Juilliard graduate helping dedicated adult pianists who love challenging repertoire practice less while learning more.
👀 Do you see it?
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I started this weekly newsletter 6 months ago and have been searching for the right name for it, followed by a logo. And here it is, sitting at the top of your email. PRACTICE NOTES It didn’t go perfectly. I knew when I landed on the name (after 48 iterations) but I originally started with a completely different design direction. It just wasn’t landing. So I scrapped it and went somewhere entirely different before arriving at the logo you see now. And as soon as I had it, I knew. This was it. 🎯 Had I stopped earlier, something would’ve kept bothering me. This version feels complete... At least until it doesn’t. That’s a lot like practicing piano. The most productive practicing usually involves experimenting, trying things that don’t work, backing up, adjusting, noticing tension, changing approaches, and staying with the process long enough to recognize when something finally clicks. 🎯 Take one passage that feels tense or unsettled. Now experiment with changing just one variable at a time:
🧐 I'm curious Reply and let me know. I read every response. ps While I was on a creativity roll this weekend, I also updated my About Page here. |
Lisa Spector, Piano Ninja
Juilliard graduate helping dedicated adult pianists who love challenging repertoire practice less while learning more.
Growing up, I swore by altered rhythms. Hours and hours of dotted-rhythms drilling my Chopin études. Five of them, on my debut recital at age 14. I don't practice that way anymore and haven't since high school. I posted about it on Instagram last week and it did not go over well. Most people pushed back hard. Fair enough, Instagram reels are short, I didn't have room to explain the alternative. So here it is. My real problem with altered rhythms comes down to one thing. When I'm doing a whole...
I've been playing Amy Beach's "Dreaming" at the same tempo for years. It felt like an andante tempo, as the composer wrote. Then I heard Greg Anderson play it slower. I'm talking seriously slower. 🐢And I stopped mid-scroll and was mesmerized, because something clicked that I didn't want to admit. My tempo wasn't wrong because it wasn't Andante. It was wrong because I'd never questioned it. Here's the thing nobody tells you about tempo: it doesn't just live in your fingers. It lives in your...
You know the moment. You're three lines out from That Passage and your stomach already knows it's coming. 😳 Hands tense. Breath gets shallow. You start playing the mistake before you've even reached the measure. I used to think the fix was more reps. Drill it until the fear goes away. But no matter how many reps, it was hit or miss for years. The fear isn't about the notes. It's about what your body does when it feels it coming. Here's the first thing that changed it for me. SMILE 😃 Tension...