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One of the first exercise I propose on piano is fairly simple. Put your hand on the keys with your right thumb on the middle C and the rest of the fingers on the notes above, ending with the pinky on G. Then, one key at a time, go up and down the notes. You can go slow. It seemsRead More

When I was a teenager I was placed in a music section in high school. Although I was a drummer who didn’t know a third from a sixth (see the previous blog for an explanation), they did that. The teacher trusted that I would learn (he was right, look where I am now). TheRead More

An interval is the space between two notes. If you want to picture two fingers landing fairly close to each other on a piano, you understand what an interval is. And intervals have a history, and, of course, they have what makes music interesting, they have emotions.Read More

In the movie industry all sorts of subject have been treated at length. One of the most common is the end of the world, how will that happen, who will be dying, who will be saved, who will be saving the world, etc. Another well explored topic is love. How will that happen, whoRead More

Ah, the drums! What a beautiful instrument! It has all sort of shiny parts. The light plays with the chromes of the stands, the alloy of the cymbals, the glossy finish of the shells. The sound can a be a whispering tap or a thunderous roar. The attraction you feel towards it isRead More

I was watching an interview of Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin. In it, Mr. Arkin was asked what he learnt from Mr. Douglas from filming together the series”The Kominsky method”. Alan Arkin answered that it wasn’t necessarily about learning as much as what heRead More

As Halloween approaches, I thought I would do a segment on one of the most common fright musicians get: the one right before going on stage. The list is long of the symptoms striking the performer about to step in front of the crowd. Sweaty palms, sweaty forehead, sweaty neck,Read More

Learning an instrument is like trying to answer this question: do you want to climb a mountain? Even if you hire a guide, in this case a piano or a drum teacher (I know an excellent one, by the way), you still have to climb. And climbing is not easy. There are difficult terrainsRead More

I’ve been reading a biography of Mozart lately and I discovered a lot of interesting facts. For example, Mozart sometimes didn’t write some piano parts for his concertos and would improvise them “on the fly” during the performance. For people who are inRead More