Playground Forums

Hi, I've been poking around in various piano-related blogs looking for suggestions and stumbled upon a blog for piano teachers discussing "retention rates" - how long students stick with lessons or a given teacher. The importance of the parents' role was something I hadn't considered, but most of th...

No idea where your unlocked courses have gotten themselves to, but I got an email offering me the One-Octave Scale course after I listened to one of the videos toward the end of the course (Orienting Your Ear, maybe?). I was on some lesson in the 30's, probably - it wasn't because I'd gotten to that...

I found the site, but it wouldn't play for me - sometimes there's a message, "Not available in your area," but I didn't see it here- Maybe I can find it somewhere else. As for the song I mentioned before, that I did find, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmoQil4cQ18. It's by an Iraqi singer-songwr...

Hi from the Rustbelt, made even rusty-er recently by the closing this week of the last auto plant in the area. I'm new to the piano but I did trumpet until high school and French horn starting in middle school. Learning to read music while learning an instrument at the same time sounds like real wor...

Ahlan wa sahlan! Thank you for reminding me of a song that I listened to a lot at one time, Qatrat el matar. Do you know where it would be possible to get the music so I could request the magicians here to make an arrangement for us to learn? I don't know whether it's particularly Arabic or just by ...

There's a whole library of books out nowadays on "the practice of practice," and what I've seen in more than one place is, when you're having trouble, to identify the spots that trip you up and just practice those, slowing way down and then, when you've figured out what you've been doing wrong and w...

A metronome with a blinking light is nice - once it feels like your fingers are making the light flash, you know you're in sync. A book I'm reading - "Fundamentals of Piano Practice" - claims that the brain tends to eventually start ignoring the beep of a metronome as a self-protective measure, but ...

This one (these ones?) wouldn't take a lot of work to prepare for Rookies.