Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner A productive 10 days in Boston (Berklee, BoCo, etc)

I had a great time in Boston, just got back home today. I took a lesson with Janice Weber on Mark's suggestion and it was the best lesson of my life. She spent a whole 2 hr 20 mins with me though it was late and HOT and humid. The lesson was held in a classroom at the Boston Conservatory that had two Steinway pianos in it. I recorded our lesson but can't share the audio/video here (on request) but I can tell you about it. The major concept I got out of the lesson was how to think about the line and where it leads, when planning my dynamic changes and profile over the piece. We worked through the Tempest (I and III). I will have to rework both pieces to some extent and will post recordings as soon as I can to show you how my interpretations of those pieces have changed after the lesson (I have "before" recordings in this forum somewhere).

I also happened to practice every day in the Berklee practice rooms. I recorded a couple of songs of mine while I was there. I've posted a video in the non-classical forum: my song: Serenade

Roberto Poli just got back from a European tour but he agreed to meet me in the morning today but I couldn't make it. Next time maybe!

More later.

Great to hear! It's great that you were able to arrange the lesson with her and that it worked out so great.

BTW.....


I wonder if I got some of what I said in this post from her....

Sounds like you're thinking that you'll be back in Boston again. Besides maybe trying to play for Poli, seems it would be great if you could follow up with Janice!

Yes Mark.. you probably said something similar there. However, it turns out that our discussion on the 3/8 of the tempest (mvt III) might not be the way to go about it. She stopped me midway and asked me if I was thinking in 3's and I said yes. She asked me to think in one's as that would avoid unnecessary accents (that we thought were necessary to bring out the triple meter, if you recall our discussion) that were getting in the way of the line. Lots to rework with that piece.. it isn't easy at all!

If I do go back to Boston, I'm definitely following up with Janice. In the meantime, she also found a teacher in Columbus for me who's really good (based on a recommendation she got from her friend at Oberlin, Peter Takacs). I have to find her phone number now.. I need regular lessons instead of monthly or bimonthly lessons! In case you're curious, the teacher's name is Nina Polonsky.

About the Tempest: I'm guessing that when you played it for her, you had eradicated the earlier problem!! And I can see that the other thing could then show up. if the earlier problem had still been there, I'm sure she would have focused on that, because it's much worse. But anyway, I probably did make a mistake by saying "think 3 beats"; it was just a means-toward-the-end of avoiding it sounding like 2 beats! (as I kept trying to emphasize) -- and I probably could have done that without saying "3." I should have just emphasized that you needed to avoid stressing the 4th note of each measure. For me, that's facilitated by thinking of 3 mini-beats -- but indeed we don't want to make it sound that way.

P.S. I hope you realize that the post I referenced was about another piece....

Yes. That was the Mozart.