Want to improve your piano playing skills and musical understanding quickly and easily? You're definitely in the right place!
Hi, I'm Jane, and I'll help you fast-track your musical journey by providing useful, practical and down-to-earth tips and tricks in these short tutorials.
With a wealth of experience in my 30+ years of teaching, I've developed multiple strategies and techniques to help my students overcome the many and varied challenges they've encountered. These videos contain some of the insights and guidance I’ve shared with them, and now will be sharing with you.
Each tutorial focuses on a particular aspect of learning to play, whether it be establishing the fundamentals of note reading, exploring elements of technique, sightreading or introducing basic theory concepts.
Your journey to becoming a competent and confident pianist should be a fun and rewarding experience, and with the help of 'Accelerando Piano', you'll be well on the way to making that a reality.
Hello Jane,sorry your Submit button is not working in your "Contact Me".please can you make it more accessible for humans like me! And who are old and retired.Thanks.
Hi, I presume you're referring to the 'Contact Form' on my Trotter Music Website (www.trottermusic.com). The submit button is hidden until you type the word "jane" into the 'where's the button' field at the bottom of the form, at which time the submit button will appear. This is an anti-spam protection and has eliminated hundreds of spam emails. Sorry for any confusion. Thanks for reaching out. Cheers Jane
@AccelerandoPiano thanks It Said Your first name and I typed my name.Thanks for clarification. I will submit the form tomorrow. Best wishes.We are all at the mercy of The Algorithms!!!
Amazing Amazing Amazing I am struggling playing triplets rhythm even with so much practise ,I do not know when I can master Four funny frogs! Thanks. You are great teacher.
the confusing about this is when you sight read a piece that have a black keys it will be to difficult to use this because you will not just always play the soprano note on the root and find the alto note bellow of it whatever interval it is(im refering to the SA from SATB)so you still have to practice different variations of that two note per hand,and if that how it was it will consume lot of time to practice.I know there is an easy way to sight read with a black keys,it is using the transpose button😅 but i don’t want to use that cheat button.
Thanks for explaining the melodic minor ascending and descending. I could never remember which notes were different on the way up versus down. Would that be the opposite for you, down versus up, since you are down under? 😉 Hearng you explain it seems to have implanted it in my memory for some odd reason. I won’t forget it now, thanks Jane! 🙏🏽✌🏽
Hi Dave - Yes - no music! This Tutorial was specifically designed that way. As I mentioned in the video, an important component of being able to sightread fluently is not to have to look down at your hands frequently so you can read ahead and concentrate on what’s coming up in the music. The Tutorial is designed to give students some practical tips to develop this skill independent of the score. Rest assured, there will be more Tutorials in the future which will include music. Cheers Jane
Hi, I'm glad you found the video helpful. The Pedal Cam is a Zoom Q2n-4K camera with an HDMI output which is part of my virtual teaching studio system. I'm assuming you are just wanting to check out your own pedal technique cheaply - many video cameras have HDMI output which you could feed into a computer monitor which was close, or an external webcam plugged into a laptop could also be an option. Cheers Jane
Hi - thanks so much for your feedback. The Peda lCam is a Zoom Q2n-4K camera with an HDMI output which is part of my virtual teaching studio system. I'm assuming you are just wanting to check out your own pedal technique cheaply - many video cameras have HDMI output which you could feed into a computer monitor which was close, or an external webcam plugged into a laptop could also be an option. Good luck. Cheers Jane
@@AccelerandoPiano Thanks so much, Jane. Is there anyway you can show me how to set it up? I am not very tech savvy and really want to improve my piano skills.
@@AccelerandoPiano Yes, that's exactly what I would like to do is check my own pedal technique but have no idea how to set it up. I'm not very tech savvy so maybe you can do a video on it?
@@ladyp5511 Hi, Shane here - I'm Jane's Tech Support, and wrote her initial response :-). In terms of helping you, doing a video on how to set up is probably not useful, given there are multiple ways it could be done, but they all assume you have equipment that you may not have. To give you an example, if we did a video that required a laptop, and you don't have one (or have a Macbook when we use a Windows laptop) then the software we would use would be different etc. BREAKING NEWs: Jane has just come up with a really cunning non tech solution, Video coming shortly :-)
Thank you for sharing your knowledge! Great exercises, definitely will try them as I am struggling a bit with correct staccato on the Haydn - Quadrille piece. Thanks a lot!
Thanks Jane, that was really helpful - I'd only ever considered measures to be a convenient way of organising the score, not as a crucial part of the piece itself. When playing a piece, would you provide a slight accent on beat 1, even if one is not recorded in the score, or is the "strong" beat just something that comes about by the composer's choice of notes?
Hi James - I’m glad you found that helpful. It’s probably not so much a case of consciously accenting the first beat of every bar all the time, even if it is only a small accent. The ‘flow’ of the piece, the phrasing, the rhythmic and melodic organisation, the performance directions (like dynamics) and the way all of these work within the time signature, will influence how you interpret the music and ‘feel’ where some notes may carry more ‘stress’ or significance than others. Having said that, the choice of time signature is a crucial part of a piece and will influence its character. The best example I can give is a waltz - this is a dance in triple time so it will contain 3 beats per bar. When playing a waltz, I often encourage my students to be slightly lighter on beats 2 and 3 so you get that lovely lilt and dance quality, rather than giving every beat equal stress. You could also think of a march, which is most likely to have 2 or 4 beats in a bar - an even number - so you can literally march to it - left-right-left-right.
This is the clearest, most useful and insightful videos to achieve left hand quietness I've ever seen on RU-vid, in books or elsewhere and I've seen/read of hundreds instruction videos here over the years. After three years of being self-taught I still need to improve this technique, so thank you very much.
Hi Diana, thanks so much for your great comment and feedback - it made my day! I'm glad you found the tutorial helpful and good luck with your continuing musical journey. Cheers Jane
Hi Julie I would use the ‘Play it on your Legs’ trick - just to check the weighting of your quieter hand versus your louder hand. Really try to feel the difference and do it slowly first. Then try taking a small 2 bar section at a faster speed - always checking your weighting. Try it again even faster. Extend the section you’re working on to 4 or 8 bars following the same process, and gradually try it out on the keyboard. The ‘Pretend Play’ technique will work quite well too - remember when you want to play the quieter hand for real, don’t overwork your fingers as this will mean you’ll tend to depress the keys faster and as a result, make the notes louder. Use your natural arm weight into the keys and stay relatively close. Also, try to feel the ‘gesture’ of the pattern which needs to be quiet - try not to think note by note but feel the shape of the music. That way you’ll avoid accenting every note and having it sound very syllabic and chunky, which of course, just exaggerates things even more. Finally, you could try perfecting and solidifying your technique on an easier piece alongside the current music you’re learning. Cheers Jane
Hi, thanks for watching. If you're interested in learning from me, please go to my Trotter Music website: trottermusic.com where you can complete the Contact Form and be added to my waiting list. Cheers Jane
