Juilliard graduate helping dedicated adult pianists who love challenging repertoire practice less while learning more.
🎹 rock solid trills in 5 minutes a day
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After I shared my Cliburn audition of the Bach B flat Partita, the comments on YouTube and Instagram kept mentioning my trills. People noticed how easy they sounded. Here's the thing. I haven't practiced a trill inside a piece since graduate school. 🤷♀️ Over 40 years ago, I learned a five-minute warm-up from John Perry, R.I.P. I've done it almost every practice session since. When a trill shows up in whatever I'm playing, it just works. I don't stop to negotiate with my wrist. I don't wonder if it should come from my fingers. I already know, because I solved that question years ago, somewhere else entirely. Not inside the piece. That's the part you might be getting backwards. You try to fix the trill while you're also managing phrasing, memory, balance, and the next entrance. That's a lot of jobs for one tiny moment. So I separated it out. One short sequence, done on its own, before the piece ever asks for it. I call it Ninja Trills. Want my trills?
I told you how much practice time this saves, you wouldn't believe me. Try it for yourself here. Ninja Trills intro offer is half price through Thursday, Sept. 3. |
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...