As a piano teacher, I almost never encounter people who believe that talent does not exist or that it plays only a negligible role in determining how quickly musical skill is acquired or how far one can ultimately go in musical mastery, especially among my experienced piano-teaching peers. Outside of the field of teaching, I encounter this b [...]
Posts in category Science
The Genetic Basis of Talent
As a piano teacher, I almost never encounter people who believe that talent does not exist or that it plays only a negligible role in determining how quickly musical skill is acquired or how far one can ultimately go in musical mastery, especially among my experienced piano-teaching peers. Outside of the field of teaching, I encounter this b [...]
Studies Addressing Piano Voodoo of To...
In July 2010, I wrote about The Piano Voodoo of Tone Production, which demonstrates that pianists cannot control timbre of a single note independently of volume because of the physics of piano escapement/letoff. There are those who claim we can control the tone of a note without changing its volume, and some of these claims are made in a sci [...]
The Piano Voodoo of Tone Production
The word timbre (also called tone quality or tone color) is an important part of every musician’s vocabulary. Woodwind and brass instrumentalists can affect timbre by such simple things such as embouchure or fingering choices. String instrumentalists have things such as bow speed, angle and pressure to work with. Surprisingly to some, pianist [...]