Tag: Chicago piano instructor

  • How can one study an instrument for a long time?

    The question seems empty since we all know how to study. We come to a subject, we encounter our first difficulty and we know immediately what to do. We dig into our tool box for, depending on each of us, patience, frustration, repeating the task again and again, analyzing the crap out of it, cutting […]

  • Climate change and our sense of rhythm clash.

    Here is a working theory: we have a hard time understanding climate change because of our inner rhythm. Now, bare with me. Our whole life is a groove. As soon as we are born we fall into a series of ritual, or rhythms that take place in a sequential way. So, birth, and already, we […]

  • Few notes and few instruments.

    Because I study music all the time and I happen to play a few instruments, people assume that I appreciate complex music, very rare and sophisticated architectures of sounds so philosophically elaborate only a rare few understand what is going on. Not so! I’ll take the chance of alienating my fellow musician who suck on […]

  • Top drum makers and why it makes a difference on the one you use.

    I stated earlier, in the blog titled “New-Orleans part 3: the noble garbage man”, that drummers from New Orleans used pretty much any artifact to build the music they played. I am not changing my tune. And my approach to drums and drum makers reflects that. I am not endorsed by anyone, I should state […]

  • Fragile musicians

    Music has one particularity over other arts: It has no limits. When a painter cannot put something too crude on his canvas, when an architect has to obey the laws of gravity, when a film maker’s work will be rated, when a dancer has to be careful with the limits of its own body, musicians […]

  • Why is learning an instrument important?

    Among the people deciding whether to take on a new hobby, some of them must first chose what they want to do. Should they collect stamps? Should they create woodworking masterpieces? Ha! I’ll also give you a very brave one: should they change their body? That goes with working out regularly and dieting that one. […]

  • The very young student

    When I get a very young student interested in music, usually the parent realize quickly that those pupils do not want to practice. Music yes! Fun, yes! Chores? Not so much! So, the student takes a few lessons, to have taste of what it takes. They go back home, the parents tell them to go […]

  • Something missing in music.

    Music is slowly disappearing from schools. I am not saying anything new, here, this has been the trend for a very long time. And I know it is even worse for art, sewing, cooking, home economics and civic instruction, but it’s another debate. Right now, of the last barely surviving art recognized in school, we […]

  • Does music and musicians have a future in our world?

    It is everywhere. Music in every place, from stores to coffee places to cars, to, of course, our own home. It has been like this for a few decades. What has been new, though, is the fact that music can be free. And programs like Spotify qualifies, in my view, as free music, since it […]

  • New Orleans 3. The noble garbage man.

    As I explained, the music of New Orleans came from very humble and poor beginnings. And the music reflects that. Especially the percussion section. Now, of course, I know I could go directly into talking about the drum set. But I prefer to talk about the world. First, let’s go back in time and imagine […]