For my performance at Carnegie Hall, I wanted to infuse my music with the same emotion I experienced at home.
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Lowered Shoulders: When Piano Technique Spreads Out to Life
When I enrolled in adult piano lessons in my early forties, after a twenty-five year hiatus, my piano teacher, Stephen, pointed out that I held my shoulders scrunched up towards my neck.
Feeling Is First in the Chopin Nocturne in C-sharp Minor
Around a year ago, when I began studying the Nocturne in C-sharp Minor, I felt awed by how Chopin had packed in the notes a plaintive sadness. In contrast, in my childhood home, although Mom never articulated a rule on the matter, feelings were prohibited.
Red Light in Adult Piano Lessons
Chopin’s Nocturne in C-sharp Minor is a signature piece of my piano teacher, Stephen Wu. At his wedding reception at the Montclair Art Museum earlier this year, the lights dimmed as Stephen sat down at the mahogany Steinway, where he played a piece of his own composition he had written for his new wife, Meredith.