Pianodao

Why The Classics Still Matter

Supporting Your Piano Pathway
Reflection by Andrew Eales

When considering a pupil’s stated musical interests, an expectation can easily take hold that they are unlikely to be interested in playing classical music. But as the great composer and educator Zoltan Kodály wisely cautioned:

“Let us take our children seriously!
Only the best is good enough for a child.”

A commitment that “only the best is good enough” should ensure that music which is second-rate or pedagogically weak stays on the shelf.

Meanwhile, the core classics, while not exclusively “the best”, surely (and by definition) have continuing educational importance. And if piano teachers don’t enthusiastically communicate the many glories of our repertoire, who on earth will?

Our work as piano teachers fundamentally involves expanding the horizons of each student’s musical knowledge and experience, taking them to territory they are unlikely to explore without a competent guide.

Eugénie Rocherolle’s Fantasia del Tango

Pianodao Music Library

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

Among the American piano composers to gain prominence since William Gillock (1917-1993), Eugénie Rocherolle (b.1936) is certainly a leading light, and I have increasingly taken an interest in her work as it has steadily become more familiar here in the UK. To find out about her other recent publications, you can check my previous reviews here.

A few months back, her 2016 collection Fantasia del Tango appeared in a new edition here, and it’s another firm winner. Read on to find out more…

A Path that is Yours Alone

Fermata • Pause and Reflect

Supporting Your Piano Pathway
Reflection by Andrew Eales

Stephen Nachmanovitch’s inspiring book Free Play (1990) offers an uplifting paean to creativity, improvisation, playful curiosity, and personal artistry. Though endorsed by the likes of Yehudi Menuhin and Keith Jarrett, it seems many have yet to discover the book and embrace its ethos; do look it up!

Early in the book, Nachmanovitch paints an evocative scene:

“A walk, following your intuitive promptings, down the streets of a foreign city holds rewards far beyond a planned tour of the tried and tested. Such a walk is totally different from random drifting. Leaving your eyes and ears wide open, you allow your likes and dislikes, your conscious and unconscious desires and irritations, your irrational hunches, to guide you whenever there is a choice of turning right or left. You cut a path through the city that is yours alone, which brings you face to face with surprises destined for you alone…
When you travel in this way you are free; there are no have-to’s and shoulds… As the pattern of people and places unfolds, the trip, like an improvised piece of music, reveals its own inner structure and rhythm.”

As we enter the holiday season, with many of us looking forward to travels at home and abroad, why not try out Nachmanovitch’s recommendation? Just remember to take a map, a bottle of water and provisions.

At the piano, too, how about we embrace a little more spontaneity?

Mike Cornick’s Grieg Favourites

Pianodao Music Library

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

Mike Cornick is perhaps best known for his contributions to the repertoire of jazz-styled solo, duet and ensemble music, and I have previously reviewed several of his publications, all of which are available from Universal Edition.

Cornick’s more recent duet collections have steered towards arrangements of popular classics, and the latest continues this trend.

Mike Cornick’s Grieg Favourites is a sequel to the earlier Elgar Favourites collection, reviewed here, and offers an inspiring selection of new arrangements that are suitable for players around UK Grades 4-7 level, and which are sure to engage performers and their audience alike.

ABRSM Prep Test 2025

Educational Resources

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

In addition to launching their 2025-26 Piano Exam Syllabus reviewed here, ABRSM have surprised us with an update to their Prep Test content, with a new book to replace their previous (2016) one.

Historically, this was their only Pre-Grade 1 option, which gave future grade exam candidates the opportunity to visit the exam room and play for an examiner in a more friendly, less formal context, and without an assessed pass/fail outcome. But with the introduction of ABRSM’s Initial Grade and video-based assessments, teachers may have wondered whether the Prep Test would be quietly forgotten.

From 2025, the Prep Test retains its existing format in full, and remains exclusively a live music examination, with happy, human connection at its heart.

But in the age of “Performance Grades” and digital diplomas, this first visit to the exam room could now prove to be a learner’s only ever visit. And with the Initial Grade now sharing the Pre-Grade 1 space, we need to consider where the Prep Test now fits in the educational landscape…

The Einstellung Effect

Fermata • Pause and Reflect

Supporting Your Piano Pathway
Reflection by Andrew Eales

The Einstellung Effect is a form of cognitive bias which happens when our existing knowledge or habitual ways of thinking influence our approach to solving fresh problems as we encounter them.

Rather than exploring innovative, bespoke solutions, we too often simply fall back on the familiar. This can hinder our ability to find more effective answers, and prevents us from discovering better strategies or ideas.

As the writer Anthony T. DeBenedet, M.D. explains in his bestselling book Playful Intelligence (2018):

“The Einstellung Effect is the development of a mechanised state of mind, referring to a predisposition to solve a problem based on previous experience, even though a better way to solve the problem exists. Einstellung is essentially the negative effect, or influence, of previous experience when solving new problems.”

Ironically, the more expert we become, the less wise and flexible we can actually be when it comes to recognising the value of fresh ideas. We box ourselves in with a belief that ours is the best or only way.

As DeBenedet puts it, we’re stuck,

“If we rely too much on our past experience to solve a problem, we allow the brain’s connections that have always fired together to continue firing (and wiring!) together. This is how we get stuck.”

And because piano playing has a strong cognitive element, the Einstellung Effect can impact our progress here too. Here’s a few of the signs:

persisting with the same practice routine from one day to the next, even though we aren’t getting the results we hope for.
consistently following the same lesson routines with students, week after week.
improvisations that always fall back on the same recurring musical ideas, progressions, and vamps.

The Piano Jukebox

Fermata • Pause and Reflect

Supporting Your Piano Pathway
Reflection by Andrew Eales

The prevalence of pop, game and film tunes in simplified piano arrangements in the latest syllabus publications from ABRSM and Trinity College has led to a healthy debate among teachers and players.

Such arrangements are of course nothing new. It is simply that we are now freshly encountering them in a different context, giving rise to lively discussion about their suitability, broader musical and educational value.

There are issues here that need to be considered carefully, with appropriate attention to context.

Grieg • A Piano Treasury

Pianodao Music Library

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

Were I to provide a roll call of the composers whose music is of essential and special importance in the piano repertoire, Grieg’s name would be an early and easy addition to that shortlist (as indeed it was when I considered what music to include in The Joy of Graded Piano series).

For those who haven’t discovered the wonders, variety and joy of Grieg’s music, most of which is suitable for late intermediate and early advanced players (UK Grades 5-8), a new collection from Edition Peters offers a superb introduction to the man and his music.