Dear Friends,

I hope you're doing well, wherever you are! Here in the US, we are celebrating Labor Day weekend, which is a long holiday weekend that symbolically marks the end of the summer.

As I prepare for a talk to a group of piano teachers in St. Louis this coming Friday, I’ve been spending a lot of time immersed in the music of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, the younger sister of Felix Mendelssohn. She was a highly accomplished composer in her own right, but due the societal norms of her time that restricted women from composing for the public sphere, her work did not find a wider audience until scholars started researching and re-discovering her compositions in the 1980’s and 1990’s.

One of the most intriguing pieces I’ve been exploring is her Easter Sonata, a full-scale, four-movement work for solo piano that was lost for 150 years before being rediscovered and correctly attributed to Fanny in 2012.

This sonata was mistakenly credited to Felix, but today it stands as a testament to Fanny’s extraordinary skill and enduring legacy.

So, my question for you this week is: What other overlooked composers or musicians from history do you think deserve more recognition today? Feel free to write back and let me know your thoughts!

👋 Have a great week! Happy Practicing! 🎹

-Kate

Today’s Practice Tip: Write Out the Score! ✍️

One of the keys to a successful interpretation of a piece of music is a close reading of the musical score. Composers carefully choose every marking, from articulation and phrasing to the exact position of dynamic markings.

However, when students first learn a piece, they often overlook these details in favor of mastering the correct rhythms and pitches. Unfortunately, this can lead to the habit of ignoring other important markings in the score.

Although it can be tedious, writing out the score by hand forces you to notice every detail throughout the score. The task of physically writing the notes onto paper is slow, which allows your brain more time to process and retain the details of the piece.

This week’s exercise:

1. Take a piece of manuscript paper and mark off 4-8 measures. (You can download manuscript paper for free by searching “free printable staff paper” online.)
2. Write out the grand staff, time signature, and key signature for your piece.
3. Without looking at the score, copy down from memory as many details of the segment you chose as you can. Start with tempo markings, dynamics, and any text written above the staff. Then, add as many notes and rhythms as possible—this is a challenging skill that can take a long time to do accurately, so don’t be surprised if your memory feels hazy.
4. Open your score and compare it with your memory. Take note of what you remembered and what you missed.
5. Repeat the process until you can copy it down perfectly.
6. [Optional] Continue with the next segment and gradually work through the rest of the piece.

Even doing this exercise just once, for a few measures, without working through the entire movement or piece, can help you notice details in the music that you may not have appreciated before. It can also help you become more attuned to the details in the score when you return to practice at the piano.

🎥 Recent video:

Over on my YouTube channel, the subscriber count rolled past 20,000 the other day. Thank you to all of you who are following and supporting my channel - I never imagined it would grow this much when I first started! 🙏🙏🙏

My latest video is called How to Play FAST and SMOOTH Trills: 5 Pro Tips for Pianists.

I have had a lot of requests to make a video about trill technique, and so I finally did! In this video I share 5 tips that will help you play trills faster, smoother, and with more control. Click here to watch the video!​

💜 Some of My Favorite Things

1. ​🎶 Performance: I enjoyed this recording of Fanny Mendelssohn’s recently-rediscovered Easter Sonata, performed by Sofya Gulyak.
2. 📚 Book: Watching the recent Paris Olympics reminded me of the charming The Piano Shop on the Left Bank by Thad Carhart. The book is an account of Carhart’s search for the instrument of his youth, from his perspective as an adult. Over the course of his search, he learns about the piano’s history and its evolution into the instrument we know and love today. Part memoir, part piano history, set in Paris - what's not to love? Click here to see my other book recommendations.​
3. 🖥️ Productivity Tool: Notion is a highly customizable task management and planning system, and its free plan is more than sufficient for most people.
   At the beginning of the summer, I took a 2-day Notion workshop for piano teachers, presented by Amy Chaplin and Joy Morin. Now I am a Notion convert! I'm so much more organized now, because they taught me how to customize Notion for my own workflow and needs. They are about to run another live cohort of this class - here’s a link to their registration page.​

🎹 Stay Connected:

• 🎓 Contact me to learn about applying to study with me at Butler University at the undergraduate or master's level.
• 📚 Check out my resource pages, where I share my recommended books, technical exercises, gear and more!
• 🎥 Subscribe to my YouTube channel!
• 📱Follow me on Instagram!