Juilliard graduate helping dedicated adult pianists who love challenging repertoire practice less while learning more.
🎹 I quit fugues at 50 {video}
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I started my 1989 Cliburn audition with the Bach B flat Partita. Someone left a comment I keep coming back to... Good question. Here's the answer I didn't expect to give. No judge ever told me. No scoresheet. Nothing written down anywhere. I built that story out of an absence. I always paired my Bach with my Chopin. People complimented the Chopin. Every single time. Nobody said a word about the Bach. So I decided the silence meant something. 🤦♀️ No comment became "not good enough." A room lighting up over the Chopin became proof I was weak somewhere else. I carried that for over 30 years. I call this the Compliment Compass. You let what people praise become the map, and you let what they don't mention become the verdict. But silence isn't a verdict. It's just silence. You're probably doing this right now with something in your own playing. Some passage, some piece, that you've quietly decided is your weak link, not because anyone told you, but because nobody mentioned it while they were busy praising something else. 🎼 A tiny experiment for you Ask yourself: do I have actual evidence? Or do I just have an absence of praise? Write down the real feedback you've gotten. Then write down what you assumed. They're usually not the same list. If you haven't seen the video, watch it here → |
Lisa Spector, Piano Ninja
Juilliard graduate helping dedicated adult pianists who love challenging repertoire practice less while learning more.
We just wrapped up our annual Beyond the Keys piano retreat and I sent every pianist home with six new cards to put on their piano rack. One idea on each. Play On! 🎹Start Where It Breaks ⛓️💥Back Up Just Enough 🔙 Name It When You Play It 🔊Record Today, Listen Tomorrow 🎥Take a Break 🧘♀️ Four days of workshops, performances and conversation. And this is what I wanted them to leave with. Not a notebook full of ideas they’d never reread. Six decisions small enough to fit on a piano rack. None of...
Members of the Piano Ninja Tricksters Club are flying in from across the country for our annual Beyond The Keys piano retreat here in Monterey, California. A group of adult pianists, a lot of piano talk, and some unusual experiments. Let's just say this is not your typical adult piano camp. There's even a piano movie night. 🍿 (If we get to it. For the last two years, we've talked right through it. 🤷♀️) But the moment I keep thinking about is Friday night. That's when they'll walk into a room...
I'm wearing a back brace while a compression fracture heals, with strict orders not to lift more than 5 pounds. And I was about to fly from California to Toronto. ✈️I'm a lifelong over-packer. 🧳 🧳 Carry-on only was a stretch. Carry-on I wasn't allowed to lift? 🤦♀️ The trip was for Stu McLaren's 10-year celebration of The Membership Experience. Stu is my membership mentor and I've been meeting with him and his fabulous team for 5 years on Zoom! Before I knew Stu, my first attempt at a...