Read that title carefully, please. I’m not getting political; I’m being practical.

Playing music that you love is a great base for your repertoire, but if you want to play anywhere other than your living room, you will eventually need to play music that other people want to hear. The practical purpose of this post is to help you choose music to add to your repertoire that will serve you well, bot...

Do you want to improve your sight reading? Are your efforts not yielding visible results? Maybe you're going about it the wrong way.

Sight reading is an essential part of musicianship. When a musician can sight read fluently, he can learn music faster, saving practice time and developing more confidence at the same time. And while most musicians know they should be practicing sight reading, it ca...

"Be sure to listen!"

This was my teacher's final piece of advice before I played my first orchestra rehearsal. I was only 12, and I was playing with a local community orchestra. I was a little nervous. All the other players were grown-ups. The part I was playing was unfamiliar, but back then every orchestra part was unfamiliar.  Adding to my discomfort was the conductor’s heavy German accent an...

“Tempo is not a number,” I said to my student.

My student was trying hard to work his piece up to speed, one metronome notch at a time, and was still some distance from the metronome mark printed on the page. I thought his current tempo was actually fine and told him so.

“But it’s not the right speed,” he said.

“It’s a good speed,” I countered. “You play it smoothly and musically.”

“But it’s t...

Perfection has its good points, I guess. I wouldn’t  know because I’ve never been there.

Perfection appears to us as an ideal, our Mount Olympus, the place we strive for. It is that ever-elusive musical rabbit we chase in each practice session and every performance.

But is perfection really a suitable goal for a musician?

Perfection isn’t just a nearly impossible task. I believe that a “perfect...

Do you review your music as a regular part of your practice, or a “maybe if I get around to it” part?

Do you review your music as a regular part of your practice, or a “maybe if I get around to it” part?

My totally non-scientific guess is that 9 out of 10 music students don’t include regular and systematic review of their past repertoire in their practice.

It’s natural for review to get regulat...

A metronome trick? Of course!

The metronome is a mystery for many musicians. We know we should use it and that it is “good for us.”  But that doesn’t mean we like it or even know how to use it well.

We know that those persistent ticks, clicks or beeps represent a steady beat and that they reveal how unsteady our own playing pulse can be. And the metronome is our primary resource for speeding thi...

Fear. Uncertainty. What would happen if you stopped “what-if-ing” and just did it?

Fear and uncertainty are the dream-killers for most people. Most of us have a “safety switch” somewhere that keeps us from going too far. The trick is in recognizing when your switch is triggered unnecessarily.

Our inborn reactions to danger are both necessary and appropriate. We naturally shy away from fire, flin...

Musical creativity isn’t a “yes or no” thing. It isn’t a “have it or don’t have it” kind of skill. It’s more of a “use it or lose it” proposition.

This isn’t a scientific argument. It’s based solely on my observations and experience. But let’s consider this scientifically…

Science would urge us to apply the scientific method: to experiment, analyze the results and make conclusions based on the e...

Playing the right notes at the right time may be enough.

J. S. Bach

“There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.” – J. S. Bach

It’s quite a statement, whether Bach was indulging in some tongue-in-cheek modesty or absurdly reductionist thinking.

But what if it were – at least to some extent – true? What i...