My name is Chad Twedt, and I’m a private piano instructor, classical pianist and composer.  I received my Masters in Piano Performance from University of Nevada, Reno in 2001, and dual Bachelors degrees in piano performance and mathematics from the same institution in 1999.  I was the pianist at the South Reno United Methodist Church 1994-2012, and I served two terms as president of the Northern Nevada Music Teachers Association (2008-2010 and 2010-2012).  I moved from Reno, NV to Upper St. Clair, PA with my family in June 2012 so that my wife could pursue her medical residency. We moved back home to Reno, NV in 2019.

I published a book of second piano teacher duets for Burgmuller’s Op. 100 (see orangenote.io).  My official artist website is www.twedt.com. If you have time, listen to the free MP3s of my Ostinato CD, which won a grant from the Nevada Arts Council. I published several articles in American Music Teacher as well as Clavier Companion, including a feature article in the latter titled “Tone Production: Doing the Right Things for the Right Reasons.” I love to play tennis (I’m either a good 4.0 or a bad 4.5 player), and I am a movie fanatic. If you visit www.matrixresolutions.com, you might be able to guess what my favorite movies of all time are.

About this blog

When I first started blogging, the image I had of myself was simply a musician who has a passion for truth who is willing to be wrong in pursuit of it. In fact, the degree to which I embrace being wrong can easily get me into trouble in conversations with others as I wrongly assume they will welcome the possibility of being wrong as much as I do. I love to talk deeply about subjects, and deep discussion is usually not possible without some disagreement. But I have found that many others don’t enjoy disagreement as much as I do and will go to great lengths to protect various parts of identity that have been wrapped around certain thoughts and beliefs.

What I did not expect is for another identity to grow out of this website, and that is the identity of a watchdog or debunker/contrarian. In hindsight, this aspect of my blog’s development was inevitable. There are far too few people in this world who, by their actions, can truly be proven to care more about the truth than they care about their pocketbook, their popularity on the web / among colleagues, and/or their power. Consequently, this leads to the creation, justification and promotion of ideas, practices and business models that leave “splinters in our minds,” to borrow a term from The Matrix. My passion for truth has led me very naturally to places of great discomfort, because challenging certain false truths sometimes means challenging ideas held by people I care about and/or people I hold in high esteem and wish I knew better. I do not enjoy this, but I feel I must, because as far as I know, I am the only private music teacher blogger who is willing to stand very publicly for truth even when it is extremely uncomfortable. (If there are other private music teacher bloggers out there just like me, I want to know!)