Around ten years ago, a detailed study was made by neurosurgeons and seasoned performers to determine the chief cause or causes of stage fright. Opinions were conclusive: it was ascertained that eighty percent of performance anxiety is caused by a fear of memory slips. If this is so, then the question remains: how best to secure our memor...

This is Part 2 of a response that began in the Nov/Dec 2017 issue of Clavier Companion.  Q. This is the time of year when high school students are considering college and preparing for auditions. As a music administrator, do you have any suggestions for me and/or my students that would help us make good decisions? Make music alone and with oth...

Yes. You read right. I bet you never thought you'd see the words "pleasure" and "ear training" mentioned in the same sentence. Pleasure and boats seem so much more compatible. People tend to grimace at the very thought of ear training, as if they'd just discovered half a worm in their apple. When I was a student at McGill, "Ear Training and Sight S...

A fine chef is expected to taste a dish and identify the key ingredients and an artist is expected to identify the nuances of color and shade, yet many young and inexperienced musicians do not fully understand or appreciate the need to accurately hear and identify musical details. Ear training is one of the most essential skills that a compete...

Dr. Edwin Gordon was one of the most distinguished and influential music educators of the twentieth century. His work on the measurement of music performance, audiation, and Music Learning Theory had far-reaching implications for a wide variety of musical settings. In November of 2015, Dr. Gordon was named a Lowell Mason Fellow by the National Asso...

Good morning to all. I am delighted to be invited to participate in your conference. Although I am not an accomplished pianist, I have been interested in piano pedagogy for many years. As a result, I am lead to believe piano is taught to many persons by teachers who typically teach the way they were taught rather than according to an objective lear...

Recognize this student? I confess. I'm not sure what to do about my student Roger. He's a nice boy. Tall (about 3 inches bigger than last year, he's in middle school now), friendly, talkative, he sometimes reminds me of a large and only partially housebroken dog. With him, as with a puppy, there's always some kind of mess that needs cleaning u...

from the series: Independence Day: Music Reading Craig Sale, Editor In a small discussion forum at the 2003 National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy entitled "Remedial Reading for the Transfer Student," participating teachers agreed that those transfer students considered to be "poor readers" had "poor ears." Experience and research show that ...