Hi Reader,

Last night, we had our first-ever Butler Piano Faculty recital. This is now my 19th year at Butler, so it’s a bit of a mystery why it took so long for us to organize it! Playing the piano can be somewhat of a solitary activity, and even when we collaborate with others, it’s often not with other pianists; it’s with singers or other instrumentalists.

We performed a few solo works, interspersed with piano ensemble works: piano duet (1 piano, 4 hands), two-piano (2 pianos, 8 hands), a comic work for 1 piano 8 hands (4 people huddled around the piano), and a beautiful piece by Rachmaninoff for 1 piano 6 hands.

(Now that I think about it, it’s sort of funny how, in describing this music, the convention is to count the number of hands, rather than performers!)

All in all, six of us performed, and we had a great time. During most days, we are usually off in different corners of the building doing our thing, so this event increased our sense of community and cohesion as a faculty. With so many different combinations of performers, the audience was rewarded with an evening that resembled a variety show, which kept things fresh and interesting.

It’s worth noting that the large body of piano duet literature available to us today arose, in part, from the history of the piano as a recreational home instrument. In the nineteenth century, it was not yet possible to listen to a radio or watch TV or Netflix. It wasn’t yet possible to scroll TikTok, and it wasn’t yet possible to listen to music through earbuds. If you wanted to hear music, you had to either venture out and listen to somebody playing music, or you had to play it yourself, on an instrument in your own home.

When I was a child learning the piano, we had a book of piano duets that my mother would play with me. I had favorites in the book that I used to request over and over. When I was a conservatory student, I also enjoyed setting up occasional sight reading sessions with friends, just for fun!

So, last night was a good reminder to me of the immense value and pleasure that can come from playing pieces on the piano with other performers. If you have ever felt isolated or uninspired in your own piano studies, finding somebody to play duets with can be one of easiest ways to bring a new sense of energy and motivation to your own playing.

If you are looking for music for piano duet (aka “Piano 4 Hands”) - here’s a link to a catalog page at IMSLP to get you started. All works on this page are in the public domain and you can download them for free.

What experience have you had playing piano ensemble pieces? Write back and let me know!

Happy Practicing! 🎹

-Kate

In every newsletter I share one practice tip based on that month’s practice theme. October’s theme is “Note-Learning.”

Today's Practice Tip: Write in Fingerings!

When you’re in the process of learning notes for a new piece, one aspect of practice that is frequently overlooked is the importance of committing to your fingering for each and every note, and writing it down. Often, music has fingering printed in the score from the editor, which is always good to use as a starting point. But, beyond that, it’s extremely helpful (and a huge time-saver!) to write in fingering. If you change the printed fingering, write those changes down, too.

My rule of thumb (no pun intended!) is to write fingering in the music EVERY TIME I feel even the slightest bit of confusion or hesitation regarding finger placement while practicing.

Writing in fingering at this early stage of learning a piece will help you learn the notes faster, because you’re replicating the SAME motions by using consistent fingering each time you play a passage.

Also, if you are diligent about matching the finger number in your score to the finger you are playing, your awareness of what finger you're playing will grow stronger (it's not uncommon for students to think they're playing one finger when in fact they're playing a different one!).

Best of all, writing fingering allows you to start anywhere in the music when you're practicing - not just back at the beginning of a phrase or section. And PS: you can always change and update the fingerings as you go!

This week’s exercise: In a new piece you’re learning the notes for, write fingering in over every note. This is especially helpful in a contrapuntal piece, like a Bach invention or prelude and fugue. You might be surprised to see that it’s actually difficult to commit to fingering, or that a fingering you thought you were sure of is actually not something you’re doing consistently.

Repeating this exercise from time to time on various pieces (writing a finger number over each and every note in the piece) will help you gain much more awareness of the fingers you are actually using.

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