Playing Repertoire

In Praise of Cream Paper

Supporting Your Piano Pathway
Reflection by Andrew Eales

Among the positive differences this website has sought to encourage, the growing adoption of cream paper by music publishers is to be celebrated.

Regular readers are sure to have noticed that I typically include information about paper quality and colour when reviewing music books; some will be glad for this tidbit of information, while others may wonder why it matters, or if indeed it matters at all.

Is the use of cream paper simply an odd, even slightly elitist, anachronism? Actually, no. So let’s consider the noteworthy advantages of using cream paper for music printing and publications…

Why The Classics Still Matter

Fermata • Pause and Reflect

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.

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.

Embracing our limits

Fermata • Pause and Reflect

Supporting Your Piano Pathway
Reflection by Andrew Eales

“Every river has its banks, every ocean has its shores. Constant expansion is not possible. Everything reaches its limits, and the wise always try to identify these limits.”

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao Daily Meditations

I love this metaphor of the river: it is the banks which give it direction, focus its energetic flow, and encourage it towards its destination. It doesn’t want to burst its banks, and quickly dissipates when flooding causes it to. How much better to flow where its banks lead.

The shores of the ocean, meanwhile, are ultimately the boundaries which define it. The shoreline is a point of safety, security, a haven from the deep. And while I often remind students that piano playing is the journey of a lifetime, without destination, we all need to spend time in port, resupplying our vessels and finding refreshment.

The desire to push beyond our natural limits may have become an endemic demand in every field of human endeavour, but there is surely little doubt this attitude is responsible for many of the problems we face. So how can we come to terms with our limitations and leverage them to our advantage?

When East Meets West

Fermata • Pause and Reflect

Supporting Your Piano Pathway
Reflection by Andrew Eales

In his foreword to Wing-Tsit Chan’s A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, published in 1963 by Princeton University Press (and still one of the outstanding collections of Chinese philosophical writing in English translation) Charles A. Moore writes:

“One of the hopeful signs in these otherwise hectic times in which we are living is the long-overdue realisation of the need for mutual understanding between the peoples of the East and those of the West. Genuine understanding of people who are separated from us by great distances or who are different from us in language, in way of life, in social custom, is difficult to achieve, even for those who are sincerely dedicated to this task.”

In the six decades since Moore wrote these inspiring words, I wonder how far we have come. Here in the 2020’s, have our continents, countries and communities become more tolerant, more open to the ideas and culture of others? It seems to me that, perhaps, we still have quite a distance to cover.

Ever since my very first post to launch the Pianodao site back in 2015, I have continued in my efforts to apply the wisdom of Eastern philosophy to piano playing and education. As a music reviewer, pianist and teacher, I have also increasingly discovered the wonderful benefits of developing a more inclusive, extended core performance and pedagogy repertoire.