Opinion

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How to Listen to Music You Haven’t Heard
Some years ago I read a fascinating book by French psychoanalyst and University of Paris literature professor Pierre Bayard, How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read, in which the author makes a very good case for freeing ourselves from
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Tingle Factor
We gather music along the way and it forms a personal soundtrack to our lives, evoking memories of times past, and a few bars of a significant song or piece of music can create an instant reaction, a ‘tingle’.
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Lessons in Making Music
Were Your Childhood Music Lessons Fun? If you, like me, had piano lessons as a child, I expect there were rather too many times when you sat at the piano and wondered what this thing called “music” was all about?
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Choosing Between the Violin and Viola? Why Not Play Both?
I play both violin and viola, and I’d never have it any other way. Yes, remaining proficient on both takes more practice time, and yes, it’s more expensive to pay for upkeep on two instruments and bows…but it’s totally worth
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The Systematic Musician
We are constantly being reminded of the importance of having “goals” in our lives in order to achieve certain things, from getting fit to winning a half-marathon or setting up a business. We believe that having goals motivates us to
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The Perfectionism Trap
“Practise makes perfect” – that oft-quoted phrase beloved of instrumental teachers the world over…. It’s a neat little mantra, but one that can have serious and potentially long-lasting negative effects if taken too literally. Musicians have to practise. Repetitive, committed
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The Idle Musician – escaping the ‘busy trap’
We are all so busy these days! Musicians, by necessity, tend to be busy people – busy practising, performing, creating performing opportunities, meeting and working with colleagues, applying for funding, teaching, preparing lesson plans, doing admin….. The peripatetic nature of
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Learning from Listening
There are many benefits in listening to the repertoire you are working on, on disc and in concert, as well as “listening around” the music – works from the same period by the same composer, and works by his/her contemporaries.
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