Author Archives: James Boyk

Students and I started “pianomailing” in 2005, and find it a big plus. When they get home from a lesson, they email me saying what we covered, what they’re working on for next time–and how they’re working; and whatever else they think important. I respond a.s.a.p., often just saying “Right!” or “Yes”; but sometimes it […]

Playing with others, have you had trouble starting together? You tilt your head up, preparing to give the signal by tilting it down. The clarinet bell goes up, and the clarinetist takes a breath. The viola neck goes up and the bow moves into position.

Looking into the concert-grand scene, I’m delighted by its richness, and heartened to know that pianos—what some call “acoustic pianos”—are still beloved of many. After all, learning to play the piano is possible only by playing the piano; in an ideal world, every beginner would practice on a concert grand.

Question: My flutist friend says I accompany too loud. (We’re rehearsing for our middle-school variety show.)

It’s a cliché in teaching that every student is different. But how chancey it is that we encounter the differences! In the fifth year of our working together—but it could as easily have been the sixth, or the first, or never—my piano student Shanti Rao, a Ph.D. candidate in physics, happened to say while playing, […]

Lessons with a Lady, concluded Before we even sat down, I said, “I did isometric exercises, ten minutes a day.” She asked, “You are careful to avoid discomfort?” “Yes! I do it just strong enough to feel it; no more.”

Lessons with a Lady, continued… There were fresh flowers in the studio—nasturtiums—and the windows were open a bit. The old lady asked, “Do you remember my question?” I said, “Two ways to make soft playing reliable.

Lessons with a Lady, continued… “And we can’t play with fingers braced with thumbs,” she said, while continuing the Bach with index fingers braced with thumbs, giving me an impish smile. I got a flash of what she must have been like as a young woman.

Lessons with a Lady So I went to the lady with the dancing pianissimo, and told her I wanted my soft playing to be like hers; and she gave me that old-lady smile and an ordinary pencil to hold vertically in a snug fist, with the eraser sticking down an inch. I was to play […]

More things I’ve found useful for soft playing. V. Vertical motion of keys is what creates sound. If you’re moving too fast to play softly, “use up” some of your velocity by changing the finger’s angle of attack. Toboggan down a sloping hill to the key instead of diving vertically.