So February's piece around the circle is the theme from Alexander Borodin's Polovetzian Dance from the unfinished opera, Prince Igor....

What's not to love? If you're one who's been checking back occasionally, you'll see that I'm circle obsessed. February (2025) is the...

My students are way smarter than I am. They make great observations and have brilliant ideas. One of them is when we use the key name...

Saving keys from stickers and markers one piano at a time. . . Today I was teaching students I have had for a year. They're 8 and 9 years...

What if by the end of 2025 all of your students could do 1-4-5 cadences in all major keys? What if it were easy? Or, at least easier....

Last year I did a holiday challenge where I had students learn the major scale in all keys and then play the opening bars of Joy to the...

In the endless development of motor skills, another trip around the Circle of 5ths is in order. It's been over a year since this...

Honestly, the circle of 5ths challenges are the gift that keeps on giving. When I'm teaching variants of In the Hall of the Mountain King...

I can't help it. The change in my students since I started teaching around the circle is remarkable, interesting, amazing, satisfying,...

(scroll down to download the free pdfs) I recently picked up a book by Daniel Levitin, "I Heard There Was a Secret Chord, Music and...

Do you teach all keys from the beginning? Why (or why not)? I've been using key finder cards to teach all keys for over a year and a half...

The 2-5-1 chord progression is one of the most beloved and useful ones in jazz. Learn to play them, learn to hear them, learn to...

When do you start teaching or learning the circle of 5ths? How do you do it? Recently I went down a Circle of 5ths rabbit hole on...

This is a video reference library to get you started in learning the 7th chords that get played again and again in music. It was created...

I think pianists are privileged. As a soloist, a pianist can play unaccompanied for hours, in front of a crowd or at home, with a full...

When I think of the blues scale, I think of a handful of crayons. Or, a handful of pitches. The blues scale uses half, or 6 of the 12...

The major scale is a series of whole and half steps based on the white key pattern between C and C. Pictures and videos speak better than...

Earlier this week I was having a conversation about what you need to know before teaching something. For example, if you saw: Cream...

Once you have mastered the swing eight pattern, how about learning riffs. In this case, a riff is a short melody that gets played over a...

I was about to do a video on riffs- short melodic phrases that can be played over a 12 bar blues form, but to sound great, the swing...