“Moonlight Sonata” by Ludwig van Beethoven is one of the staple pieces of classical piano music. Its haunting melody, darkly dreamy tempo, and characteristic chord progression make it a piece that is both well-loved and often played. Like other standard pieces of classical piano music, beginners might not know the history and stories behind the …
Play piano favorites: Moonlight Sonata Read More »
Learning how to balance your hands on the piano is an important skill to develop. Developing solid and consistent control over your tone, dynamics, and articulation is a skill that is not built overnight. It takes months and years of practice to build a strong sound on the piano. Fortunately, having an awareness of this …
It’s all in the hands: balance, dynamics, and tone Read More »
Memorizing music as a pianist is an important skill to develop. It is extremely easy in our modern world to simply access information via phone or computer and retain very little. Memorizing helps us to build a base of knowledge that we can use and extrapolate to other dimensions of our lives, helps us to …
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Practicing the piano should be a fun, exciting, and enjoyable experience. However, it is useful to take a step back on occasion and examine the habits you develop around piano practice. How often do you do this? This week, we will explore a range of bad habits that you can develop on the piano so …
Learn to identify bad habits on the piano Read More »
Like many pursuits in life, progressing in your piano practice requires consistency and discipline. It can feel easy at the beginning to make huge leaps in your skills. However, after some time you may feel like you start to hit certain plateaus. Feeling like you are hitting plateaus in your practice presents a chance to …
Simple strategies to improve your piano playing Read More »
Join in the fun and celebration of World Music Day this month with Skoove. Music is a wonderful and beautiful force and what better way to celebrate the power of music than with an all-day celebration around the Summer solstice! Learn more about this wonderful day, some of the history behind the idea and event, …
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The whole tone scale is a surreal and enigmatic sound that often feels ambiguous and unanchored. The scale is perfect for creating dream-like passages and is commonly found in the work of Impressionistic composers like Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. However, examples of the scale date back to the 17th century. The whole tone scale …
Dreaming with the whole tone scale Read More »
The more you practice piano, the faster you will improve. That is a basic fact of piano playing that we all must deal with. However, we do not always have access to the piano, even when we want to practice. Fortunately, it is possible to practice music away from the piano! This week we will …
Strategies to practice music away from a piano Read More »
The diminished scale, or octatonic scale, is an enigmatic and distinct scale that offers a great deal of melodic and harmonic depth and possibility. There are examples of the diminished scale in European classical music dating back to the time of Bach and also in various folk music traditions from the Middle East. However, the …
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Jazz piano chords are some of the most complex sounds that a piano can make. Knowing some common jazz chord shapes, minor seventh chords and dominant chords can really add a lot of shape to your playing. Learning how to make jazz chords is not as difficult or complex as it might seem, and with …
A beginner’s guide to jazz chords for piano Read More »
The melodic minor scale is a variation on the natural minor scale that emerged primarily because of its melodic functionality, as opposed to its cousin, the harmonic minor scale, which developed based on its harmonic functions. In European classical music, the scale follows one interval pattern ascending and a different interval pattern descending. However, in …
Understanding the melodic minor scale Read More »
Musicians are often practicing groups of notes played one at a time in order, on their instruments. This is a very common way to develop speed and skill, hand independence and practice playing at slow or fast tempos. These notes musicians are often practicing are called Scales, which are actually called diatonic and chromatic scales. …
Understanding all seven diatonic scales Read More »
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