Teaching Music

In Alpin Hong's TEDx video on YouTube, he plays the opening of Mozart's "Twinkle Little Star Variation." ("Twinkle Twinkle Death Star" starts at 14:15) It’s a fast, intricate piece which…

Years ago, classical music commentator Dr Karl Haas devoted an episode of his syndicated radio program, Adventures in Good Music, to the subject of mistakes, and how performers react to…

The question, “What is the true name of a musical note?,” sounds something like a Zen koan, except this koan has an obvious answer. It’s kind of like that time…

Formal conventions in Indian classical music developed over about the same span of time as formal conventions in Western classical music. In Indian music, the steady drone of a single…

Improvisation is composing and performing music at the same time, making it up as you go along. There’s a long-standing debate among modern music teachers over whether it’s artistically legitimate…

Microtonality is probably the most significant single difference between guitar and keyboards. If you plug keyboard sheet music into a MIDI sequencer, then you get something very close to the…

Guitar and piano are similar instruments in a lot of ways. In most modern styles, they are the two main instruments for polyphonic harmony. They cover a lot of the…

The core competencies for classical musicians are different than those for performers and creators of modern popular music, like rock, country and related styles, but they’re not mutually exclusive. Many…

Let's look at the similarities and differences between the core competencies you need for classical versus modern musical settings. In both classical and modern settings, you need technical proficiency on…

You should see some of the reactions from experienced musicians when they break free from the tyranny of written music for the first time. When classically-trained musicians learn that they…