Beginning

JUL 14, 2012:    I have been told that the best use for this blog is to examine and demonstrate techniques for learning the piano.  Since piano is my instrument, and I've spent some time looking at various methods, I'd like to explore some ideas with you.

First of all, I want to share a simple technique that improved my playing by leaps and bounds.  Without going into too much detail, the procedure is this:

Break the piece up into sections.  Start at the beginning of each section with its opening bar and take that bar at half speed or slower.  Then, using a metronome, increase the metronomic number notch by notch until you can play that opening bar at tempo.  Then do the same with the first two bars (you already know the first bar), and then the first three bars (you already know the first two), and etc. until you reach the end of the section.  Putting the individual sections together is usually not too difficult, but you may need to spend time learning how to go smoothly from the end of one section to the beginning of the next.

I have no idea of the piano skills that you, the reader, have acquired at this point.  But I would say that if you have not reached a high level of mastery, and you do nothing else but use the method I described in the above paragraph, I believe your progress on the piano will dramatically increase---and you will continue to find improvements the more you experiment with it.