I wanted to wrap up our discussion of Slash Chords ( Part I , Part II , plus a discussion in the 2nd video of my New Chords post), with...

Happy Spring to those in the Northern Hemisphere! Though it feels like our cold, wet winter will never end here in California, my garden...

Happy September Piano Friends! Lately I have been posting a lot of classical sheet music, so today I thought I would offer something...

Today, as promised, I have posted the full arrangement of Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 9, No. 2, transposed to F. You can find the original...

Swing rhythm has to do with eighth notes 🎵: it is the long-short “lazy” feel you hear in jazz tunes, as well as country, rock, folk and...

Rhythm is one of the most difficult music skills to teach and to learn. Last month I posted an exercise to help you keep your eighth...

Today is the birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach (though there is some confusion about the date). To celebrate, I have arranged Bach’s...

I hope you had a lovely Valentine’s Day spent with someone you love, or doing something you love to do! (Like eating chocolate?! Playing...

We know that setting goals can be an effective way to focus our practice time. In the past I have held “Pledge to Play: 10 Minutes A Day”...

One of the greatest challenges to us piano players is playing our 3, 4 and 5 fingers consecutively. Because of the way tendons are...

Cashel, Ireland Happy March! This month we celebrate 🇮🇪Irish music🇮🇪, a genre near and dear to my heart, as I fell in love with...

📷 by David Brooke Martin For the last year I have been researching calming, melodic pieces, and Gabriel Fauré’s Romance Sans Paroles...

Happy New Year Friends! I hope this finds you well, and feeling at least somewhat optimistic about 2021. Last year was admittedly...

When scoring a film I am constrained not only by the emotion and action of the scene, but also by its length, which could be anywhere...

One of the biggest issues piano students struggle with when their hands have to jump more than a few keys, is finding their location on...

©Alexey Arkhipov Dreamstime.com A couple of month ago I posted worksheets for learning bass ledger lines, and this month I wanted to...

I recently came upon the song Tico Tico in a book of songs played by the French Gypsy jazz guitarist, Django Reinhardt, and fell in love...

blog.UpperHandsPiano.com Some of my students who have been working through the ledger line worksheets are having trouble figuring out...

One of the most requested piano pieces is Scott Joplin’s, The Entertainer. Though Joplin wrote it in 1902, it was used in the film The...

Dynamic Independence As you progress in your piano studies an issue will eventually come up that we piano teachers call hand...