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Piano Inspires Podcast: Ann DuHamel

Written By Ann DuHamel, Pamela Pike

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Ann DuHamel, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of her conversation with Pamela Pike. Want to learn more about DuHamel? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with DuHamel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Connor Chee, Ann DuHamel, Leah Claiborne, and Sara Davis Buechner after their NCKP 2023: The Piano Conference PEDx presentations.

Ann DuHamel: Right around the time I was about to record that [Brahms and Transformation Project], there’s this explosion—what I perceive as an explosion—of news about climate change. Of course, I try to pay attention to the news and my husband is sort of a NPR junkie, so there’s news going on all the time in our house. But I just felt like what used to be an occasional news item, like once a month, twice a month, suddenly became like every week, every day, every hour, several times an hour. It just hit me! First, what I wanted to do was crawl under the covers and read Harry Potter. You know it’s like—you want to escape, because it is overwhelming, totally overwhelming.

Pamela Pike: But you didn’t. You used your music.

AD: I did. I mean, I was thinking, “What can I do?” Because I try to do things that are thoughtful about the environment. I live in a small town so I can walk to work. It takes me twenty-two minutes to walk to my office. I don’t walk when it’s -40 [degrees Fahrenheit] or when it’s icy, but I can walk to school. I walk to the grocery store; I walk to the gym; I walk to the movie theater. When I moved into my house, it was like all lawn, and every year I take out more lawn and put in more native plants. So, you know, trying to do things like that. I planted trees last year. We recycle; we compost. We do these things, but it didn’t feel like it was enough. I was thinking, “Well maybe I can do a musical program that’s music about climate change.” And this idea, like, actually, that idea gave me some hope. It gave me some courage. So this project evolved out of a feeling of despair and has become something—it actually feels, very significant to my life’s work.

PP: Oh it is! I mean, it is. It has to be. I’m glad it feels that way, because as an outsider, it certainly looks that way. And I think it speaks to the power of music. It shows how you can take something that doesn’t seem like it’s related to your professional life, but actually you can use it to change people’s minds and hearts and, hopefully, actions.

AD: That is my hope!

PP: Talk about programming a little bit. I think you’re masterful at your programming. I think too many people think, “I’m just going to program and not worry about my audience.” I don’t think you believe that.

AD: I don’t believe that. It’s really important to have works that your audience can engage with, and even if sometimes they challenge your audience, I think you want to have a balance. So, yes. When I’m programming—I mean I have many pieces in this project. Sixty—it’s going to be more than sixty because I’ve also started to commission some underrepresented composers. But thinking about, like, “How can I have a theme?” I have a program that I could do that’s all pieces related to water. I think about what narrative is happening when I do the program. “Where does it start? Where does it take people? Where does it end?” This year, I’ve been on sabbatical, and I haven’t been playing all sixty pieces when I’ve been playing because it’s like more than eight-and-a-half hours of music. I say it’s more than eight and a half. I haven’t actually counted; it’s probably like twelve. I don’t know! It’s a lot of music. So I play a recital that’s around seventy minutes of music. But some places want less, so I can—it’s very flexible. Some places, they’re like, “We can do up to two hours.” So then I do a little more. But I think about, you know, “Where does it start? How does it go? Where does it end? What’s powerful?” And I think about, like, “Where do I put the pieces that are really dissonant and challenging, and crunchy, and demanding? Then, how can I have something that follows it that is more consonant? How can I have a piece that’s beautiful, and where do I put that, and how does it have a big impact?” So, yeah, it’s—yes, I do think about that.

PP: I mean it’s critical. It’s critical for your audience’s participation—

AD: Yes, and their engagement.

PP: Exactly.

If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Ann DuHamel on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

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Book Review: Weight in the Fingertips: A Musical Odyssey from Soviet Ukraine to the World Stage by Inna Faliks
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Episode 17: Ann DuHamel, Pianist, Teaching Artist, and 2023-24 McKnight Artist Fellow

Written By Piano Inspires

Join Ann DuHamel as she discusses the importance of music as an agent of change in the world with Pamela Pike.

Ann DuHamel, McKnight Artist Fellow and Past President of the Minnesota Music Teachers Association, currently serves as Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota Morris. She is a bibliophile, chocoholic, eccentric gardener, Futurama fan, piano nerd, tea drinker, walking enthusiast, and yoga devotee.

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Collegiate Resources

Written By Piano Inspires

Calling all collegiate students! Looking for more information about how The Frances Clark Center can help you as you navigate the early stages of your career? Look no further. In this article, we will share information and resources including employment and postgraduate opportunities, opportunities for students, discounts on purchases, and other ways to get involved. To learn more, click here.

Employment and Postgraduate Opportunities

Continuing Education at The New School for Music Study

The Frances Clark Center offers a range of teacher education initiatives at The New School for Music Study in Princeton, NJ. These programs build on the educational philosophy and legacy of renowned founders Frances Clark and Louise Goss, and have produced internationally recognized teachers and performers.

Opportunities for Students

Journal of Piano Research

The Frances Clark Center for Keyboard Pedagogy is pleased to launch the Journal of Piano Research, a new peer-reviewed research journal and high-quality source of research articles dedicated to piano teaching, learning, and performance. The journal is an international, peer-reviewed publication promoting the exploration, discussion, and dissemination of high-level research that will advance professional practice and scholarship.

The Journal of Piano Research invites submissions of scholarly manuscripts based upon completed empirical research conducted through a variety of scientific methodologies, including quantitative, qualitative, ethnographic, historical, and philosophical methods.

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Discounts on Purchases

Collegiate Group Subscriptions

Discounted Piano Magazine Group Subscriptions

Group subscriptions to PianoInspires.com are perfect for piano pedagogy classes, university membership chapters, or applied piano studios. Subscriptions include Piano Magazine quarterly issues and all digital resources on PianoInspires.com, including our comprehensive search feature. Subscriptions also include discounts on individual online courses and Jane Magrath’s Piano Literature for Teaching and Performance.

Collegiate Group TypeRegular PriceCollegiate Group Price
Digital Only$36/person$29.45/person
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(US and Canadian Shipping Only)		US: $48/person
CAN: $54/person		US: $38.95/person
CAN: $44.65/person
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Other Ways to Get Involved

We invite students to interact with our engaging, educational content on social media. Our socials are a place for discussing relevant topics in pedagogy, engaging with teaching video content, diving deeper on composers and pieces, connecting with other curious pianists, and enjoying freebies and discounts throughout the year. Our socials are a great way to encourage students to interact with their craft on a daily basis through channels they are adept at navigating.

Questions on our collegiate resources? Email [email protected].

Looking for more resources for collegiate students? Learn more by clicking here.

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Episode 16: Michelle Conda, Educator, Author, and 2023 Frances Clark Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient

Written By Piano Inspires

Join Michelle Conda and Andrea McAlister in a discussion about pedagogy, legacy, and Dr. Conda’s deserving recognition as the 2023 Frances Clark Center Lifetime Achievement Award Winner. 

Michelle Conda is Professor of Piano Pedagogy at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and is praised for her extraordinary contributions to the field of piano pedagogy.




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Piano Inspires Podcast: Michelle Conda

Written By Michelle Conda, Andrea Mcalister

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Michelle Conda, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of her conversation with Andrea. Want to learn more about Conda? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Conda on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Jennifer Snow, Michelle Conda, and Samuel Holland after Conda was presented the Lifetime Achievement Award at NCKP 2023: The Piano Conference.

Andrea McAlister: Now, let’s dive back a little bit because we’re talking about, you know, this passion and the experience of making music. Was this something that you always were called to do? So when you were young and starting lessons and—did you always have that joy about making music? Was there ever a time that you thought, “oh, I don’t know if this is something that I love enough to make my profession,” or, “I don’t want to practice today?”

Michelle Conda: Oh, I go every day “I don’t want to practice today!” You know, practice is one of those things that I have a saying it’s called “Butt to the Bench.” Once you get your butt to the bench, it’s lots of fun, but there’s a lot of things that can get in the way of that. So it takes a lot—I know—a lot of discipline to do that. But, to answer the first part of your question, by age seven when I could write, my first little essay about what you’re going to do when you grow up [was]: “I’m going to be a piano teacher.” But even before that—the piano was mine. When I was like five years old, we got a piano for Christmas. Actually on one of the pictures I sent in, they show me at that age when I was a little curly haired girl. I was cute then, and—

AM: You’re cute now.

MC: But still, my piano’s in the background. My piano. My sisters were not allowed to play it. That was my piano. Then, after a year or two, I had to get my tonsils out. I did not want to get my tonsils out. I acted naughty, and finally ended up having to go home because I got a fever. But in the meantime, I made life miserable for everybody at the hospital, everyone. Well, I still had to get them out. So my mother baited me. She goes, “If you are a nice girl, you can get piano lessons.” I was the nicest girl you’ve ever seen, and I got my piano lessons and it was so great. I practiced every day. I think the things that really helped me a lot as a child [were], first of all my mother; she’s still my inspiration. She’s ninety-five, still on her own, still plays the piano.

AM: Oh, great.

MC: Oh, yeah. But she would inspire me to practice. She would just say, “I love hearing you play this.” She wouldn’t correct me ever—well, she didn’t like me chewing gum. But besides that, she didn’t correct me and music making became just a joy. Then, honestly playing for church, because when you first start playing for church—I probably was horrible. I didn’t know that; everybody said I did great. And then you just keep playing and you play for this musical and that musical—your life! Being a pianist is not a job. It’s a lifestyle. And it was my lifestyle all through high school, all through grade school.

Then I went to college my freshman year. For one brief week, I said, “I think I want to be a philosophy major.” That week went pretty fast. What happened is I got Angie Schmid, my piano teacher, who inspired me to go deep into music. I had no idea how deep you could go into music, and that was it. I finished my philosophy course and I was out. Music became the center of my life again. I—you know, you fight it your whole life kind of. If you’re a faculty member, you can get tuition remission, and I’ve looked through course catalogs before, like we all do, and say, “Oh, maybe I’ll do this, maybe I’ll—.” But when it really comes down to it, I’ve been led in this direction. The only other part of this direction I’ve been led also to is the teaching element, and I started teaching when I was very young, probably eight, nine, ten years old.

AM: That’s very young.

MC: Yeah.

AM: Who were you teaching?

MC: The neighborhood kids, everybody. Well I was already playing pretty well by ten. I just ended up teaching all the neighborhood kids. Oh, my God, I was such a horrible, horrible teacher. But luckily, they were very forgiving of my teaching and I got better. The more I got better, the more I did a better job teaching. Also, the more I became student-centered and less ‘this is what I want you to do,’ and really paid attention to how someone was learning, I got even better. Then—tell me if I bore you—but I started to teach communiversity classes. These are evening courses. I just loved teaching them. There would be a waiting list for these classes. I couldn’t understand what I was doing right. That’s why I decided to get my doctorate, because I wanted to find out what I was doing right. Thank you, and thank all the people from the University of Oklahoma—you helped me, encouraged me. When I learned how people can encourage you to do well, that also changed my teaching. Because I learned encouragement is so much better than negative talk.

AM: It’s interesting to hear you talk about the student-centered part of your teaching and how that developed. It takes some people decades to learn that that’s how students learn best, and that encouragement is how students learn best. It seems like that’s just something that you realized from an early age.

If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Michelle Conda on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

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TRIBUTES TO Frances Clark Center Lifetime Achievement Honorees Michelle Conda & George Litterst
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Leveraging Artificial Intelligence in the Piano Studio

Written By Omar Roy

We would like to thank Omar Roy for this insightful article on artificial intelligence and its use in the piano studio. Want to learn more about artificial intelligence? Check out the latest issue of Piano Magazine. Our new summer issue can be found by clicking here.

In recent years, the proliferation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has simultaneously caused both awe and controversy. Many express curiosity regarding how it works, what its limitations are, and how it might be used for their benefit. However, AI is not a new phenomenon and has been around for decades, with its development beginning as early as the 1940s and 1950s, most notably with the work of Alan Turing.1 On a more sophisticated scale, OpenAI’s “ChatGPT” has become almost ubiquitous with the term “AI,” though it is only one example of the extent to which AI has been developed. But what exactly is ChatGPT, and why is it so popular?

ChatGPT is a Generative AI (GenAI) constructed around a Large Language Model (LLM). According to Microsoft, a large language model is “a type of AI that can process and produce natural language text. It learns from…text data such as books, articles, and web pages to discover patterns and rules of language from them.”2 Whenever you send a text message, you’ll see predictive text suggestions to complete your message—that’s an LLM at work. ChatGPT happens to be one of the most comprehensive and most widely known. With the right prompts, ChatGPT can generate content that is surprisingly sophisticated, making it a powerful tool in the right hands.

ChatGPT and the Independent Piano Teacher

While much effort is being channeled into uncovering the latent possibilities for AI as a pedagogical aid, the use of AI in business-related administrative tasks is well documented.

Within the independent piano studio, teachers often act in other capacities. These include the roles of business owner, manager, customer service representative, and event planner, to name a few. Each of these roles is often laden with administrative responsibilities that can be time consuming. While there exists software to address many of the tasks that teachers may run into, some teachers may not yet have a large enough studio, or the revenue, to justify a subscription to a studio management system. In this article, we’ll explore a few examples of common tasks and how teachers can leverage ChatGPT to accomplish those tasks more efficiently.3

Remember, tools like ChatGPT
are LLMs – Large Language Models,
not creative thinkers or researchers.

Entering the AI Playground

Scheduling, for example, can be an extremely time-consuming task without the aid of some sort of scheduling software. ChatGPT makes swift work of collating multiple availabilities into a single schedule in mere seconds. Simply copying and pasting the various availabilities into the prompt area and asking ChatGPT to assign times based on mutual availability yielded the following result.

You:

Compile the following schedules of availability so that each person gets a single 1-hour meeting with me on either Monday or Tuesday between the hours of 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. People may not share the same time with each other.

Michael: Monday 9:00am-12:00pm, 1:00pm to 2:00pm, 3:30pm – 4:30pm; Tuesday 12:00-1:00pm, 2:00pm-3:30pm

Vivek: Monday 9:00am-10:00am, 1:00pm to 2:00pm, 3:00pm – 4:30pm; Tuesday 12:00-1:00pm, 2:30pm-4:30pm

Xiaohan: Monday 10:00am-12:00pm, 1:00pm to 2:30pm, 3:30pm – 5:00pm; Tuesday 11:00am-1:00pm, 1:30pm-3:30pm

Stephanie: Monday 10:30am-12:00pm, 1:30pm to 3:00pm, 3:30pm – 4:30pm; Tuesday 12:00-1:00pm, 2:00pm-3:30pm

ChatGPT:

Here’s the compiled schedule with each person having a single 1-hour meeting with you on either Monday or Tuesday between 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and ensuring that no two people share the same time slot:

  • Michael: Monday 9:00am – 10:00am
  • Vivek: Monday 10:00am – 11:00am
  • Xiaohan: Monday 11:00am – 12:00pm
  • Stephanie: Monday 1:30pm – 2:30pm

All meetings are scheduled for 1 hour within your specified time frame, and each person has a unique time slot.

While this example involves only four students, it’s quite easy to scale this to larger numbers—if you have everything organized in a spreadsheet, you can even copy and paste the entire spreadsheet into the prompt box. Note that the current free version of ChatGPT (GPT 3.5) no longer supports document upload, so users must upgrade to the paid version (GPT 4.0) in order to access those features.

We hope you enjoyed this excerpt from Omar Roy’s article “Leveraging Artificial Intelligence in the Piano Studio.” To read the full article, please click here.

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Leveraging Artificial Intelligence in the Piano Studio
NOTES
  1. Harvard Medical School. “A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence.” Harvard University. Last modified September 28, 2017. sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2017/history-artificial-intelligence/.
  2. Microsoft. “Workshop: Interact with OpenAI Models.” Microsoft. microsoft.github.io/Workshop-Interact-with-OpenAI-models/llms/.
  3. OpenAI. “ChatGPT: Conversational AI developed by OpenAI.” OpenAI. openai.com/chatgpt.
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Piano Inspires Podcast: George Litterst

Written By George Litterst, Shana Kirk

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring George Litterst, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of his conversation with Shana Kirk. Want to learn more about Litterst? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Litterst on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Sam Holland, George Litterst, and Jennifer Snow after Litterst was presented with the 2023 Frances Clark Center Lifetime Achievement Award.

Shana Kirk: As I’m listening to you today and reflecting on our history as collaborators and colleagues, a few things repeat—a few themes, if you will. So our little motifs that we find over and over in the life of George Litterst are “passionate persistence;” there is another one that you kind of alluded to a little bit earlier, which was “always asking why.” So this just incredible, deep curiosity that is childlike in so many ways. We’ve had this conversation before that, you know, we sometimes train the curiosity out of children, and it’s much better if we don’t. It’s also challenging in many ways if we don’t—but endless curiosity. And then finally, a generosity, which is what you just exhibited; generosity that is always sharing the credit, and often taking way more time and way more effort than would be expected of someone who asks you a simple question, and then you find them in a corner later still hovering over two computers! So much generosity to make sure anyone who asks a question gets it answered thoroughly, sometimes a week or two later. [laughs] But always with incredible thoroughness. What’s the future of George Litterst, and not just the future of George Litterst—how are you and your work, changing the world? I’ll say another question as well to encompass that, which is: what impact is music having on the world?

George Litterst: Okay, well, there are quite a number of questions in there. I’ll first start by saying that the basic work of enabling and assisting the community of musicians to take advantage of the technologies that we currently have is really far from over. It’s true that because of the pandemic, people had to suddenly start doing things that they didn’t do before and got out of their comfort zone, and got used to making better use of computers and things like that. But I think that their use has been still rather narrowly focused and we have a long path to go still to connect teaching to what’s actually happening when you’re playing the instrument, to the learning process. All of which is to say that the things that we’ve developed up to this point, I don’t think are yet fully exploited. So there’s a lot of work to be done just to evangelize what we have done to this point. A lot of my focus today is on an application that we have called SuperScore, which is an interactive platform for the delivery of sheet music in digital formats. It’s unique in the sense that the notation display itself is liquid—you can resize it and it gets literally re-engraved on the fly, which makes a big difference for the person that—one person needs to be able to have help discriminating between lines and spaces and they need big size. Somebody else is able to look at groups of notes and realize what the harmony is and what the horizontal patterns are, and they need to see more music at a time. So we do this at a publication quality and I think we’re the only ones currently who achieved that. Thanks, of course, to Frank Weinstock.

SK: Well, I should point out SuperScore is an iPad app.

GL: Yes, and it has interactivity directly from a MIDI capable instrument, much of those qualities you talked about with Home Concert [Xtreme]. What is driving me musically with that is my engagement with composers, arrangers, and publishers who produce the content because it’s not just the technology by itself that’s worth anything. It’s how does it fit into people’s creative lives, and it’s a vehicle for putting forward content. And not only contemporary content, but we’re using it to bring new life to works of the past and especially works that have been unjustly forgotten. One of my most interesting recent publications has been the Twelve Country Dances of Ignatius Sancho, a man who composed in the 1870s, who was born on a slave ship in the 1720s. He has a remarkable story—ends up growing up as a slave in England, finds a way to get emancipated, becomes a property owner. He’s the first person of African descent to vote in a parliamentary election and somehow, it’s not known where and how, he developed some musical skills and composed five publications of music.

SK: That element of SuperScore has been one of the most fascinating to me—just the breadth of composers, arrangers, content producers, teachers, authors, and instructional materials.

If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with George Litterst on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

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Town Hall Discussion: Technology Tips
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The Piano Geeks: A Tribute to George Litterst

Written By Shana Kirk

We would like to thank Shana Kirk for this tribute to George Litterst, one of last year’s Frances Clark Center Lifetime Achievement Award Winners. To read the full article with more tributes to George Litterst and Michelle Conda, click here.

George Litterst at NCKP 2023: The Piano Conference.

I first met George Litterst in 2000, when a mutual colleague dragged me across an exhibit floor, insisting that I see this laptop with a musical score scrolling across the screen while following the keyboard player’s tempo. That first introduction to George and his fledgling Home Concert 2000 software turned out to be a pivotal moment in my own professional development. It launched more collaborations that I can count, not to mention a decades-long friendship and an ever-growing collective of like-minded colleagues.

Shana Kirk hugging George Litterst.
Samuel Holland, George Litterst, Jennifer Snow

Following George’s enthusiasm for the cutting edge, our group of piano geeks has constantly pursued technology-based solutions to challenges a teacher, student, or performer could encounter. In the early 2000s, it was George’s tinkering with MIDI over dial-up Internet that laid a foundation for Internet MIDI software, now used worldwide for online piano teaching. Observing a need for more audience-friendly performances, George hacked together assorted technologies to create multimedia recitals that could be synchronized from a keyboard. Of course, it was also George who first advocated for efficiencies, such as chatting over AOL Instant Messenger, collaborating on proposals using Dropbox, and even traveling with GPS from a cell phone!

Beyond such measurable contributions, George has most significantly led by example with his spirit of generosity. If you have asked George a question at a conference, you may have found yourself huddled with him an hour later. If you asked a question online or sent an email, you may have received an invitation to a Zoom meeting so thorough that it could count as a college credit.

I know I am speaking for many in saying this spirit of generosity has lifted our profession in immeasurable ways. We are honored to be friends and colleagues and look forward to many more years of working together!

We hope you enjoyed this excerpt from the tributes to the Frances Clark Center’s Lifetime Achievement Award winners. You can read the entire article by clicking here.

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Town Hall Discussion: Technology Tips
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Episode 14: Olga Kern, Van Cliburn International Competition Gold Medalist

Written By Piano Inspires

With a vivid onstage presence, dazzling technique, and keen musicianship, pianist Olga Kern is widely recognized as one of the great artists of her generation, captivating audiences and critics alike. She was born into a family of musicians and began studying piano at the age of five. At seventeen, she was awarded first prize at the Rachmaninoff International Piano Competition, and in 2001, she launched her U.S. career, winning a historic Gold Medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition—the only woman in the last 50 years to do so.

Join Olga Kern with host Luis Sanchez as they discuss Kern’s award-winning career and her hopes for the future of music.

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Piano Inspires Podcast: Olga Kern

Written By Luis Sanchez, Olga Kern

To celebrate the latest episode of the Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Olga Kern, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of her conversation with Luis Sanchez. Want to learn more about Kern? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Kern on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Olga Kern performing at NCKP 2023: The Piano Conference.

Luis Sanchez: You live such an incredibly busy life with your teaching, your traveling, and your concertizing. How do you balance your life so that you can also have time to learn new repertoire or do other things?

Olga Kern: Yes, the balance is everything. I remember after winning the Van Cliburn Competition, there were so many concerts right away for me and traveling. I always wanted to do this. That was my life. I actually wanted to participate in a competition to have a possibility to perform, to be on stage. For me, that was the most important thing. Then when I got this—and you know, reading about Rachmaninoff’s life and he had 300 concerts a year—I was thinking [about] how he could even compose in between, you know, all of that incredible music and then perform at that level. Actually, traveling [those] days was not as easy as now. I was always thinking, “I want to try how it feels to have that many travels, concerts, different repertoire, orchestra performances, solo, chamber music.” It’s always different, plus the recordings, plus it’s all the time something happening.

For me, it was very challenging the first years to find the right balance. I have a very good friend—a Chinese woman [who] is really one of [my] best friends. She lives in Colorado, and she’s a piano teacher. She told me that balance is, of course, one of the most important things. Actually from her, she told me, “You really need to know when to stop, and just [breathe] between even practicing, just to find the balance of rest, and [doing] something else, and then work, and then the family; everything needs to be balanced.” To find this is very difficult, but it’s very necessary. So it took me a few years to find that balance, and I found it. Of course with the help—in my family situation—with the help of my mom because my son was very little, and without help, I couldn’t do it. My parents were always there for me, so I’m very thankful for that. Help is very important. I know that when I’m practicing, I can go for five hours non-stop. But then you [are] also tired in your mind. And then these five hours sometimes are not really productive.

Another example in Rachmaninoff’s memoirs: he was writing to one of his friends, “You know, I don’t have much time to practice because I’m traveling, I’m performing all the time. But if I have one-to-two hours a day, this productive practice is definitely better than to sit at the piano eight hours and have nothing achieved.” So I always was thinking—all of the travels I have—that actually I need to rest more, and then come to practice with the clear mind [for] two hours, but focused and working hard. And then in these two hours, you can really achieve so much more than [if] you have the whole day free. And you think, “Okay? I’m just—.” No, you really need to be focused, and you need to have [an] exact schedule in your mind, if you have that [many] things happening. My friends are always fascinated how I have everything in order, I am a very “on schedule” kind of person. I like to know what’s happening in the daytime, how much time I have, for this particular thing, for that particular thing. I like to schedule things. So I know my plan, especially on the day of the concert, or day of the travels. It’s always a different program I’m performing, and sometimes it’s a new piece. I always need to find the right balance and the right schedule for the old pieces I’m playing, for the new piece I’m working on. If I have a vacation, it’s fantastic. But usually a vacation is no more than one week. And you need to be very productive in that week. You also want to rest, it’s very important, otherwise the productivity of work is not the same. So I always try to find the time for rest, for a good time, [and] also to enjoy the theater—I love opera. So I try as much as I can on vacation to find time for this.

If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Olga Kern on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

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OLGA KERN: A Consummate and Positive ARTIST
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A Pianist’s Approach to Research

Written By Carla Salas-Ruiz

We would like to thank Carla Salas-Ruiz for this contribution on writing articles for research publications such as the Journal of Piano Research. Learn more about the Journal of Piano Research by clicking here.

Writing, akin to music, provides a platform for self-expression. It also fosters critical thinking and enables us to articulate diverse perspectives, integrate information, and contribute to the advancement of our discipline. Yet, it’s common for many of us to feel a bit lost, unsure of where to even start. Have you ever found yourself facing a blank page, unsure of what to write or how to transform your project or research study into a compelling and engaging work? I have experienced this scenario several times. However, it wasn’t until I drew parallels between piano practice, lesson planning, and writing that a breakthrough occurred. I am excited to share these connections and encourage you to view academic writing as an art form for which you already possess all the necessary tools. Now is the time to leverage these tools and recognize writing as a creative exploration, where intentional choices and practice yield inspiring outcomes, similar to performing a piece or teaching a lesson.

Engage with Others’ Work

When practicing any musical piece, it’s crucial to grasp the composer’s expressive ideas and the essence of the composition to shape the interpretation effectively. To do this, we listen to recordings from other performers and study the musical language of the composer throughout their repertoire. Similarly, in writing, the initial step involves gathering exemplary articles from various sources such as journals, magazines, books, and other publications to identify essential elements like structure, language usage, and coherence. Deconstructing these articles, akin to dissecting a musical composition into sections and phrases, facilitates targeted writing practice. Analyzing the author’s intentions behind effective writing serves as a guide in crafting our roadmap. Additionally, extensive reading enriches our understanding and fuels creativity by exposing us to diverse viewpoints and encouraging critical thinking.

Craft Your Concept 

Having learned from the insights of fellow writers, now is the ideal time to establish a method. This is similar to creating a practice log, focused solely on the concepts pertinent to your topic. During this phase, your reading should be targeted towards understanding existing discussions relevant to your chosen idea. It is essential to adopt a systematic approach, meticulously extracting key concepts from authors and documenting them methodically. I recommend constructing a table with columns for the source, author’s name, key quotes, year of publication, and page numbers.

After completing your reading journey, it is crucial to define your idea or research question through discussions with peers, similar to seeking feedback on a musical composition. Sharing your ideas with others can be tremendously beneficial, as they serve as a sounding board, potentially providing invaluable clarity to your thoughts. For instance, during my time in graduate school, my focus was on studying motivation. However, given the extensive literature surrounding the concept, it was only upon encountering the theory of Interest Development1 that I could delineate the scope of my idea and purposefully devise a roadmap to satisfy my curiosity. This process was greatly facilitated by continual discussions with colleagues, friends, and professors.

Carla Salas-Ruiz

Develop a Method

With our ideas taking shape, we transition into methodological design, akin to selecting the appropriate techniques for musical expression. This time is about crafting a research question and defining a plan to answer that question. Establishing a robust research question is imperative, as it serves as a guiding beacon amidst the myriad of available methodologies, including quantitative, qualitative, ethnographic, historical, and/or philosophical approaches. Developing a method involves meticulously outlining the research design, methods, and techniques employed to satisfy your curiosity. It will outline your plans for data collection and analysis. In an academic context, this comprehensive plan encompasses critical decisions about how we chose participants or composers we’ll study, what tools we will use to gather information, how we will analyze that information carefully, and what conclusions we will draw from it. We will also look closely at what the findings mean and how they add to what we already know, the ideas we are working with, and how they can be useful in our field. This thorough analysis involves looking at the results in connection with the questions we asked at the start and the big ideas we are exploring, while also thinking about what they might mean for other important areas. Collaboration could be key in this step. Just as we gather to play beautiful chamber music, collaborate with colleagues that may have additional knowledge in this area, approach them and develop your idea in a multidisciplinary way. 

Create a Writing Roadmap

Creating an outline for presenting your writing is essential to maintain clarity and coherence throughout your work. Remember Step 1? This is where your grasp of writing structures and tendencies becomes invaluable in organizing your writing process effectively. Consider these questions to initiate an initial outline: 

  • What is your idea? 
  • What sparked your interest in it? 
  • What insights have other authors or performers shared? 
  • How did you approach your methodology? 
  • What data did you collect, and how did you analyze it? 
  • What were the key findings, and how do they contribute to our profession? 
  • Why is it important to disseminate them? 

Ensure you iterate through several drafts and seek feedback from peers and mentors. Crafting a roadmap for written contributions ensures that our ideas are effectively communicated with clarity and impact, much like crafting engaging lesson plans or conducting focused practice sessions. Once you feel confident with your outline, begin writing without self-judgment; allow yourself to simply type! Stick to your outline, but don’t hesitate to make adjustments for better flow if needed. Much like practicing an instrument, this stage represents full engagement in practice: experimenting with specific strategies and refining particular sections.

Decide Where to Publish

Just as we can sense when our repertoire is ready for the stage, we also know when our written work is prepared to be shared. Whether through academic journals, book chapters, or magazines, sharing our work enhances communication skills, professional growth, and advances our field. Similar to selecting the ideal venue and format for a recital, deciding where to publish prompts us to find platforms where our contributions align well. After completing our written work and reflecting on “Step 1,” we can determine which journal or magazine best suits our work. There are research-specific journals as well as those catering to practitioners. Understanding the purpose of each publication can assist us in making this decision. In the music field, there are a number of journals, including Piano Magazine and the recently launched Journal of Piano Research. We should consider all options, and after reviewing previous research, we can gauge the expected contributions and target audience. 

Recognizing writing as an art form encourages us to engage in a journey of creativity and purposeful expression. Through the process of exploration, refinement, and sharing, we achieve transformative musical and teaching outcomes. Just as musical performance brings compositions to life, as writers we can give vitality and resonance to our ideas, enriching our collective discourse and advancing our field.

Go to journalofpianoresearch.org/ to learn more about this new publication!

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notes
  1. Suzzane Hidi and K. Ann Renninger, “The Four-Phase Model of Interest Development,” Educational Psychologist 41, no. 2 (2006): 111-127.
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What is Appropriate at the Early Level for the Gifted Child? Do You Use a Method Book?

Written By Ingrid Jacobson Clarfield, Martha Appleby

To celebrate the latest episode of Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Ingrid Clarfield, we are sharing an excerpted article with her commentary on how she works with children who are musically gifted. Want to learn more about Clarfield? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Clarfield on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Individual differences can be met by adjusting level, quantity, and goals…

To answer this question, I must first tell you my basic teaching philosophy: Students rise to the level expected of them. With that ideal I teach all students, adjusting my level of expectation with the “gifted” student. 

When selecting repertoire for early level students, I use materials that emphasize the following musical elements: 

1. Beautiful singing tone 

2. Melodic shaping 

3. Comprehension of the mood of the piece 

4. Balance 

5. Timing and intensity of goal notes

With gifted students I can incorporate these elements into their repertoire from the beginning. As they learn to read music, the emphasis includes reinforcing technique and listening skills. Philosophically, while I feel all students should be trained with these goals, it is easier for the gifted student.

To make these musical concepts more obvious, I often assign descriptive music. For beginners, I use The Music Tree series by Frances Clark and Louise Goss (Summy-Birchard). The words relate to the music and each piece is carefully designed to teach or reinforce a specific element. From day one, students are trained to LISTEN and think about the music’s meaning. While this method is good for all of my students, it is ideal for the gifted student. We just move faster and use more supplementary rote pieces and exercises. I particularly like The Music Tree series for teaching upper arm freedom and melodic shaping.

For specific repertoire, I assign music from all four periods. The gifted student is particularly intrigued by the variation of sound and technique that changes with the style. For Baroque music, I use the traditional, easier Bach pieces and the simpler Scarlatti Sonatas. The Introductory editions published by Alfred, Introduction to Handel, Introduction to Scarlatti, and others in this series provide excellent material. Other collections I use are the Early English Sonatinas edited by Rowley (Boosey & Hawkes) and two volumes of Very First Classics edited by Gray (Boosey & Hawkes).

The Classical period is amply represented by the standard Sonatinas plus the Mozart Viennese Sonatinas and the less difficult Haydn Sonatas. I encourage students to think orchestrally for a wide spectrum of sounds and distinct contrast in mood, touches, and dynamics.

The music of the Romantic period involves pedaling skills and rubato from the earliest stages. I applaud the Alfred Publishing Company for the choice of pieces in the Introduction to Chopin, Introduction to Grieg, and Introduction to Schumann editions. These collections include ideal pieces for work on the elements crucial to an understanding of the Romantic style.

The 20th century provides us with an abundance of outstanding early-level music by Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Kabalevsky, Bartok, and Gretchaninoff. This repertoire encourages communication of moods and a wide range of dynamics and touch. Two of my favorite living composers of effective descriptive pieces are Dennis Alexander and Seymour Bernstein.

We hope you enjoyed this excerpt from Clarfield and Appleby’s article about working with children who are gifted. You can read the entire article by clicking here.

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Episode 13: Ingrid Clarfield, Internationally Acclaimed Teacher, Performer, Clinician, and Author

Written By Piano Inspires

Ingrid Clarfield is a nationally recognized performer, clinician, and author. She has presented workshops, lecture-recitals, and master classes in over 150 cities in 40 states across North America, including State and National MTNA Conferences, the National Conference of Keyboard Pedagogy, and other prestigious conferences and festivals. Professor Clarfield has written 23 books published by Alfred Publishing Co. and is the subject of a documentary entitled: Take a Bow: the Ingrid Clarfield Story.

In this episode, Ingrid Clarfield discusses her impact on generations of students with Pamela Pike. 

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Piano Inspires Podcast: Ingrid Clarfield

Written By Pamela Pike, Ingrid Jacobson Clarfield

To celebrate the latest episode of Piano Inspires Podcast featuring Ingrid Clarfield, we are sharing an excerpted transcript of her conversation with Pamela Pike. Want to learn more about Clarfield? Check out the latest installment of the Piano Inspires Podcast. To learn more, visit pianoinspires.com. Listen to our latest episode with Clarfield on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

Shana Kirk, Marvin Blickenstaff, and Ingrid Clarfield at NCKP 2023: The Piano Conference.

Pamela Pike: When I was sort of first coming on the scene, if you will, when I was a young professional, you were a big star in our field, you really were. And you still are! But you know, I just—I attended so many of your sessions, and you know, it was just always a pleasure to be able to speak with you. You were always so kind to young professionals. But then it seemed like at the peak of your career you had this devastating stroke.

Ingrid Clarfield: It’s so interesting that word “devastating.” I can do it. It’s been sixteen years.

PP: But it could have been devastating!

IC: Could have been!

PP: The point is here again, you demonstrate your resilience and your persistence. So maybe talk through your recovery because it’s amazing.

IC: Well, what is interesting is that the day before, I was onstage doing a session with George Litterst on the Disklavier and I came home that night, woke up at four in the morning, and had a stroke. Still they don’t know why. But, as I tell people: I’m here, I’m alive and well. I don’t mean to minimize it. But I think for me, I was determined to go on. I did not know how I was going to and—a grad student who was helping me with stuff, I said, “Cancel everything.” I mean I was in a wheelchair drooling on drugs—very attractive. Anyway, and then I cancelled everything because I didn’t know how I was going to do anything. Then I get an email from Sigrid Luther. Do you know Sigrid?

PP: No, I don’t.

Ingrid Clarfield at NCKP 2023: The Piano Conference.

IC: Okay. Wonderful teacher in Chattanooga, Tennessee. “Oh, we’re so excited to sponsor your Ingrid Clarfield Pedagogy Workshop. We have got a grant from MTNA. I really don’t remember if it’s a phone call or an email, but probably an email. I was like, “Oh my god, we forgot somebody.” And so then I said, “Well, there’s a slight problem: I had a stroke.” “Oh!” And she was all embarrassed, and the loveliest woman anyway. No, it was an email because I needed time to think. I said, I wonder what it would be like if I said I’ll come if she plays my left hand because I knew she was a good pianist. But I first checked with Gary Ingle—good friend! I said, “How crazy would it be to say I’ll come do a conference and I’ll play with one hand? Do I charge half price?” So anyway, she agreed and I had no idea what I was doing, okay. Because she was so great and it went so well, that was how I came back. She subsequently—probably a half a dozen times—has been my left handed at MTNA conferences. Because it worked, I could continue to do it. I did not want to become a right hand pianist because there’s 8,000 pieces for left hand alone and four for right hand. But several people—like Dennis Alexander—wrote beautiful pieces for me. I wanted to do things my way, which was still me, but with somebody else. I’ve had over forty different people play my left hand in sixteen years. That was how I chose to go on. But I am convinced that it’s because of her and that it went so well that I thought, “I can do this.”

PP: It demonstrates a flexibility in your thinking, first of all, you know, that you were willing to try something different, but still be authentic to who you are.

IC: That’s—you’re really good with words. Authentic—that was it, because for me, that was important. I felt like what I do with pedagogy is important and it’s a little different—my style, to say the least. I wanted to still be me. I’ve been so lucky. And like today—like the young man you met here, he was in my pedagogy class. He was he was a student of Phyllis Lehrer and the fact that this is his first time to present like at a big conference to do this. I was really proud of him. There were certainly plenty of other people who worked with me and but I thought no, he’s helping me.

PP: Yeah, and you still have so much to contribute so there’s no reason to stop. You just have to find the alternate path forward.

IC: And find good left hands wherever I go!

If you enjoyed this excerpt from Piano Inspires Podcast’s latest episode, listen to the entire episode with Ingrid Clarfield on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or our website!

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Dedication to excellence: An interview with Ingrid Clarfield
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