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The impact of hand size is attracting much attention in the piano world. Several studies have demonstrated that the conventional piano keyboard is sized for a relatively large hand, presenting challenges for small-handed pianists as well as raising the risk of injury.* Areas of particular concern for small-handed pianists i...

Why study double-thirds scales? Practicing double-thirds scales facilitates the performance of similar double-thirds passages encountered in the piano literature.1 Routinely practicing the double-thirds major scales readies the pianist for major and minor scale fragments, as well as challenging chromatic double-thirds passages.2 Some complete ...

For teachers brave enough to ask students to perform their first improvisations, the excuses are all too familiar: "I don't know what notes to play", "I don't feel the rhythm", "It's too hard", and--eventually--just plain "I can't do it". There are many factors preventing students from at least trying to make something up, among them nerv...

I was recently sharing thoughts with a respected colleague after a long day at a piano conference. Yes, if you must know, we were in the cocktail lounge."I've given up on checking students' fingering," he said. "I've decided that if it sounds beautiful, it doesn't matter what fingering they use." He paused and looked furtively around the room....

The subject of fingering may be one of the most neglected aspects of reading. I suspect we might all be surprised if we really knew how much fingering affects the student's ability to read. And, we might all be surprised at how many things about fingering we take for granted, sort of in the same way that we assume everyone knows that to the right i...