Tag: Content

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A Guide to Our Content & Resources

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Since its launch just under three years ago, the Online Academy has grown significantly and now contains over three hundred articles, hundreds of videos and thousands of musical examples on playing and teaching the piano from a range of highly respected experts.

Whatever your goals and ambitions for your playing or teaching for the new term ahead might be, we have numerous resources to support you in achieving them! To help you find what the content that is most useful to you, we’ve compiled the following index of some of our popular resources (a full index of resources is also available here):

  • Practise more effectively and learn new pieces faster
  • Improve your playing and technique – Click here to view a general listing of resources on piano technique or on one of the following specific topics:
    • Scales and Arpeggios – resources on playing scales and arpeggios at the elementary and intermediate levels
    • Fingering – Learn fundamental principles behind comfortable, musically appropriate fingering
    • Pedalling – A comprehensive treatise on the subject of pedalling
    • Double Notes – Detailed advice on how to practise scales, exercises and studies featuring this challenging area of technique
    • Technical Exercises – An overview of exercises and regimes and suggestions for how to use Hanon’s exercises
    • Sight Reading – Improve your sight reading with a range of sample works and exercises from ReadAhead
  • Learn new pieces
    • Click here to view our library of walk throughs and resources for sixty works from the repertoire various resources including:
    • From the Ground Up – A series which uses outlines and reduced scores that help you to learn new pieces more effectively
  • Develop your skills as a teacher and empower your students – Click here to view a listing of our teaching resources developed in partnership with the Piano Teachers Course UK. Topics covered include teaching beginners, practical psychology, technique and practising.
  • Prepare for an exam – Our examination guides contain walkthroughs of selected pieces and resources on scales and arpeggios for ABRSM and Trinity College examination syllabi
  • Learn how to improvise or teach improvisation
    • Anyone Can Improvise – A step-by-step system for learning to play by ear and improvise
    • Create First! – A collection of solo and duet pieces designed to teach improvisation to students of all ages
  • Reduce tension and avoid injury – Click here for a collection of invaluable resources by healthy piano playing expert Penelope Roskell
  • Overcome performance anxiety – Click here to view resources from performance coach Charlotte Tomlinson on overcoming performance anxiety and delivering performances that reflect your true potential

As part of various enhancements and new features that we will be rolling out over the coming months, we’ve also just added a new search wizard tool which provides a quick and easy way to find relevant content. Click here to try it out! 

Click here to find out more about the Online Academy or click here to subscribe!

Practising the Piano eBook Series 

There are surprisingly few books that deal with the art of practising. This multimedia eBook series contains hundreds of videos, audio clips, music examples and downloadable worksheets to show you exactly what need to do in order to get the most out of your practice time. Click here for more information.

Practising the Piano Online Academy

Building on my blog posts and eBook series, the Online Academy takes my work to the next level with a comprehensive library of lessons, masterclasses and resources combined with insights from other leading experts. Aimed at piano teachers and pianists, it will transform the way you approach playing or teaching the piano!

Please click here to find out more about the Online Academy or on one of the options below to subscribe:

  • Monthly subscription – Subscribe for £13.99 a month to get full, unlimited access to all Online Academy articles and updates (click here to sign-up for this option)
  • Annual subscription – Save on the monthly subscription with an annual subscription for £119.99 per year and get free eBooks and editions worth over £70! (click here to sign-up for this option)
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More Content Giveaways! – Practising the Piano

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As part of our celebrations for the Online Academy’s third birthday, we’re making a selection of popular content from across the site available free until the end of October 2019. This content includes articles, musical examples, video walk-throughs, demonstrations and lectures on topics including practising, technique, learning pieces, sight-reading, improvisation and teaching.

We’ve recently added a number of additional resources to the original collection which are listed below. All of this content will only be available free for another week therefore please be sure to have a look to avoid missing out!

New free content

  • How and When to Use Slow Practice – Slow practice is a cornerstone of our work from the beginner stages right through to the advanced level. This video shows how to approach slow practice and to enjoy it fully!
  • Quarantining – A video lecture showing how to use this practice tool to practise more effectively and to overcome challenging spots within pieces (this video also serves as an introduction to our Q-Spots series which demonstrates the concept in the context of selected works of varying levels).
  • The Basics of Playing Arpeggios – An overview of the basics of playing arpeggios which aims to make them practising them effective, interesting and fun
  • Mozart Fantasy in D Minor – This video provides a section by section walk through of Mozart’s Fantasy in D Minor K397 (sometimes referred to as Fantasia)
  • Beethoven Sonatina in G (2nd mvt) – A step-by-step approach to learning this piece from our From the Ground Up series which uses outlines and reduced scores that help you to learn pieces more effectively
  • Telemann Rigaudon – Video showing how to use simple five-finger patterns to develop the skills involved in playing the piece set in Grade 2 from the Trinity College London syllabus

Previous listing

  • The Feedback Loop – A video lecture on one of the most important tools in Graham Fitch’s Practice Tools lecture series.
  • Ballade – A walk through of the 15th work in Burgmüller’s 25 Easy and Progressive Études, Op. 100
  • Jail-breaking Hanon – A twist on how to use two of Hanon’s ubiquitous exercises to develop flexibility and forearm rotation
  • Sight-reading
  • Twelve-bar Blues – Practical demonstration and ideas on how to improvise using twelve bar blues from Lucinda Mackworth-Young’s Anyone Can Improvise!
  • Elementary Patterns – How to use elementary patterns to make progress with beginners.
  • Chopin’s Fantasie Impromptu – This video from our walkthroughs on Chopin’s Fantasie Impromptu shows how to approach one of the work’s biggest challenges, the 4:3 polyrhythm.
  • Ergonomic Fingerings for Scales and Arpeggios – How to choose ergonomic fingerings at the earliest opportunity to increase confidence and save hours of practising.
  • Create First! – Learn the materials of music (scales, intervals, and chords) in creative and musical ways with a sample solo (click here) and duet (click here).
  • Good Pianistic Posture – This video by Ilga Pitkevica shows how to achieve a good pianistic posture and do a posture “self check-out”.
  • The Basics of Playing Scales – An overview of the basics of playing scales which aims to make them practising them effective, interesting and fun.

Click here for more free content and resources or click here to find out more about the Online Academy. You can also get updates on new content from our mailing list, YouTube channel and Facebook page.

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judi

Highlights & Most Popular Content of 2019

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We’re currently taking a break over the Festive Session and will resume further posts and updates in the New Year. In the meantime, the following are some of our highlights and most popular content over the last year.

2019 Highlights:

Most popular blog posts (new):

Most popular blog posts (previous):

Most popular Online Academy series

Most popular videos on our YouTube channel:

Graham was also delighted to participate in an interview with Dr. Josh Wright which turned out to be an incredibly popular video (click here to view)!

We also launched new functionality which makes Online Academy lessons available for once-off purchase without a subscription (Click here to view a listing of available lessons). The most popular lessons on our store were as follows:

Lastly, the following were our most popular editions (Click here to view a listing of all editions and bundles):

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judi

Highlights & Most Popular Content of 2020

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We’re currently taking a break over the Festive Session and will resume further posts and updates in the New Year. In the meantime, we thought we’d leave you with some highlights and links to our most popular content from the last year.

Highlights & silver linings

Although 2020 has clearly not gone according to plan for most of us, we are very grateful that the year has still had a number of highlights, including:

  • Launch of our online workshops and events programme which enabled us to meet and interact with pianists all over the world! These included a programme of Zoom workshops, monthly practice clinics and an online take on the traditional masterclass format.
  • The Online Academy celebrated its fourth birthday
  • We welcomed new authors to the Online Academy and published many new resources, including detailed study editions and over 100 videos!

Most popular content

The following were our most popular blog posts from the last year:

And these were the most popular Online Academy series:

We also launched a new “collections” feature to provide additional ways to find and access content from our library.

Our YouTube channel has also grown significantly and these were some of the most popular videos:

In addition to the above, recordings of our monthly practice clinics have also been very popular on both YouTube and Facebook (please click here to view a playlist of all videos on YouTube).

Thanks again to all of our readers and subscribers for your support over the last year. As always, we are hard at work on many new exciting projects which we can’t wait to share with you!

More information on what’s in store for the year ahead is available here and please be sure to have a look at our courses and events page for information on our next online events.

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judi

Highlights & Most Popular Content of 2021

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We are currently taking a break over the Festive Season and will resume further posts and updates in the New Year. We will be kicking off the year with new videos for our collection of resources for the Trinity syllabus, the next work in our Beethoven on Board series and more videos on technical exercises. Our first events for the year will take place on 15th January and you can join us online or in person for several sessions, including a performance workshop and three lecture-presentations.

In the meantime, we thought we’d leave you with some highlights and links to our most popular content and events from the last year:

Highlights

Although 2021 might not have gone according to plan for most of us, we are very grateful for the wonderful experiences and highlights that the year has given us, including:

  • Piano Day – We ran a weekend of online events to celebrate Piano Day 2021 (29th March) which featured ten sessions presented by Graham Fitch, Ken Johansen, William Westney and Jory Vinikour. Click here to find out more or to purchase access to workshop recordings and resources.
  • Teaching Healthy, Expressive Piano Technique – Penelope Roskell’s new online course based on her award-winning book, The Complete Pianist, was launched in November. The course features approx. 9 hrs of high-quality footage and numerous musical examples showing how to teach all aspects of technique to students of all levels. Click here to find out more or click here to view a sample video.
  • Beethoven on Board – The first three instalments in our new Beethoven on Board series were published, featuring guided tours of Beethoven’s Op. 2 Sonatas by pianist and captain of The Piano Boat, Masayuki Tayama.
  • Examination Resources – Our collection of resources for piano examinations grew significantly and now features 100+ videos on the ABRSM and Trinity syllabuses, in addition to several videos on other aspects of exam preparation. Click here for more information.
  • How to Start Learning a New Piece – We created a free email course based on our series on learning new pieces, which over 500 participants completed! Click here to find out more or to sign-up.

Most popular content

The following are our most popular blog posts from the last year:

And these were the most popular Online Academy series:

Events

Two of our most popular YouTube videos were:

Thanks again to all of our readers and subscribers for your support over the last year. As always, we are hard at work on many exciting new projects which we look forward to sharing with you soon!

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judi

Highlights & Most Popular Content of 2022

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We are currently taking a break over the Festive Season and will resume our various activities in the New Year. Our events programme will kick-off with a presentation on interpretation and a performance workshop on the 14th of January. We will also be starting off the year with a series of initiatives themed around learning new pieces. These include online workshops on related topics, updates to our free email course and many other resources featuring a wide range of repertoire.

In the meantime, we thought we’d leave you with some highlights and links to our most popular content and events from the last year:

Highlights

The following were some of our highlights from 2022:

  • New Premises – In the latter part of the year we moved into new premises in central London. This new studio is sound-proofed with a leased-line connection making it perfect for filming and running online and in-person events.
  • London Piano Courses – The new studio has enabled us to develop our events programme further to offer a combination of in-person attendance and online participation. We ran a variety of different sessions including performance workshops, presentations and a technique workshop (click here to find out more about these events).
  • ABRSM Videos – Our first shoots in the new premises featured resources for the ABRSM 2023 & 2024 syllabus. We’ve since shot videos for 70+ works from the syllabus with almost twenty available on our site already and more to follow in due course. Click here to view an index of the available videos.
  • New Content – In addition to the above, the Online Academy’s library saw many new additions, including the last module of our Advanced Sight-Reading Curriculum, several resources on exercises and studies, a new series on Bach’s Well-Tempered Klavier and welcoming of a new author, Fred Karpoff.
  • Free Events – As part of our online workshops programme, we ran three free events on practising, memorisation and playing fast with the latter being filmed in our new studio.

Most popular content

And these were the most popular Online Academy series:

Events

The following were some of the most popular events from our programme:

And lastly, our most popular YouTube videos were:

Thanks again to all of our readers and subscribers for your support over the last year. As always, we are hard at work on many exciting new projects which we look forward to sharing with you soon!

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