Playing for ballet class tips #7: Listen to orchestral recordings
These blog posts make me sound like I know what I’m talking about. But they’re actually a catalogue of the mistakes I’ve made, and what I learned from them. One…
Playing for ballet class tips #6: Focus on your outside fingers
One of the occupational hazards of playing for class too much is that you can end up playing in a way that only uses three fingers in each hand. After…
Playing for ballet class tip #2: It’s all about the left hand, not the right
Nine times out of ten, the secret of being a good dance pianist is to concentrate on what your left hand is doing rather than your right. As pianists, we…
Advent calendar 2012: playing for ballet classes
It’s that time of year again when I try to blog for 25 days in a row for Advent, on something to do with dance and music. This year it’s…
Conference on musical improvisation
Interesting conference coming up in September 10th – 13th this year at Oxford University – Perspectives on Musical Improvisation. I’m half tempted to submit a proposal for a paper, since…
New Chiquinha Gonzaga archive
I’ve had several emails from people thanking me for passing on the link to the Ernesto Nazareth site, which includes a complete archive of Ernesto Nazareth’s compositions, the painstaking and…