Have you ever found yourself awed by a symphony? Have you ever been moved to tears by a delicate cascade of notes in a piano concerto? Have you ever wondered why this music makes me feel so emotional? Classical music

The pursuit of musical excellence is a journey that many musicians embark upon with a fervent desire to achieve perfection. They strive for flawless performances, impeccable technique, and unwavering precision. As an advanced amateur pianist, these are goals to which

The following Japanese terms are all about warding off laziness and boosting motivation plus tips for embracing the concept of doing your best. They are useful as general rules for life; here I have interpreted them for the benefit of

Technique, technique, technique. Practice, practice, practice. Much of the performing musician’s life seems to be centred around practice, development, and improvement of the technique. It is true that technique is essential to the communication of the ideas of the composer,

I have written before about how some repertoire is considered “off limits” to amateur pianists, and should remain the preserve of the professional. I think what such an attitude demonstrates is how the “core canon” of piano repertoire is held

The 2023 edition of the Proms, “the world’s greatest classical music festival”, has just ended. As usual, this year’s two-month season of concerts was punctuated by conversations about audience noise and the now rather tedious rants about applause between movements.

Every listener and amateur of music has a composer that he feels like he should know better; because he or she is widely known and perhaps even quite influential, because this composer is the starting point of many others, or

A musician has essentially two ways to create new music; either by composing or by improvising; both of these techniques follow very different processes — creating quite different results too —, equally powerful, and defining creative areas that each musician