Tag: piano teacher

Here is something particular: why would you want to show to your teacher something you didn’t prepare? I get into this kind of situation all the time: The student is supposed to do a rock beat from a page, one that I have demonstrated for him on video the week before, one that he has…

There are a million ways to listen to music. Actually, all day long, whether we are in our car, in a restaurant or an elevator: some kind of music will be playing. The form of music we are most familiar with is the one coming at us while we are doing something else. Something else…

Monk was once asked if his hat was influential in the way he played. He said: “No!… Yes!… I don’t know!”. The answer is hard to understand because the question is hard to understand too. It’s a package thing. But now, let’s say that Monk likes to work on wood and make furniture. Let’s assume…

We, in Chicago, have been going through a very rough winter. Now, this is not to say that it has been easy everywhere else. Yesterday, it was snowing in Las Vegas, for example! But in good ol’ Chicago, we’ve gone severe, we’ve gone berserk. We went to a polar vortex temperature. Minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit!…

I happen to play 5 different instruments. Drum, Piano, Voice, Bass and Guitar. I just listed the order of proficiency I’ve got on them. I am the best on drums and the worse on guitar. But I practice each instrument as much as I can. And I never neglect the drums or the piano since…

The drummer is in charge of time keeping. That is the accepted version of the drummer’s role in a band. But the successful drummers understand something else: colors, taste and tone attached to feelings. Orchestration is directly related to that. And tuning the drums is one of its main component. Let’s look on YouTube at…

This is a video we did last summer. I already published the promo video and the video of Obladi-Oblada that my son Louis was singing. This one features my daughter Emmi in a fairly modern song that our family has been singing for the last 5 years.

When we look at a drum set we are looking at an orchestra. A percussion orchestra. This blog in several part will be talking about orchestration. The orchestra of the drum set. Let’s start with the snare drum. It is, for the drummer the beginning of everything. We develop speed, accuracy, versatility on the skin…

I had many blogs on the subject of listening. You can go through some of them if you wish. Let’s put it in a social contest. I have learnt that when someone tells you his problems, it doesn’t mean he wants you to fix them. He might just want to say out loud what is…

I am very proud of them.