New Orleans Piano Night - Listen for Free

It seems I make this announcement every year, but I think it's really worthwhile. Bear in mind that the music of New Orleans holds a special place in my heart, and that New Orleans PIANO music is the best there is.

Which brings me to the subject of "Piano Night" in New Orleans. This is an annual event which brings together most of the top New Orleans style piano players in the world.

Perhaps the best known living New Orleans pianist remains Dr. John (Mac Rebennac). But there are many others. This year's lineup features Ellis Marsalis (Wynton's father), Jon Cleary, Davell Crawford, John Gros, and Marcia Ball. This event is held in conjunction with the annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. This year piano night will be held at the New Orleans House of Blues on Monday, April 28. Things usually start around 7 pm local time (or 8 on the east coast and 5 on the west coast).

Ticket prices start at $87 and go as high as $314. But even if you won't be in New Orleans to catch this show, you can hear it for free by tuning in to WWOZ.org on the web. The radio station broadcasts Piano Night every year. And they play New Orleans music every day 24/7. If you like it and use it, send them a donation.

Now if you want to hear a sample of the New Orleans style of rhythm and blues, here's a clip of a band that I'm in, playing the music I love. That's me on piano, of course. If you view this on YouTube, I'd appreciate getting a comment.

"Rad Gumbo"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXq_N0ntNfY

Beginner or Intermediate? How to tell.

Piano Retreat approaches. Only a couple of months away. Since there will be different choices in course sessions, how does the camper know which track is right for him? It's not that difficult. Either you are a beginner or you are not. Here's how to tell.

Keep in mind you are a beginner if you have no background in chord piano. You are at least an intermediate in my eyes if otherwise.

You are a BEGINNER if any of these apply:

You don't know how to find middle C.
You don't know the names of the black keys.
You can't read Every Good Boy Does Fine
You can't make a C major chord. Or an A minor. Or a G7 (even though you may have had years of classical training.)

You are an INTERMEDIATE if any of these apply:

You have attended at least the basic Instant Piano workshop.
You have successfully gone through the Popular Chord Style Piano book and CD program.
You have learned about basic chords (major, minor, and seventh) from some other source.

(Either way sight reading ability is not much of a factor.)

Our beginners track will teach you everything we cover in our basic Instant Piano workshops. And more. The instructor will spend three days with you, and will give you lots of personal attention. You will be amazed at what you can do on the piano after these three days.

If you are beyond being a beginner, you will fall into one of two Intermediate groups. If you are a first time camper, we want to put you through "Intermediate Boot Camp." We will test you for this, but chances are you will want to take the Boot Camp Sessions. Here we reveal the Basic Truths about how all music works. Chances are you will completely rethink what you know about music, and start using the Boot Camp Tools to guide you on the path of true music mastery.

After Boot Camp you will be free to choose your courses and sessions.

Returning camp veterans have been through this Boot Camp already, and will start working right away with our most advanced instructors. After Boot Camp, new campers will be welcomed into any of the intermediate to advanced sessions.

Click for more information about the Piano Retreat.

Piano Night 2013

I try to make this announcement every year, and it's hard to believe that another year has gone by. Swooosh.

Of interest to music lovers the world over is what is arguably the most ambitious music festival of all, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Although their music offerings tend to skew toward the fertile sounds that have been bred in the Crescent City, the festival puts on display a wide variety of music from the world over.

As a New Orleans style piano player, my favorite part is the annual Piano Night, which this year will be on this coming Monday, April 29, live from New Orleans' French Quarter.

It's been awhile since I've attended one of these in person, but the beautiful thing is you can listen to all of Piano Night from the comfort of your living room, or anywhere you can bring your computer or smart phone and a WiFi connection. Catch the entire event streamed live on radio station WWOZ-FM.

Things get under way about 7 pm Central time, so add or subtract the appropriate number of hours for your time zone and check it out.

If you like what you hear, let me know. This style of piano playing is kind of a specialty of mine, and if I get enough requests, I may include a workshop of this style at the upcoming Piano Retreat in September.

Here is the question I received from a subscriber who was considering enrolling in the fall Piano Retreat:

I would like to participate in this retreat. I
wonder if there is a way I can bring my spouse and
child, who would entertain themselves doing other
things while I play piano. Is this something that
others have done in the past?

I see this as a two part question.

1. Is it possible for members of my family to pay only for room and board at the Piano Retreat, and not pay for the actual tuition?

2. Will my spouse and child have something to keep them occupied while I'm gaining my piano skills at the retreat?

The answers are (in order) yes and yes.

Whatever accommodation level you chose for your self, your spouse and child can have the same level of accommodations and all meals (except the optional Sunday lunch) for $200 off the posted full price. Full prices range from $427 to $497, so the room and board only rate for them would be between $227 and $297 apiece. Your family would also be welcome to attend the evening "piano bar" party on Saturday night.

Bear in mind the semi private rooms have two twin beds, and would not accommodate three people. The economy cabins would work. We could put you in a co-ed (couples) cabin where you could be all together.

Another option is for all of you to stay off premises. There are hotels/motels in Petaluma (30 minutes), and probably on the coast some 12 miles away in the other direction. That way you would pay the Day Use rate for yourself (currently $377), and the rest of the family would be on their own.

We have had several people take advantage of both options.

If you opt for the $200 discount option, let me know, and I'll set things up where you can make a convenient payment on line. Just drop me an e-mail.

As for what your spouse and child might be able to do while you are immersed in your piano studies.

First and foremost we do have a track at the Retreat for the total beginner. We've been very successful over the course of 30 years in introducing total beginners to the art of playing piano. We will have you playing your favorite songs with two hands by the end of the camp. That's a guarantee.

If you choose to pass on the piano lessons, there is plenty to do right on the property. Walker Creek Ranch is over 1500 acres of pristine rolling hills, and abundant wild life. They have almost 50 miles of hiking trails, a swimming hole, and great opportunities for bird watching or stalking the deer, fox, raccoon, and other life forms. On the property there is also a small natural history museum.

And it's only a few miles to the coast where you will have access to Tomales Bay and the Point Reyes National Seashore and numerous beaches. It's just a short hop to the towns of Sausalito and Tiburon and the Golden Gate Bridge. And on the other side of the GG Bridge...San Francisco.

So there will be plenty to do both day and night, if you choose not to be part of the Retreat itself.

Easy Piano Accompaniment for Christmas

The piano is a very easy instrument to learn how to play. Except for one thing.

Unlike those who play flute, cello, violin, sax, trumpet, etc. etc., a piano player virtually plays two instruments simultaneously. Let's look at these dynamics.

A violinist, for example, uses his left hand, his right hand, his concentration, most of his fingers to produce one tone on the violin. This tone is usually part of a melody.

It's very demanding to learn to play this tone on a violin. Violinists spend a lifetime getting this tone exactly right.

By comparison piano players can produce any one of 88 tones just by (metaphorically) pressing a button. It's really simple. I have no guilt in calling my basic piano workshop "Instant Piano," because one can create great sounds on a piano from day one, thanks in part to the "push button" nature of the piano.

There is no such thing as instant guitar, instant violin, instant cello, instant clarinet because those instruments and most others are so demanding. But piano can be learned very quickly. That's what makes piano so relaxing, fun, and enjoyable compared to most other instruments.

But........the piano player is usually called upon to do two or more things at once when playing the piano. And that's the hard part for them. Typically a piano player plays accompaniment (chords) with the left hand and melody with the right hand. Yes, he has to do both things at once.

It seems like you might call this a challenge of coordination. It's not. It's a challenge of uncoordination. The challenge to a piano player is to UN coordinate the two hands, so that they play two different things simultaneously. But the UN coordination must be coordinated precisely.

Which brings us to playing Christmas carols. One of the beautiful things about Christmas carols is that people sing them. When that happens it takes all the pressure off the piano player for playing the melody at the same time he tackles the chords. Then he needs to concentrate on only one thing at a time: playing the chord accompaniment.

So now it's a matter of pushing buttons again. When you can focus on one task (chords) you can succeed faster. And have more fun sooner.

Don't get me wrong. We still want to achieve right hand/left hand independence eventually. So we work on the basics. But we can achieve some desired results sooner by letting someone else (singers) take over some of our responsibilities.

This idea applies to all forms of vocal accompaniment, not just for Christmas carols. But we do have our Christmas carol program on sale right now until Saturday. And if you want to pick up on some of these basics and be able to play some fun music THIS YEAR, now is your chance to do so for a 50% discount. We don't have sales very often. And this on ends in a couple of days.

Click here to view order page and for more information.

Just thinking out loud.

http://www.pianofun.com/temporary/season2012/season_2012.html

Feb. 3, 2012

On this day in 1959, we lost Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper in a tragic plane crash. If you're old enough, you might remember exactly where you were when you heard the news. I do. I was in fifth grade, and I heard the news at recess. Even then I sensed significance.

Now here's some interesting math (again for you older readers). It was in 1972 that Don Mc Lean recorded his immortal hit "American Pie" which alluded to the tragic plane crash. He referred to it as "The Day the Music Died."

Here's the weird part (to me). The time elapsed between the event and the song was just 13 years. Yet the time elapsed between the song and the present...40 years. Can't be. But it is.

To this day whenever I hear a Buddy Holly song on the radio, I think about what might have happened if he lived. One of the top songs on the record charts at the time Holly died: That'll Be the Day That I Die.



Reminder: 2012 Piano Retreat is now taking enrollments. www.pianofun.com/wordpress

Tip 10: Identify your weaknesses. (And address them.)

For years I was an undisciplined musician. Or more accurately, I would hover between discipline and otherwise. I'll exclude my days taking piano lessons as a child, because back then everything was orchestrated by adults. The grown ups determined who I'd take lessons from (and when), when and for how long I would do my practicing, what pieces I would learn to play, what I would do for my recitals, etc.

I was just a kid, and my passion for learning music hadn't kicked in yet. Discipline was not an option.

When the music bug finally did kick in, it hit me hard; and it wasn't the piano that kick started it, it was guitar. I started learning guitar about the time the folk music craze hit the culture, circa 1961. So here I was between 14 and 16 years of age, when Peter, Paul and Mary stormed in. Pete Seeger was a big influence. Bluegrass. Old Timey. Irish. I just soaked it all up. Then Bob Dylan came along, and I was mesmorized.

I played guitar constantly. I'd rush home from school, get the homework out of the way as soon as possible, and spend the rest of the evening in my room with my old Silvertone acoustic. Nirvana.

That alone doesn't mean I was disciplined. Obsessed, yes. But not always disciplined. But sometimes I was. I recall about a three month period where I was determined to learn three-finger picking. I was painfully learning it out of Pete Seeger's Folksinger's Guitar Guide. It was days of obsessive pain. The days turned to weeks, the weeks to months. I wasn't really getting it, but I was determined to stick it out.

Then one day, all of a sudden it came to me. I could three finger pick. I was a three month overnight sensation.

That was an example of discipline. But here's the kicker. Unfortunately I did NOT progress much further on guitar for a long time, and here's why. Once I hit the three-finger picking plateau, I kind of coasted. I was happy with my achievement and became complacent. I had attained a certain level of achievement with my guitar playing. And that's what I played. I reinforced my strengths, through continual playing in my new comfort zone. And that's a good thing.

But had I been really interested in improving my guitar playing, I would have addressed myself to my weaknesses (of which I had plenty). I didn't acknowledge my weaknesses. I was in total denial. Although I had plenty of role models to listen to, I did not make much of a conscious effort to play like them. I just kept with my three finger picking.

If you are a piano player (or any kind of musician), it's up to you to decide if you want to get better. Human nature is such that almost all musicians I've ever met, and I've met quite a few, wish to become better musicians. Insane? Maybe. But that's the nature of learning music.

Others might worship you as a musician, based upon your current skills. But you know you can do better. And it kills you, because we all know what it takes to become a better musician, right? Practice, practice, practice.

Actually, there's more to it than that. It's not just practice. It's knowing WHAT to practice. I tell my beginning students that there is no reason ever to practice the piano. Of course they are astonished to hear those words coming from a music teacher. But then comes the punchline. "Just play," is my frivolous follow up. Okay, that's kind of a joke with a little truth thrown in.

The real truth, however, is that making music is a combination of practicing and playing. We PRACTICE so that we can PLAY better. When we PLAY, we have a natural tendency to play to our STRENGTHS. When we PRACTICE, however, we need to practice to our WEAKNESSES. We need to address the areas of our playing where we are weak, and devise a prescription for making ourselves stronger.

So how do we go about that? A good music teacher (make that a VERY good music teacher) can assess your weaknesses AND find ways of addressing them. My hunch is this works better in the field of classical music than in pop, owing to the relative dearth of pop piano teachers and their almost non-existent formal training, especially in the field of pedagogy. In absence of such a teacher, you're going to have to find and correct your weaknesses yourself. Here we go.

It's not easy to distill the essence of musicianship into a finite number of categories. There are just too many subtlties. But for the sake of illustrating the point, let's look at just five:

technique
repertoire
rhythm
improvisation
theory

Chances are if you're like me, you could use some work in all five areas. In that case, you need to prioritize. So take a careful look at your piano playing. Record it. Analyze it. See if some of these symptoms apply to you.

Symptom	Problem Type
hit a lot of wrong notes	technique
don't feel comfortable in certain keys	technique
don't feel in control	technique
not able to predict chords	repertoire/theory
get lost in songs	repertoire
can't take requests	repertoire
just have trouble memorizing	repertoire
tempo slows down	rhythm
tempo speeds up	rhythm
stop and go	rhythm
tied to the sheet music	improvisation
sounding dull/boring	improvisation
lack of intuition	theory
trouble with keys	theory

So once you have listed a few symptoms, you can refer to the chart above to try to pinpoint the problem. And then you can go about working on the solutions by using the chart below. Here are just a few ideas.

Problem Type	Solution
technique	Hanon exercises
	scales
	exercise books
	your own exercises
repertoire	learn x songs per week
	different composers
	different styles/rhythms
	different keys
rhythm	work with metronome
	work with recordings
	rhythm instruction CD's
improvisation	work with recordings
	play along instructional media
	record yourself and play along
theory	study theory books
	learn more songs
	analyze music

The point is, don't just do what's fun to do unless it doesn't bother you not to make progress. We get weak in certain areas, because we neglect to work in those areas. And the reason we neglect to work in such areas, quite possibly, is that it's not very fun to do so. So we end up trapped within a vicious circle of stagnation.

These suggestions are just examples. There are many other areas of music in which we can work and improve. Recording yourself can help a lot. So can getting the opinions of others.

I mentioned that there are resources out there to help you learn. We have a lot of good stuff for sale too. But remember that it's just information. It's there for you when you want it. But first it will be of real benefit to do the prep work and discover what's wrong with your playing, find the right information to help you solve what's wrong, and then do the work that it takes to make the corrections.

Of course when you do discover your weaknesses, it will be very helpful to write everything down in a log. Indicate your weakness, write down the name of the source of information you plan to use to fix it, write a specific game plan for working on the weakness (specify that you will spend exactly x minutes a day on this problem), and finally set a target date for when you will evaluate your success.

Then take the plunge. There is even a chance you'll discover that the sessions spent at the piano addressing your weaknesses will become fun after all. That's called success.

This is the 10th installment in our series of articles on hidden or obscure strategies for improving musicianship. These strategies are not intended to be a substitute for (I dislike this word) "practicing." To the contrary. Spending time playing your instrument is mightily important.

But think of these 22 ideas as strategies you can use in addition to your time in the woodshed. How does one find a label for these strategies? Subconscious? Metaphysical? Whatever word you want to use, go ahead. It's just that these ideas are not often presented to you as part of a musical instrument learning regimen. For earlier articles, check our blog archive.