Practising is a habit. If we are serious about our music, our progress with our repertoire and our technical and artistic development, we need to establish good and regular practising habits, as regular as cleaning one’s teeth. No one, not

The accepted notion is that age confers a spirit of reconciliation and serenity on late works– Edward Said, ‘On Late Style’ What is ‘Late Style’? It’s a question that has preoccupied writers and thinkers, from Theodor Adorno, who coined the

The title of this post is a quote from an interview with pianist Gabriela Montero. Story-telling is about conveying a message and music is of course all about conveying messages, telling stories and stimulating the imagination, of listener and performer.

Please don’t shoot at the pianist; he’s doing his best(attributed to Oscar Wilde) I sometimes get the feeling people think musicians are invincible… We engage in a highly complex, technical and artistic activity which requires huge physical and mental agility

In the nineteenth century Franz Liszt probably did more than any other composer for the genre of the piano transcription. His transcriptions and paraphrases made an important contribution to the development of piano music, with their technical challenges, innovative notation,

Why play an early or “period” piano? An instrument which may have significant limitations compared to a precisely made and carefully calibrated modern instrument, and surely “better” and infinitely more sturdy and reliable than an old piano?

Play always as if the presence of a master– Robert Schumann The ability to self-critique, evaluate and reflect on one’s playing during practicing is a crucial skill for musicians, and is a component of the skillset of “deliberate practice”, which

The psychological and emotional reasons why musicians perform and why we feel a need to connect and communicate with audiences is a broad and complex subject. For many musicians, performing is their raison d’être – the need, the will to