A wide variety of stuff... We all know the YouTube algorithm is an absolute disaster so from time to time, I am obliged to share recent videos here that you may not have been notified about. I've been going through some older videos with a view to remaking them with better video and audio, as well as being a lot shorter. In the past (3-4+ years ago), longer videos were tolerated but not anymore. I hope you will enjoy this nice little mix of useful content to help you on your destinationless piano journey. Podcast Collection 1. The Circle/Cycle of Fourths Very important to be aware ..read more

30-minute sessions available... I would like to make myself more available to subscribers while at the same time, topping up my YouTube income because the algorithm has really given up promoting my videos. I would also like to be accessible to those who cannot afford regular weekly sessions and may feel forgotten. Therefore, I am making myself available for 3 hours a day, 7 days a week, between 1pm and 4pm for 30 minute sessions. For this opportunity, I only ask 10 euros/dollars. To be fair to everyone, you can only book one per week and the 30 minutes must be strictly adhered to, for ob ..read more

Recommended viewing... As the year comes to an end, I thought it would be a good idea to look back on the many videos I made for you and pick out my favourite ones (not the ones which necessarily got the most views). They are provided below, from earliest in the year to most recent, with a little explanation as to why I have chosen them. Enjoy! ---  Most songs are composed 'diatonically', meaning that the melody and chords used are 90%+ in the key of the piece, so they use only the notes of the major scale of that key. Pop more often that note only uses major and minor triad; it's j ..read more

  Blue Danube example Not everybody wants to take the long journey of being able to sight-read extremely well. There are arguments for and against this but in this post, I'll focus on why you don't need to... because you have an ear! If you've followed my content for a while, you'll know I always talk about mind first and mention the following concepts: internal piano, internal jukebox and internal manuscript. The second one is of interest to us in this article. Once you have chosen your song (I demonstrate this on my channel using Blue Danube over three video parts, see below), find ..read more

No more technical exercises! Sometimes, you need a break from playing what you already know, trying to learn new repertoire or working on technical exercises. Of course these all have benefits but it's human nature to get bored of repetition after a while. The best alternative for the pianist is composition, a word which seems to have a very negative connotation to many so I'd like to address the benefits of composition in this article and soothe your perhaps too negative concept of this very enjoyable and rewarding activity. First of all, here is the video which relates to this article. In ..read more

Let's do all the keys!   Your chord-type mastery and ability to play them comfortably and instantly in all twelve keys is one of my ambitions. If you neglect this practice, you are only making your own journey more difficult: you will hesitate more, you will struggle to remember progressions, improvising will be impossible and your general key mastery and fingers-on-keys time will all be jeopardised. My remedy to this mountain you must peak is to give you the opportunity, four chords at a time (per video), to play them along with me slowly, until you can do them yourself more quickly ..read more

   Out with the old... Over the course of a week, for around 6-8 hours each day, I started on a clean-up project to help my YouTube statistics in terms of views, watch time and viewer retention. After studying many videos and articles on this topic, I decided it was time to start doing some cleaning up for my benefit and that of my viewers (subscribers or new). Looking at the (very, very detailed) analytics that YouTube provides, I wanted to find the most viewed videos to date but only for videos published since the beginning of the channel (June, 2014) until Dec 31, 2020; to see ..read more

   Are you in...?   For the price of only two or three regular piano lessons, you are giving yourself access to a (piano) life-changing opportunity: not just a destinationless journey of Mind, Body and Piano mastery but a personalised learning curve which will provide you with everything You need to go beyond what you would otherwise dare to believe possible from yourself. Your path is unique. Your learning method and speed of acquisition of skills and knowledge is unique. Your musical personality is unique. No book has ever been, nor ..read more

  My favourite exercises... Sometimes, you need to spend time away from repertoire to work on finger independence and precision, not to mention their rapidity and comfort in various pairs and keys. Consider a sportsperson: they only perform for maybe 10-20% of their career; the rest is training, with that training not always and only doing exactly what the performance requires but efforts towards a calmer mind, a stronger, healthier body and techniques which provide general overall enhancement during training and important performances. It's very much similar to how, in the now infamo ..read more

  Three videos to help...   Boogie-Woogie piano requires mastery of and much time spent with the following four core aspects at the piano.  Without them, no or very little progress will be made which may result in you giving up, which would be a great shame! However, as this article will discuss, there's a few things to do away from the piano as well. At the piano, you'll focus on the following which are presented in videos below: 1. Left hand techniques; 2. Right hand riffs; 3. Hand co-ordination; 4. Steadiness in execution/rhythmic feel. The first is discussed in the follow ..read more