Jonathan Still, ballet pianist

Don’t ask pianists for a given number of bars unless you are both working from a score in a repertoire rehearsal, or unless an examination procedure specifically requires you to.…

Teach by example and show your response to the music that is played. Think of class as a kind of ‘guided discovery’ of music for your students. Staying unmoved and…

One of the hardest things for new ballet pianists to know is what sort of music you want. Talk about your favourite songs, ballets, composers, film music and singers with…

Pianists are music specialists, that’s why you hired them, so use this to your advantage (why buy a dog and bark yourself?). e.g. “I want something like this…how do I…

If you want the pianist to stay on for a bit at the end of class as a favour, the diplomatic way is to say to the students “We’ll do…

Find out what your pianist does best, and work with it, because there may be things they simply can’t do well – like improvisation, jazz, reading complex music at sight,…