First, a little background… I remember learning how to play piano as a kid (and later in college when you have to take 2 years of piano as part of a music degree) and one of the things that stuck with me was the Five Note Scale Pattern where you put your thumb on middle [...]

“I don’t know what to play” confesses the student when it’s their turn to solo… I’ve heard this quite often from students throughout my years teaching and giving clinics. It is completely understandable, although I suspect that not knowing what to play (in that moment) is directly proportional to not knowing what to practice at [...]

“To know a scale “inside out” means that you know a scale starting anywhere in the scale, both ascending and descending” – Bergonzi   My list of scales: Major Dorian Mixolydian  Lydian Lydian Dominant Harmonic Minor Melodic Minor (Ascending) Locrian Locrian #2 Superlocrian (Diminished Whole Tone / Altered) Diminished 8-Toned Dominant / Half Whole Diminished [...]

One of the fears that I hear students express often time is the fear of playing a wrong note, or even a series of wrong notes. Sometimes, they can’t even verbalize it and they just sit there, unable to play anything at all. In an effort to eliminate that fear, I started teaching the blues [...]

One of my favorite time killers when I worked in the music library in college (aside from intensely studying and rubber band wars) was to play games online. This was before the age of smart phones and Angry Birds. Text Twist was one of my favorites. I love word games and I’m especially adept at [...]

Subtitled: How I Finally Learned, Really Learned, My Diminished Scales. Diminished scales were always that elusive sound that I wanted to try to understand but could never get my head around. Actually that was my problem. I could think my way through it, but I really didn’t have it under my fingers. My brain kept [...]

Tetrachords – the little pieces to a rather large puzzle   A couple of years ago, a colleague told me that she teaches major scales to young students using tetrachords. This approach was eye opening for me and prompted me to try teaching this method to my 2nd level class for a couple of years. [...]