This year’s teaching theme is technical development. A significant portion of a pianist’s practice time is spent working on scales, triads, chords, and arpeggios so that we have that facility at our fingertips [pun intended!] when we encounter those elements in our repertoire. At our recent group class, my piano students and I were discussing technique. My dictionary defines it as ”a method or way of performing the technical details of an art; technical skill: The pianist’s technique was brilliant…”

Great example. My students and I tried to define brilliant technique. Then we watched some excerpts of Lang Lang and Vladimir Horowitz in performance.

In the week following group class, I collected students’ ideas for different ways to practice our technique. To become better players, and to save us from boredom, here’s a peek at our list so far:

Let us count the ways