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Pianodao is the piano education, music, and wellbeing site of teacher, writer, consultant, and composer Andrew Eales.

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Pianodao features hundreds of FREE articles and reviews to support pianists, teachers, and students everywhere. Explore recent highlights:

Spring Repertoire Project

There’s perhaps no better time than the Spring months for embarking on exciting new piano projects, but let’s also remember to give our perennial ‘Active Repertoire’ a timely spring clean…

Written in partnership with musician and broadcaster Jack Pepper, with a foreword by Jeneba Kanneh-Mason, ‘Music We Might Have Played’ brings together nineteen stunning piano solos for early advanced players.

The Three-Dimensional Pianist

Understanding the importance of the three dimensions of musical learning, Musical Mind, Body, and Soul, empowers us to teach, learn and practise music holistically, making effective and lasting progress.

ADHD • Insights for Pianists

ADHD has had a huge impact on my piano journey. And my wife has three decades clinical experience treating ADHD. We have created this page to share our combined expertise, offering reliable advice to support pianists and educators.

Piano teaching: an uncertain future?

By remaining flexible and open to change, piano teachers can find innovative ways to enhance their approach, attract new students, and maintain our passion for music education.

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Piano Player • Anime

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
Find out more: About Pianodao Reviews

Faber Music’s Piano Player series has been a welcome success of recent years, each handsome collection in the growing set showcasing the distinctive artwork of Edward Bawden (1903-1989) while offering an appealing variety of music within.

For information about previous titles, read my reviews here.

The cycle appeared to run its course with the release of all titles originally announced, but now enters a new era with two new collections. These no longer sport Bawden’s artwork, but otherwise retain the series aesthetic.

Likely to be particularly popular, Piano Player: Anime curates nineteen themes from Japanese anime soundtracks, arranged for solo piano…

Echoes of the Orient

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
Find out more: About Pianodao Reviews

In the last three years, I have reviewed five collections of intermediate piano music by the UK-based Malaysian piano teacher Angeline Bell, during which time she has quickly established her name as an educational composer. Her accessible pieces have also begun to feature on streaming sites and on the radio, where their warm, relaxing vibe is proving popular.

Bell’s sixth and latest publication is Echoes of the Orient. The score again appears from Editions Musica Ferrum, with cover artwork by Rebecca Harrie to match Bell’s previous Notebooks, but this time there is also a CD recording of the music by upcoming concert artist Katie Yao Morgan on the ARC Music Productions label, distributed by Naxos World.

These pieces were composed with early advanced performers in mind, and evoke Bell’s nostalgic reflections and personal recollections of growing up in East Asia. As such, this is a very different collection to its predecessors, so let’s take a look…

Naoko Ikeda • Kanade

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
Find out more: About Pianodao Reviews

When compiling Naoko Ikeda: The Graded Collection three years ago, I had the pleasure of selecting the Japanese composer’s best solo piano pieces from more than thirty publications, popular in her homeland and in the USA, but relatively little known here in the UK.

For those wanting more of Naoko Ikeda’s music to follow that Grade 2-5 anthology, as well as fans of her music everywhere, her latest collection from The Willis Music Company is Kanade, and offers “14 Beautiful Piano Solos”. I would suggest that the pieces here would suit Late Intermediate players, around UK Grades 5-6.

Two of these pieces, Foggy Blues and Manhattan Swing, were previously published internationally as single sheets, and I included both in The Graded Collection. The rest are new, with 11 fresh solo compositions, and an arrangement of Bellini’s Vaga luna, che inargenti.

First Steps Piano

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
Find out more: About Pianodao Reviews

Darragh Gilleece is an Irish pianist, composer, and educator. His distinguished career includes serving as an examiner for the Royal Irish Academy of Music (RIAM). His original music appears in their grade syllabus, bespoke method books, and now in two collections published by Forsyth Music.

The first book includes 16 original pieces suitable for students from around (UK) Initial to Grade 2, while the second ranges from around Grades 2-5.

Gilleece’s music in these collections is traditional with a modern twist. Pieces are highly appealing in their tone, packed with valuable learning content, imaginative, and well-crafted. My review below includes the composer’s recordings of a couple to give a flavour.

Spring Repertoire Project

Active Repertoire Project

Supporting Your Piano Pathway
Written by Andrew Eales

The Spring season is a time of dynamic reawakening and renewal. That which has remained quietly dormant is reborn, joining the fresh abundance of new life. I’m surely not the only one who finds this the most vibrant and beautiful time of year!

There’s perhaps no better time for embarking on exciting new piano projects, but let’s also remember to give our perennial Active Repertoire a fresh ‘spring clean’.

Our Active Repertoire is the music we can play with confidence, fluency, and expression, for our own and others’ enjoyment, and preferably from memory.

Through my teaching, and here on Pianodao, I encourage players to always have three or more pieces that are performance-ready, and to support this goal I offer a quarterly project sheet for you to freely download:

Spring Repertoire Project Sheet

Our Active Repertoire is our point of peak strength as pianists. Even so, some pieces can become tired and worn, in need of refreshment, while some others we might simply want to replace.

Instrumental Music Education

The Pianodao Bookshelf

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
Find out more: About Pianodao Reviews

‘Instrumental Music Education’, newly published by Bloomsbury Academic, is a compendium of well-researched articles written by a team of 27 authors, all associated with the music department at the University of York, compiled and edited by Elizabeth Haddon.

For those interested in academic insight into instrumental teaching trends, this is a wide-ranging and thought-provoking book sporting 19 chapters, each a distinct article covering an area of special interest.

An endorsement of the book from Professor Stephanie Pitts, University of Sheffield explains that:

“This collection offers insights on topics as varied as dealing with transfers from one instrumental teacher to another, overcoming barriers to practice, and understanding cross-cultural differences in teaching philosophies. There is inspiration here for new and established teachers, as well as for music education researchers seeking an up to date overview of research-informed pedagogy.”

Instrumental Music Education is available as a FREE ebook here, with open access funded by the University of York. This gives you the chance to explore it for yourself without further commitment, while of course guaranteeing that the publication wins five stars for ‘value for money’.

Bloomsbury have also produced physical hardback and paperback editions. My review is based on the handsomely presented hardback (whose excellent aesthetics I think justify the price) but I will focus attention on the content, common to all versions, and recommend readers sample the ebook in the first instance.

Patience: The Greater Peak

Fermata • Pause and Reflect

Supporting Your Piano Pathway
Reflection by Andrew Eales

This succinct and beautiful verse has set me thinking about the true benefits of learning to play the piano. It’s called Gazing At The Peak, and was written by the Chinese poet Du Fu, who lived from 712-770:

“Who can describe the Great Peak?
The province is not yet green,
yet nature gathers its divine beauty
and yin parts from yang at dusk and dawn.
I bare my chest to the living clouds,
strain my eyes toward the birds flying home.
I will climb to the very summit
and shrink many mountains within a single glance.”

Translation by Deng Ming-Dao,
from his book Each Journey Begins With a Single Step (2018):

So what does this ancient poem have to do with the benefits of piano playing, or with developing patience? Well, let’s explore and find out…

Spotlight or quiet life?

Fermata • Pause and Reflect

Supporting Your Piano Pathway
Reflection by Andrew Eales

Anonymity can mean many things. As musicians, we perhaps associate the word with those composers of old whose names have been lost to history. Their works are attributed to “anon”, either because they weren’t that interested in taking the credit, or because they left the stage without providing a forwarding address.

And let’s face it, in the pressured world of piano playing, as elsewhere, being well-known certainly brings its own challenges, with exposure to scrutiny, conflict, and the envy of those who are less successful or simply unfulfilled. No wonder some actually value the quiet life more highly than the spotlight!

And yet we still sometimes confuse anonymity with failure, because we equate success with making a name for oneself. But there are many other (some would say better) ways to measure our success in life.

So should we actively pursue anonymity? Can a wise balance be found, whereby we authentically share our gifts and lives without constantly craving the limelight?

Piano Music of Latin American Composers

Pianodao Music Library

Selected and Reviewed by Andrew Eales
Find out more: About Pianodao Reviews

A couple of years ago, Hal Leonard launched a new series of repertoire collections under the banner of ‘Expanding the Repertoire’, the first two books being a couple of volumes edited by Leah Claiborne called Piano Music of Black Composers. Reviewing them at the time, I concluded that although the two volumes could be welcomed simply as an inclusive diversification of the pedagogy literature, nevertheless,

“…the quality of the content makes a compelling case for introducing this music to all our elementary to intermediate students, regardless of their heritage.”

I am glad to see that the series has now itself been expanded, with two complementary volumes of music by Latin American composers. Once again, the Level 1 book will suit elementary to late elementary players (UK Initial to Grade 2), while Level 2 caters for early to late intermediate (Grades 2-5).

Compiled and edited by Desireé González-Miller, Piano Music of Latin American Composers is an eye-catching resource, so let’s take a look…

Piano teaching: an uncertain future?

Fermata • Pause and Reflect

Supporting Your Piano Pathway
Reflection by Andrew Eales

In the ever-evolving landscape of piano education, our work as private teachers has transformed significantly in recent years, and I know many who are quietly struggling with a nagging sense of uncertainty about their continuing career prospects.

But by embracing a mindset that views challenge as an opportunity for growth, we can navigate uncertainty and face the future with positivity…