the repeated
I don’t have the usual strategies of a piano teacher, no book I’m following, no commitment to a template, no insisting on any particular scales. Just eyes open for no […]
Bob Wiseman
media lessons
There was a songwriter who, when she was a teenager, got a job as an assistant to a famous movie actress. Later in life, she became a songwriter and touring […]
like leonard cohen and marianne, igor and chalanis
Chalanis Cheslovsky, linked to Stravinsky in their youth, gave an interview about why he had no choice but to compose the radical music he made. She explained it by saying […]
free from birth
“They said you can rap about anything except for Jesus, that means guns, sex, lies, video tape, but if I talk about God my record won’t get played”. I like […]
beating the brain
Teaching an older person. they can’t exactly coordinate hands together the last 3 weeks. Now I’m thinking help lies (as always) in further simplifying the movement and reconsidering how they […]
who’s who
When you work at something on your instrument with your hands, a scale or a sequence or a gesture, you repeat it and repeat it and repeat it. At a […]
chicken or egg or
Even electronic sounds are based on magnets and electrons which we discovered and did not invent. We didn’t invent sound, we created instruments but did not invent sound anymore than […]
songwriting and capitalism
Asked the class if they ever had a song stuck in their head that they didn’t like. Mostly laughter, answers of yes. Asked why that was, some said it was […]
inner drum machine
A student asked me last week if I thought life itself was a song. I said I could get my head around that. They said it’s like a song that […]
accordion repair
I was working with some kids and playing accordion. Later, a few wanted to touch it. They were fascinated. They’d press a note, I’d move the bellows, and the thing […]