Jai Raman, a sixth-grade student at the New School for Music Study, was not excited to study Johann Sebastian Bach's Prelude in C Minor, BWV 999. When he began the piece with instructor Kristin Cahill, Jai was quite adamant that he had no desire to play the music of Bach, or any composer prior to Brubeck. Jai thrives on jazz and contempor...

Forward by Artina McCain, Jonathan Tsay, and Casey Hilder As schools around the country quickly closed their doors, they just as quickly opened virtual classrooms. While the transition wasn't an easy one, many applied piano professors were faced with an additional hurdle—students who hadno instruments for home practice. New, creative, and bold meas...

Review by Ann DuHamelDebussy's Paris: Piano Portraits of the Belle Époque, by Catherine Kautsky.  The first time I heard Professor Catherine Kautsky speak at a conference, I was utterly entranced: she gave a captivating, lively, and energetic session that I still remember years later. Her enthusiasm for French music was palpable, and she provi...

It started with a simple question. On an otherwise normal fall day a few years ago, I was introduced to Bilha Ayieko, a music teacher from Kenya who was visiting the University of Georgia.1 Bilha came into my office and provided a little background about her music program at an Moi Girls' School, an all-girls' high school.2 She was a vocalist by tr...

This is the ScreenFlow editing environment. Mario has captured the animated, on-screen keyboard as well as his own hands on a real keyboard. He has additionally added fingerings to the video using the annotation tools of ScreenFlow.  Over the past several years, enrollment in my group piano classes at Stephen F. Austin State University has ste...

Editor's note: In the November/December 2014 issue, Clavier Companion launched a series of articles addressing the future of piano teaching. The following article is part of that series. In the mid 1900s, electronically produced sounds were only available to an elite group of composers, artists, and recording studios. Today, our students have easy ...

Not long ago, a professor of piano pedagogy at a prestigious collegiate institution asked me to be a guest lecturer for a day. The topic was technology. The class was attended by a fine group of young pianists who were completing work on a graduate degree in piano performance. During the session, I got to know the students a little bit. I was inter...

Working with advanced students is challenging for many reasons, not the least of which is the issue of time management. As the students become more advanced, they tend. outwork simultaneously on both longer pieces and a greater number of pieces. For this reason, lessons must take very efficient use of the available time.  The last thing t...

As pianists nearing the year 2000, we live in a time of technological revolution: keyboards are continuing to undergo rapid development, computers are accepted as the norm by students of all ages, and electronic communication via the internet is burgeoning. In the midst of these exciting technological changes, we pianists are in love with acoustic ...

In this issue, we continue with four more responses to the question first posed in the Spring 1995 issue regarding the use of digital keyboards for home practice. In keeping with the spirit of KEYBOARD COMPANION, we want to know your response to this question. I urge you to take the time to tell us your thoughts on this subject. We would especially...

San Jose, California "I like my students to experience all different media," comments Carol Herndon, author/host of Herndon Wood's video-taped theory lessons. So, when Carol spied an inventory close-out ad, she bought four of the seven Yamaha MIDI-controllable keyboards in stock. That evening, Carol proudly showed her students her new purchase...