Piano Lessons in Birmingham

June is here already and we are all preparing for the Summer events of exams, the Practice-a-thon and the Summer Concert.

The Practice-a-thon starts week beginning June 15th and lasts for 2 weeks. All pupils taking part need to practise daily for 14 days and in return they receive sponsorship from family and friends.  I am anticipating great progress on pieces, scales etc as a result of all this wonderful practising.

The Theory Exams take place on June 20th, good luck to all those involved, there are a number of Grade 4s and a Grade 5 this term.  I personally enjoy Theory as a subject, it has that wonderful quality of being very precise and is therefore mostly right or wrong. Pupils can get remarkably hgh results in their theory which is always a great fillip.

Piano Exams take place just before and after the Summer Concert, pupils are playing fairly famous pieces this term including L’Autunno which is an arrangement of Vivaldi’s movement on Autumn form the Four Seasons. There is also a very atmospheric version of Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton.

The Summer concert is looming on the horizon much to the delight of all pupils. They all seem to enjoy the buzz of playing in front of an audience and especially adore the interval cakes. All the various solo, duet and trio parts are being practised assiduously – I hope!

The 6th Adults’ Evening was another success, with lots of beautiful pieces some for examinations and some played just for pleasure.This took place at my house on the 23rd June. It is great for pupils to talk to each other about successes in their learning and also the difficult techinical parts. There is always much empathy to be had talking to fellow learners.

I am currently playing some Liszt pieces, looking at his album – Annees de Pelerinage. They are gorgeous pieces, mostly unplayable by mere mortals like myself, but the few that are in reach create a magical atmosphere.  I have a recording of Stephen Hough playing the whole album which I thoroughly recommend. 

I am also today going to start learning one of the Gershwin Preludes for piano, having never played any Gershwin before and am really looking forward to all those jazzy rhythms and toe tapping sounds.