patterns speeds things up. The importance of this is nicely expressed in this article from Elissa Milne:

”

….

That happened to me on Monday when my gorgeous young high school-age Grade 3/4 student brought a new piece (assigned two weeks ago) to his lesson with the names of the notes written into the score in one or two lines. We’re not talking the odd note here and there, but every single note for bars and bars.

I didn’t notice at first but as he played through the music and reached these bars, I was completely taken a-back, and before I could stop myself I blurted “Why have you done this?!” “Done what?” he said (he’s one of the communicative adolescents). “Written the names of EVERY SINGLE NOTE into your music!!!”

“Well, I wrote them in to help me learn them.”

Well, yes, I had supposed that that was his general plan. But what I had meant was this: what on earth persuaded you, at this comparatively late stage of your piano playing career, to begin inscribing the names of each individual note into a section of music that you find challenging?

“Let’s try it a completely different way,” I said. “Notice how all the notes are line notes? So, without playing anything what do you already know about how this will sound?”

“It’s just a chord.” “Right, but broken, and with this extra note,” I pointed to the note that made the 7th of the chord. “

“So it’s just this,” my student said as he played that exact chord (G7 as it so happened). “Exactly!” I replied, “so we can write chord symbols above the whole bar, instead of individual note names above each single note, and, as long as you already know the chord, you should quickly be able to figure out what to play.”

We ran through the four chords that made up the first four bars of the section, first as a block, then playing through in the broken pattern used in that specific piece.

“Try it hands together,” I suggested, and next thing he played the line almost without blemish, almost at speed. I was as astonished at this development as I’d been at seeing all the little note names pencilled onto the page. “So, seeing as you can play this line so well, why on earth did you think it was a good idea to write the note names in?!”

“I can play it well now because you just showed me what the notes are,” was his reply. And he was right, in one sense, but in a literal sense I hadn’t shown him any of the notes at all; what I’d done was show him how to look at the notes as a pattern instead of a series of unconnected physical locations on the keyboard. But doing that had ‘shown’ my student the notes. All of them. And we went from stumbling and fumbling to close to effortless in the space of about 4 minutes.

….”

How far along with this are you? Do you have any tips to help others? Comment below, please.

Source: Elissa Milne

A type of music you will want to have included in your Manchester piano lessons is minimalist piano music.  Less difficult than traditional classics it can still be very rewarding. Piano Street forum contributor Bernhard has an excellent introduction:

“I love minimalist music! It is (usually) very tonal and melodic, it presents very – if any – little technical difficulty, it sounds more difficult than it actually is, and it is usually very good quality in musical terms. It is ideal for adult beginners, who otherwise may end up having to play for a couple of years some cretin pedagogical piece from some method or other.

“Here are some favourites you may wish to investigate:

“1.   Ludovico Einaudi. (born 1955?) Einaudi is an Italian composer in his early fifties who after some experimental work (he was a student of Luciano Berio) and movie soundtracks, started producing highly melodic piano pieces. He has become a huge success in Italy and then in the UK after Classical FM started championing him. Some purists dislike him and criticise him highly, calling his music “lift music”, and it is true that he threads a very fine line there. Nevertheless, I find his music very pleasant both to play and to listen to. From a teaching point of view, he is a heaven sent gift. Ricordi has published the sheet music for most of his works and it is all available on CD as well (with Einaudi at the piano). For instance:

 

“Due Tramonti” (from Eden Roc) – I have taught this to complete beginners in one lesson. It teaches how to bring out a melody both in the right and left hand and it even features some hand-crossing. I don’t need to tell you how empowering and motivating for a new student such experience can be: S/he gets home from the first piano lesson and is able to play a beautiful piece that moves through the whole extent of the keyboard with crossing hands on top of it!

 

“Nefeli” (from Eden Roc) – Another very easy piece that sounds very busy and difficult with two beautiful themes. Ideal to teach arpeggio accompaniment with a single melodic line that must “sing”.

 

“Julia” (From Eden Roc) – This is similar in style to Nyman’s “The heart asks pleasure first”, but far easier to play. Both hands play arpeggio figurations together, while the melodic line is on the little finger of the right hand, so again an excellent piece to learn how to do this.”

Source:  Piano Street

Gail Fischler of Piano Addict takes a quote from clarinet blogger David H Thomas of Buzzing Reed and develops it into a very interesting article on piano practice.

Here is the original quote from Buzzing Reed:

“Ultimately, I can make any instrument sound how I would like it to. The instrument offers its part, but the main sound producer is my body and my inner concept. As soon as I forget the ideal of how I wish to sound, a sort of entropy begins to erode the actual sound. Left unchecked for months or years, the sound could become cold and austere at best, harsh or unpalatable at worst. In other words, perfect tone must remain unachievable to keep the muse fresh.”

And here is how Gail starts to develop the theme:

“I advise my own students to take time at the beginning of each day’s practice to get in touch with their mind, body, and sound. Scales, arpeggios, progressions, warm-ups, and the like, played away from the complexities of repertoire are useful for building what I call the “Pianistic Feedback Loop” (PFL) wherein the mind conceives, the ear hears, the body responds in a constant loop.

“Many pianists never experience the complete value of practicing technique skills. They dutifully practice day after day, year after year while their minds are far away, thinking about that tricky math problem, or the coming weekend, or what’s for lunch. So, after reading David’s post, I was inspired to organize my advice a bit and put it in black and white.”

…….

Sources: Buzzing Reed and Piano Addict

Short film about Marc Manceaux, the owner of the oldest piano shop in Paris.

Directed, shot & edited by Tom Wrigglesworth & Mathieu Cuvelier
www.tomwrigglesworth.com
www.mathieucuv.com

Graded by Luke Morrison at The Mill
Mixed by Jeff Smith at 750mph

Special thanks to Clare Sullivan at 750mph

© Tom Wrigglesworth and Mathieu Cuvelier 2011

As a special treat from Manchester piano lessons, here is a wonderful version of Bach’s  Sheep May Safely Graze from Cantata BWV 208. This version was transcribed for piano by Egon Petri and is played by Cory Hall:

And even better, Cory has recorded a video piano lesson teaching how to play Sheep May Safely Graze. Highly recommended:

Are your Manchester piano lessons going well or badly? Perhaps sharing will help both you and others. Mayla started an online  discussion about such experiences at Piano Street:

Topic: What I learned during practice today

I think it could provide great insight if people post about what they feel they learned in each practice day.  Like a practice journal, but online so others can read it and learn from it, too.  So, it’s kinda like a community blog then, I suppose (what if we could each have a blog for a practice journal as part of our membership here ?   ).  I am striving to put aside my obssessive need for better organization than what this single thread will provide.

Please join in !

I will start :

Today, one of the most interesting and influencial things I learned was that inaccuracies in what seems like hand and finger coordination, can actually be caused by having another region of one’s body being “fixed” or tense.  I read something along the lines of this in Thomas Mark’s “What every pianist needs to know about the body” and decided to train my thinking, with this in mind, as I was practicing.

So, as I was practicing a Rachmaninov prelude, Op 32 no 13, there was a jump and a chord-grab in my right hand that I was not able to get with consistency or great comfort.  I then decided to search my body with a kinesthetic sense to see if there was anywhere that was tense.  As it turned out, my left-hand lower back was tense.  So, I decided to relax those muscles and to my amazement, as soon as I did this and tried the movement once more, it was exactly as I would like it to be.  And I could repeat the movement over and over again (only 7 times   ) with the same success and confidence.

……..

More at Piano Street

Now for some food for thought about practicing piano. There are 4 tips altogether, the first two are these:

Jeremy’s Strategies for Becoming Excellent…

• Strategy #1: Avoid Flow. Do What Does Not Come Easy.
  “The mistake most weak pianists make is playing, not practicing. If you walk into a music hall at a local university, you’ll hear people ‘playing’ by running through their pieces. This is a huge mistake. Strong pianists drill the most difficult parts of their music, rarely, if ever playing through their pieces in entirety.”
• Strategy #2: To Master a Skill, Master Something Harder.
  “Strong pianists find clever ways to ‘complicate’ the difficult parts of their music. If we have problem playing something with clarity, we complicate by playing the passage with alternating accent patterns. If we have problems with speed, we confound the rhythms.”

….

See the full article at Study Hacks

This question was raised recently on the Piano World Forum:

Piano Lessons and the iPad

Does anyone integrate the iPad, computers, technology etc. in their piano lessons? I’ve noticed a trend of teachers adding 15 min to 1/2 an hour of student directed computer lab time. Is it working? What are the benefits of a studio that uses technology compared to one that does not? I’d love to hear from you because we are adding Music Tech Time to our piano lessons starting next week and our students are really excited.
…..

There are some interesting IPad apps mentioned in the replies.
From Piano World

For those of us interested in the latest in digital pianos:

The Roland F120R is revealed – SuperNATURAL sounds, accompaniments, and available in red…

The new Roland F120R digital piano expands on the slim, but already very well equipped F120. This piano has become very popular, very quickly, due to the superb, SuperNATURAL piano sound, excellent keyboard action, and very slim and elegant design. The F120R takes this as its starting point, and adds accompaniments and an all-new red finish….

The new Roland F120R digital piano in red

From Dawsons UK