Tag: Chicago piano teacher

  • How long should one practice?

    Loaded question if ever there was one. Usually teacher throw a fake card to evade the subject, something like “It depends”, or ‘What do you want to achieve?”. I’ll give you the skinny, I won’t try to avoid to answer: “You give me a half-hour 6 times a week and we’ll be good friends”. There!…

  • Beethoven trivia.

    Here are a few facts. The professional orchestra came to be, in large measure, as a vehicle for the incessant performance of Beethoven’s Symphonies. And the art of conducting came from just that. The first 33 1/3 r.p.m LP, in 1931, contained the Fifth symphony from Beethoven, and the duration of the first-generation compact disk…

  • Listening experience.

    As I have mentioned in earlier post, I now routinely sit down and listen to some music. I do nothing else: I relax, eyes closed and open the cabbage leaves on each side of my melon to explore the garden of sound proposed to my attention (we are in the fall, which is the gathering…

  • The 3 maybe 4 big ones.

    I’ve been getting some CD box sets lately. I Got the George Szell one, for example. That was after I purchased the Vladimir Ashkenazy one. We are talking about classical music, here. George Szell was a conductor who directed the Cleveland Symphonic Orchestra. Ashkenazy is a pianist who’s taste and interpretation happen to coincide a…

  • Amadeus

    We were watching yesterday the movie “Amadeus” with my Sweetie. We were presented with the Director’s cut, a version I hadn’t seen yet. Two scenes, previously unknown stood out. The first one is when Mozart wife Stanzie agrees to delivers sexual favors to Salieri in order for her husband to be able to teach young…

  • The business.

    As I live my life as a musician, I realize that there are many more aspect to said life than I thought at first. I went into it assuming it will be mainly playing the drums or the piano for an attentive crowd, or talking and explaining things to an attentive student (my audience is…

  • Injuries

    It is not easy to hurt yourself on the piano or the drums… at the beginning. It is not easy to get a tendon or nerve disease while practicing the piano or the drums… when you start. It is difficult to get a long term condition related to the activity of drumming or playing the…

  • Let it go.

    Let it go.

    Sometimes it’s important not to fret it, so to speak. You’re someone who’s decided to learn an instrument. You’ve been diligent and organized about your practice. Every day but Fridays (or Tuesdays, if you’re a Tuesday person), you will sit down and try to progress on them keys or on them drums. You’ve been very…

  • Camping

    We just went to the Michigan Upper Peninsula with my Sweetie. It is the land of the cold and harsh winter. It is the land of the frozen trees where summer heat is just a respite before the snow covers it all. By the end of September they expect the warm temperature to pack it…

  • What do you need?

    What is the equipment you need for you first steps into drumming? A lot of people assume that before you take a lesson, you’re going to need a drum kit. I do not recommend it. Look, if you got an instrument that’s great, congratulations! But it could also mean you bought something without knowing if…