For those who want to pursue a career in piano, the options for training are diverse. There are a number of quality schools available in the United States and some abroad too.
* Juilliard: The Juilliard School in New York has a reputation as one of the best music schools in the world. In addition to piano and other instruments, students can also focus on dance and drama. The institution was...
Sight reading is the act of reading and playing a piece of music before having ever seen it: on sight. This technique is a vital one for musicians to learn. Being skilled in sight reading makes reading a piece of music easier; the musician doesn't have to labor over every note and re-teach themselves the common patterns. Sight reading, after a decent amount of practice, becomes like second...
Chord symbols (for example, Cmaj7 or G6) are a type of notation used frequently in jazz and other areas of modern music to notate chord progressions and changes. This type of notation differs from that of classical music in that chord symbols don't show the function of a chord the way the Roman numeral notation does.
Chord symbols, for modern music with lots of changes, are much easier to...
The opportunities for music correspondence courses are vastly different today compared to a few years ago. Thanks to modern technology and the Internet, taking a music course by correspondence is now much more practical.
Imagine how hard it would be to learn how to play the piano or another instrument by simply reading a book. It's true that people have successfully learned to play an...
When studying the piano, a student encounters a myriad piano styles. To master the instrument, at least several of these styles must be learned, and all if at all possible. Knowledge of various playing styles enables a pianist to enjoy and play in any genre and to cross-polinate styles to create a fusion he or she can call their own.
Many modern piano styles are based on the blues. The blues...
From his early love of music to his last years, Oscar Peterson's life was full with accomplishments and support from his family. The decision to become a professional pianist led to a weekly radio show and many performances in hotels and music halls for Peterson.
Although his life ended at the age of 82, Oscar Peterson had an extremely productive musical career in jazz that ended too...
Transposition is changing the key of a piece of music, or changing the notes without changing their relationship. This is often done to make the piece of music easier to play or sing. It's a common practice in bands that don't perform their own material; the singer may wish to cover a song with vocals that are far out of his or her range. Transposition can correct that problem by shifting the...
The piano style is called "swing bass" because your left hand swings back and forth between a low note (or group of notes, such as a 10th, alternating with a chord in the area right below middle C.
You definitely know the sound of swing bass when you hear it, even though you may not know its characteristic name. The swing style of playing is great for the piano because of the left-hand,...
Just what is it about the tritone chord progression that makes it so mysterious? Perhaps it has to do with its dissonant, clashing sound. It may have something to do with its dubious history. Whatever it is, the tritone chord progression in music made a comeback in music after several centuries of bad publicity.
'Tritone" is defined as a musical interval that spans three whole tones. A...
Jazz pianist Dave Brubeck is one of the stalwarts of jazz piano. His music is characterized by unusual time signatures and can be either extreme - totally dynamic or or completely relaxed. His most famous piece - Take Five - is so popular it has taken on almost cult status, and rightfully so.
David Warren Brubeck (aka Dave Brubeck)was born on the 6th of December, 1920. His thing for music...
