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One of the most useful ways to use a tablet in the studio is as a portable whiteboard for explaining concepts and processes. The sketches below were drawn on the S-Note app on my new Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 this morning in order to demonstrate the bass motion of cadences to an RCM Grade 10 student working on ear training. If you have an iPad, there are lots of apps that can provide this kind of functionality as long as you don't mind using a thicker capacitive pen.

For those of you on Facebook (which is just about everybody these days), The Art of Piano Pedagogy is quickly becoming one of the go-to places for ideas and discussions on piano pedagogy. The member list (1500+) reads like a who's who of active piano teachers from all around the globe. Posts on the front page cover topics on business, methods, materials, and teaching strategies. It's well worth ...

My setup in Sault Ste. Marie before a day of voice exams

For the last few weeks I've been on the road examining for both The Royal Conservatory in Canada and for Carnegie Hall Royal Conservatory's The Achievement Program in the US. To give you an idea of my travels, here is a list of the communities I've examined at in the last year alone:

• Matawan, NJ
• Spotswood, NJ
• Spring Valley, NY
• Brooklyn
• Boston
• Davenport, Iowa
• Waterloo, Iowa
• Chicago
• London, Ontario
• Sarnia
• Sault Ste. Marie
• Halifax
• Calgary
• Edmonton
• Lethbridge
• Grande Prairie
• Grimshaw
• Dawson Creek (where I am now)

A few days ago, I held a year-end studio recital in my new home studio. This was an entirely new venture, as although I'm a huge fan of home concerts, up to now I haven't had enough space at home to actually hold one.

Given the dimensions of the studio, I estimated that I would be able to seat 20 people at a time. Assuming that each performer brought an average of two people, a concert sitting would only be able to accomodate 5-6 performers without overcrowding the room. But since I would be needing to accommodate close to 75 people (including students, parents, and friends), there would need to be not one, but at least four of these concerts throughout the day.

Here is where circumstance and the busy schedules of my Oakville ...

I'm a huge fan of Penelope Trunk's blog. She pulls no punches, speaks her mind, and isn't afraid to make enemies. Two of her recent articles are worth reading if you're a professional freelance musician or music teacher:

1. How School Affects Future Earnings looks at some current thought regarding what's important in a child's education. Trunk's emphasis is on striving, confidence, goal-setting, doing the work, and unconventional solutions for each child. I also like the importance she puts on finding a mentor.

Let's face it - individualized instruction is not part of a successful business plan in the education sector. Class instruction is what pays the bills, and most schools simply can't afford to give students private instruction, ...

Ever take a look at the title page on an urtext edition of Mozart violin sonatas? The title reads "Sonaten für Klavier und Violine". Yes, Mozart's early piano/violin sonatas started out as piano sonatas with optional violin obbligato. Throughout the course of his compositional career, he gradually gave the solo violin part more prominence and independence. Susan Tomes weighs in on the subject en route to a November 11 concert in Scotland's brand-new Perth Concert Hall:

Piano and violin, I hear you say? Isn’t it ‘violin and piano’? Well, not according to Mozart who called them ‘sonatas for piano and violin’. In his letters, he mentions playing the piano parts himself ‘with the accompaniment of a ...

Robert Schumann, proof that emo haircuts can indeed be effective on 19th-century dudes.

When choosing repertoire for my students, I always give them a few choices so that they can pick a new piece that seems to fit them best. Last week, one of my students had trouble picking a sonatina. After a few questions, she finally confessed to what her misgiving was: composers for the most part have weird names that none of her friends would ever have these days. In her words, "Why aren't there any composers named Jennifer?"

Let's look at the first names of a few famous composers to see if she has a point:

• Frederick
• Ludwig
• Wolfgang
• Gioacchino
• Arnold
• Antonin
• Jean-Philippe
• Felix
• Johann
• Johannes

There have been a number of recent reports of pianists who have been moved to stand while playing. Here's an actual sighting in the wild, with the Benaud Trio's Amir Farid temporarily leaving the bench at the 3:42 mark.

And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul.
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold.
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last.
When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll.

 Note: in case you're too young or too old to have heard the Led Zeppelin original of Stairway to Heaven, you can find it here.

Many of you will remember the arrangement of Lady Gaga's Bad Romance played as 3-voice fugue from a few months ago. Here's the same Giovanni Dettori fugue arrangement, played by Matthias Rascher on a 1756 Johann Philipp Seuffert pipe organ in the Maria Limbach Pilgrimage Church in Lower Franconia:
 


BTW if you're not yet sold on Lady Gaga, take a look at this video of her awesome keyboard skills.

(Thanks, Mona!)

Sad news out of Toronto - the Star's John Terauds, the only full-time classical music critic in English Canada, will be moving to the business desk of the Toronto Star. In addition to his fine writing in the paper and online versions of the Star, he also wrote Sound Mind, one of Canada's top classical music blogs. Over the last few years, John has been giving excellent accounts of the people and organizations involved in Toronto's growing classical music scene. I suppose that the Star will be using freelance journalists to cover classical music from now on, but quality can often be lacking from freelancers with little or no experience in the classical scene.

If he's right, and “the future is ...