After doing a complete read-through of the piece (which I touched on in my first post on this topic), it’s a very helpful next step to identify trouble spots and to mark them in the score. I use brackets, in order to remind myself where the spot begins and ends. Ex: There are several [...]
How Do I Learn – II
Written By Chad R. Bowles on January 2nd, 2013How Do I Learn – I
Written By Chad R. Bowles on November 1st, 2012Recently, for whatever reason, a number of my students have been asking me how I learn a piece of music. That is, what are the steps that I go through when learning a new piece? I’ve never really externalized it to the degree that I would write out steps for someone, but I thought through my blog [...]
Discoveries – I
Written By Chad R. Bowles on October 18th, 2011The piano repertoire is impossibly vast. Just making your way through all of the Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, Mozart, Bach, Haydn, and Brahms can be daunting enough. But what about all of those other composers and compositions that are out there? I’m talking, of course, about the ones that should be heard at concerts and [...]
Why Don’t We Listen? – II
Written By Chad R. Bowles on June 5th, 2011In my last post on this subject, I talked about how important it was to listen to a composer’s recordings of his own works. I’ve always been endlessly fascinated by this – it provides a unique look into the mind and musical thought patterns of composers. And, of course, it’s tremendously inspiring when they [...]
Back to it – and “Valentine”
Written By Chad R. Bowles on May 20th, 2011Wow – this is the first blog entry I’ve written since December! No excuses – just laziness! I do have a lot of interesting ideas in the works, though, so keep checking back. In the meantime, something about a wonderful little piece that’s recently caught my interest. I’ve been listening to this tune by Jazz [...]
The Harmonica Player
Written By Chad R. Bowles on December 2nd, 2010This morning I received an email announcing the broadcast of this documentary on Byron Janis, one of the greatest American pianists of the 20th century, and it brought me back to my student days. One of my teachers was absolutely crazy about his playing and introduced me to his recordings, most notably of the 2nd [...]
Pianists Who Move Me – IV
Written By Chad R. Bowles on October 14th, 2010Marguerite Long is not known very well for her recorded output; I had actually no idea that she had made recordings until I recently stumbled on some of her performances of Fauré’s piano music. The Long-Thibaud Competition, based in Paris, carries her name. She also held a long professorship at the Paris Conservatoire and had [...]
Why I Love This Sonata
Written By Chad R. Bowles on July 19th, 2010Last night I made my last scheduled performance of the Chopin B Minor Sonata for the foreseeable future. I’ve been performing it in public since February and have only been playing it for about a year, and I have only really loved it about that long. Growing up, I spent endless hours listening to recordings. [...]
Joanna Lange
Written By Chad R. Bowles on June 13th, 2010I came across this extraordinary video the other day. This talented woman, Joanna Lange, apparently suffered a stroke twenty years ago which left her right side paralyzed. She has since spent her time at the piano studying the left-hand repertoire, including this Chopin/Godowsky study. Enough typing, though; this pretty much speaks for itself. A memorable [...]
Why Don’t We Listen?
Written By Chad R. Bowles on April 30th, 2010I was talking with a good friend recently about a Prokofiev piano piece called “Suggestion Diabolique.” I had sent him a link to a performance I thought was incredibly vulgar, messy, and unnecessarily violent. I had thought it would get a laugh, but started a very interesting exchange. I mentioned that my favorite performance of [...]
