Episode 6
The Gina Bachauer piano competition watching has led to a whole pile of other piano competition videos on youtube>
Making progress
Getting good at something can take a long time; the more complex the thing, the longer the time.
Sight-reading is an important piano skill. At least that’s what about half the piano YouTube channels say, the other half say that you don’t need it at all. I think you probably do need it, and as I’m all about learning skills, it’s one that I’m trying to get better at. And it’s a topic I’ll cover in a later episode of the podcast.
Clearly, one of the problems with learning sight-reading is getting material with which to practice. After all, the whole point is that it is material that you haven’t seen before, so you can only use each piece once. Perhaps you can use a piece from a collection, but just once, and buying new collections just to practise sight-reading, whilst fun, will become expensive very quickly.
Luckily, there is a solution: books made specifically for sight-reading practice with lots of small pieces set at a correct level. According to the experts, you should practice sight-reading a level or two below your playing level, so a graded practice book will make learning the material much easier.
My YouTube channel recommendation is LivingPianosVideos, link in the show notes. Living pianos is presented by Robert Estrin a pianist with a long history of performing and educating. There are over a thousand videos on the channel going back fifteen years, so you won’t run out of things to watch soon.
The videos all tend to be short, around five minutes, and they cover topics including performance notes for pieces and the history of both music and piano manufacturers. There are technique tips, insights on the psychology of playing and just about anything else that you can think of to do with pianos. There is even a section when Mr Estrin dresses up as historical composers and pianists and plays in their style on era-appropriate instruments.
This is an eclectic channel, if you’re looking for something unexpected for your piano viewing, I can recommend LivingPianoVideos with Robert Estrin. There’s a link in the show notes.
You can contact me:
via email at david@pianofinally.show; this is probably the best option
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