Piano Practice – More Techniques

When practicing the piano, it’s important to develop good practice habits in order to find and remove rough spots. Your goal should be to achieve perfection in order to get the most out of your piano studies. In the Part One of her series, Piano Practice That Pays, Dr. Lory Peters provided a variety of … Read more

Piano Practice – Articulations

To master the piano, lots of practice is needed. And a great deal of time spent in piano practice involves finding and fixing areas of your music that are not perfect. In the first part of her Piano Practice That Pays Off series, Dr. Lory Peters showed eight different techniques to help polish difficult practice … Read more

Piano Practice – Polishing Rough Spots

Here’s a common situation. You have a piano piece that you’ve been working on. You’re playing it pretty well — except there are a few rough spots that you just can’t polish. It’s pretty frustrating, isn’t it? Nearly all piano students have this problem. It’s all part of being a pianist, or any musician, really. … Read more

Finding the Right Piano Teacher

Choosing a piano teacher should be easy, right? Just find a teacher that is qualified and then get started. But, how do you know if a piano teacher is qualified? It’s not as easy as choosing other professionals. If you need medical or legal advice, you look for someone with the appropriate license in your … Read more

Get Ready for Online Piano Lessons

Congratulations! You’re starting piano lessons with Dr. Lory. Your first lesson is coming up. Let’s get you ready by helping with the technical aspects of setting up the space in your home where you will practice and take lessons. Equipment So that you and Dr. Lory can see and hear each other, you’re going to … Read more

Using Zoom for Piano Lessons

You will use Zoom for your online piano lessons. Zoom is an online audio and video conferencing system used to conduct video conferencing meetings. While Zoom can be used to connect hundreds of participants, in this case, there will be only two — you and Dr. Lory. If you haven’t used Zoom before, here is … Read more

Am I Too Old for Piano Lessons?

I get this question a lot from older students, both beginners and those who took piano lessons when they were younger. It’s a fair question — when we age, we often believe that we are not capable of doing all of the things we once did. And while this might be true when it comes … Read more

Using Articulations to Fix Rough Spots

The following are excerpts from the video Piano Practice That Pays Off – Part Two. You can watch the video on YouTube. What Are Articulations? An articulation is  how we play a note. More specifically, it is how we start or end a sound. Articulations add color, dimension, and texture. Articulations make the music come … Read more

More Ways to Fix Rough Spots

The following are excerpts from the video Piano Practice That Pays Off – Part Three. You can watch the video on YouTube. Ready to give up when you’ve tried everything to smooth out a rough spot and nothing is working? Well, help is on the way. Stay tuned. Hi! I’m Dr. Lory. Welcome back to our series. … Read more