I am a tenured Full Professor of Piano at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, with more than 20 years of collegiate-level teaching experience. I have performed extensively as a soloist and chamber musician in venues throughout the world, including New York's Carnegie Hall. I studied with world-renowned teachers including Gilbert Kalish, Arie Vardi and Arbo Valdma, and have taught at national and international festivals.
I started this channel as a supplemental resource for my collegiate and graduate students, as well as pre-college students, piano teachers, and adult amateurs. Here you will find tutorials on how to improve your piano technique, develop mastery, and enhance your musicianship. I also talk about topics related to collegiate piano study and professional development.
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Love this piece with Monets painting, is magical. I’m preparing this piece for performance at sf botanical gardens, a nice place for this kind of music.
Let your 4th finger move naturally - don't try to force it to stay still. Robert Schumann famously permanently injured his hand by trying to isolate his 4th finger in a machine to keep it from moving.😳 Focus instead on relaxing the muscles in your hand. Over time your 4th finger will start to stay down when you move other fingers.
This movement is so overlooked and underappreciated! I imagine bc it's so slow??. Idk. But it somehow communicates so much emotional depth, at least to me. Good luck with your performance and happy b day to your dad. 👍🏽
Polyrhythms are when you play one kind of rhythm in one hand and another in the other hand - an example would be two against three. They can be challenging to play! You can check out my video about 2 against 3 here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-iLAhgSL6tr8.htmlsi=bFuacx3IXdKm2Hgi
Thank you for this video and the others in the scale playing series Dr. Boyd. They're terrific. The open/close crab wallk up and down the piano is very innovative and simplifies the over/under. I'd like to ask for clarification on a few aspects: I understand the level wrist, but unsure of a few things: 1. The use of arm weight in scale playing. 2. Proper striking of the keys. 3. Use of the wrist for correct alignment. Thanks for taking the time to consider my questions and for replying. I'm looking forward to your guidance. BTW, I'm a proud grad of Stony Brook, too.
Hi Stephen, Greetings to a fellow SB grad! I would love further clarification on your questions - would you mind writing a longer version of each question or sending me an email? thepianoprof.com/contact/
My pedagogy professor in college gave all of us these foam ladybugs that you put your hand over to get the correct position. My students ask if they can use the ladybug all the time lol it is almost perfectly the correct shape, so I find it very helpful.
I love this explanation. I have always avoided listening to Liszt because when I first heard his music I found it baffling and impenetrable. Last year I had the opportunity to listen to Mariam Batsashvili performing Liszt at the Wigmore Hall in London and my experience was exactly as you describe. She perfectly communicated the shape of the piece that left me knowing exactly what to expect next. I was utterly speechless and overwhelmed at her performance. I felt like I understood the piece perfectly. It affected me deeply.
While watching this video, I often felt the urge to click the like button. Then I realized I had already clicked it! Unfortunately, RU-vid doesn't allow multiple likes on a single video.
I've been working on it for a year. My right hand hurts so much because of the stretching needed. Can you please do a tutorial on how to prevent right hand strain for this song in particular? Thanks 🌟
This is a great video My piano teacher is encouraging not looking at hands, feeling and listening Love your exercise’s, this will help me a lot. In the previous video I liked what you used to cover your hands My piano teacher holds the lid up over my hands in a lesson. I will try your idea when I’m practicing alone Many thanks 🎶 🎹🎶💕
Thank you ,Is it necessary to put the fingers parallel to the keys ,because that causes difficulties for the thick fingers in the black are between the black keys?
@@ThePianoProfKateBoyd thank you, I chose Hanon 41 exercise , with cords in each scale to train pulling my arm for the third and fourth fingers ,from black area
I am very lucky - I have a Steinway Model L from 1925 - I am the second owner. My piano teacher from when I was a child owned it - received it as wedding anniversary present from her husband in the 1920's. I bought it from her estate in the 1990's.
@@ThePianoProfKateBoyd Yes; I've watched (and hopefully will be in!) masterclasses explaining Beethoven's thought process of dynamics. Some are moreso important accents
I'm a beginner to intermediate level piano teacher and my colleague was showing me this technique. I did it a bit intrinsically but being more aware is helping me. I have a connective tissue disease and my wrists sublex a lot now. Thanks for this informative video!
I'm actually a cellist rather than a pianist, but I wanted to thank you for this video. I had the good fortune of taking three semester's of Dr. Westney's "Dimensions of Performance" class back in the nineties, and found so many of the points you emphasize about practicing applicable across disciplines. I bought the book a while ago, but I haven't been able to read it because of a serious loss of vision (so much so that I can no longer read music either), and your video brought back a number of important principles that I learned in the class. I do remember the last time I got to play in concert with Dr. Westney after he'd solidified his practice and performance philosophy; he played Khatchaturian's piano concerto with the local symphony orchestra, and there was a different feeling about _sharing the music_ that developed in him since the first time I'd played behind him in Mozart's 17th piano concerto, something that I have grown to appreciate as I've aged in my career. One of my colleagues frin Texas Tech is in trhe process of trying to make me an audio copy of the book (with Dr. Westney's approval, of course), and I am looking forward to digging back into the principles that he espouses. Thanks so much for this video again!
I love this story - thank you so much for sharing! How lucky that you were able to take his courses! So sorry to hear about your vision impairment. I am glad your friend will be making the audio version. I'm surprised it's not already available as an audiobook - it should be! 😊 I met Dr. Westney at a conference this past March and we had a very enjoyable conversation. I can imagine that it was wonderful to take classes with him. Best wishes! 🥰
This video is extremely helpful! One question about chords: do you use the upper arm, flexing at the elbow, and keeping the chording fingers solid but letting the fingers that aren’t depressing a key relax, or do you move the chording fingers at the knuckle without using the upper arm? I’m guessing the former, but please let me know!
I taught myself to touch type when I was 11 years old. It was slow, painful, and full of mistakes at first. Perseverance and practice really paid off, and now I don't need to think about it! Back to square one but for the piano!
Hi Dr. Boyd, I have 2 questions, if I may ofc😇. When we press a piano key all the way down using our arm weight, you mention that we need to release afterward. So, do we still use our full arm weight once the key is fully pressed all the way down, does this still qualify as resting on the key? This part is a bit confusing to me. I don't keep pressing/pushing, but, I do continue to use the weight of my arm on my fingertips even after pressing the key down fully.. This is correct right? I just want to be sure I'm doing it correctly. And I have one more question, (sorry😅), when we need to play lightly on the surface of the keys, how can we ensure we still use our arm weight without isolating our fingers? It's challenging to use just a small amount of arm weight to press down the keys. Do you have any exercises to learn this effectively? It's easy to end up isolating the fingers when playing lightly. Thank you so much for the videos, by the way! You are great.😁
These are great questions. In answer to your first question, you will feel a heavy arm and like you are resting on the fingertip. You will not engage the tricep or bicep. "Pressing" into the key is when you continue to contract muscles in the arm to increase pressure on the finger. In answer to your second question: hard to write out without "showing" but basically, you can control the "weight" of your arm by having a feeling of suspending it over the keys to varying degrees and engaging the tricep muscle. Playing lightly on the keys is accomplished by holding your arm slightly higher relative to the keys. One way to think about this (for pieces that have a melody in the RH and accompaniment in the LH) is to imagine you are playing an organ or harpsichord that has more than one manual, instead of the piano. Imagine that the right hand is playing on a lower manual and that the left hand is playing on a higher manual. The fingers move the same way but one arm feels physically higher than the other. Hope this helps!
Very interesting video. Human memory is really amazing... In my opinion the true key is focusing in every single detail (and I mean theorical, acustic, sensitive, analytical, positional). And of course, analysing the score while first time reading is also essencial. I have been developing a new first time learning method and my conclusion is: if you read very slowly and pay so much attention to all these details you will learn a simple new piece in one day. The following days you can use to memorize the piece and to increase tempo step by step.
That's a great insight! You are so right - the mind is capable of so much, and we don't pay nearly enough attention from moment to moment. Simply by harnessing the power of our focus we can accomplish so much more, more quickly! Thanks for sharing!
