Wednesday, January 7, 2015 by Hamdani, Laurie | Ideas

Much has been said and written on the subject of change and yet, most of us still resist it! However, change is inevitable: the piano will go out of tune, students will forget to bring their music to the lesson and we’ll need to improvise, spring sports will make everyone rearrange their extracurricular schedules, and so on.

LH Piano Studio is no different. With each passing month and year, I’d like to think I get a little bit smarter in how I manage my business, a little bit more effective in meeting the needs of each student, and a little bit better in my own piano performance. In order to grow and improve as a teacher, a performer, and a small business owner, I must embrace changes such as:

• technological innovations
• ideas & suggestions proffered by my students and/or their parents
• new music publications
• and the list goes on

Let us all embrace change, even when it feels daunting, because:

change = growth = learning = progress

And, resistance is futile!

Friday, April 4, 2014 by Hamdani, Laurie | Ideas

My shoulder injury has really got me thinking about balance. In music, balance refers to all of the various parts of the composition maintaining their importance within the context of the composition. This is easily understood in ensemble playing. A timpani and a viola each have their role as a component of the greater composition. Sometimes the timpani produces a pronounced sound and at other times the viola’s voice rises to the forefront.

Balance at its simplest at the piano requires an understanding of melody and harmony combined with the dexterity and capability in each hand to execute a wide range of touch on the keys. We can easily hear when the hands are not in balance in the performance of novice students wherein all the notes in both hands are played loudly with little to no variation in dynamics. Most often in piano repertoire, melody is right-hand dominant, meaning the melody of the composition is most often written to be played by the right hand. Young pianists naturally become fairly adept at ‘bringing out’, or giving more importance to, the right hand melody with just a little practice. 

But, every so often, a composition requires left-hand dominance to execute the melody. Students often have a great deal of difficulty making this shift, which is both cognitive and physical. Due to my injury, I’m preparing a recital piece which is written for the right hand only. This piece is not as technically challenging as some of the pieces I’ve played in past recitals in terms of key or rhythm. But this balance thing? Pretty complex! My right hand must play both melody and harmony within each and every measure. Further, the notes span some six octaves, sometimes within only a few measures or even beats. A brief understanding of the physical properties of the piano may help to illustrate this degree of difficulty. High notes make high pitches because the strings (actually, wires) inside the piano are very thin and short. The higher the note the naturally softer it is when struck, meaning that to play a high note loudly requires greater force from the hand. The converse is true for lower notes, i.e. longer, thicker strings, requiring less pressure to produce a softer sound. So, my right hand must vary its touch on the keys greatly within the span of just a few beats. I must constantly be thinking about melody and harmony and the weight of my hand in order to produce a balanced composition.

One way to think of it is that the very nature of the body of piano literature is out of balance, with melody predominantly written for the right hand. Therefore, making the mental and physical shift to left-hand dominance feels foreign and difficult or as students have frequently commented, “wrong” or “weird”. Perhaps this is a metaphor for life, for not getting so comfortable in the expected, the routine. To that end, I’m rather happy my torn rotator cuff has given me the chance to challenge myself and my views not just of melody and harmony but of what is possible when you look at something from a different point of view.

Friday, February 21, 2014 by Hamdani, Laurie | Ideas

Click on Pyramid below to download a diagram I came up with years ago to illustrate how students learn music.

Pyramid