Dear Friends,

I just returned from a trip to St. Louis, where I presented to SLAMTA (St. Louis Area Music Teachers Association) on the topic of Fanny Mendelssohn and her works for solo piano. I had a wonderful time meeting St. Louis area teachers, and the session was well-attended, with a lively Q&A afterwards.

Now I’m getting ready for a local recital this Thursday and then a Piano Pedagogy Seminar next Saturday (September 14) presented by the Northwest Ohio MTA Chapter at Bowling Green State University. Even though the official entry deadline was yesterday, you can still register up until Monday morning (Sept 9), so here’s the link, for those of you in Northwest Ohio who may be attending.

I have appreciated hearing from many of you in recent weeks. I am grateful to you for taking the time to respond to these questions I ask in my emails. I haven’t had the chance to sit down and reply to everyone just yet, but rest assured I read every email I receive, and I do intend to reply when things slow down a little.

To that end, my question for you this week is: How do you stay inspired in your own teaching or piano practice when you’re preparing for a busy week?

👋 Have a great week! Happy Practicing! 🎹

-Kate

Today’s Practice Tip: Symmetrical Inversion (aka Mirror Practicing) 🪞

Many pianists have a dominant hand: most commonly, it feels like the right hand is the superhero and the left is the clumsy sidekick. For those of us who are right hand dominant, the right hand, which handles melodies and often gets more attention, naturally develops better coordination from daily tasks like writing, gardening, and cooking (speaking from personal experience!). This creates an imbalance: confidence with the right hand and hesitation with the left. As a result, practicing left-hand passages can sometimes feel like starting from scratch.

Luckily, there's a fun and easy way to improve your left hand technique: by mirroring right hand movements (this can be reversed if your left hand feels more coordinated than your right). Inverting a left-hand passage to play it in the right hand, using the mirror image of the black keys and white keys the left hand is playing, results in the same technique and fingering. For example, a descending C major arpeggio in the left hand mirrors an ascending F major arpeggio in the right hand (starting with both thumbs on C). For a more detailed explanation, check out this video. This practice can help the dominant hand teach the other hand how to execute tricky passages.

This week’s exercise:

1. Find a piece or selection which contains a challenging technical passage in the left hand.
2. Figure out what notes your right hand would have to play in order to mirror the same passage, using the black key-white key pattern on the keyboard as a guide. Practice it in your right hand until it feels comfortable.
3. Play the passage twice in your left hand. Notice where your left hand has difficulties. Play it again in your right hand a few times, then hands together, with the hands mirroring one another. Now play the passage as written in your left hand alone, imitating your right hand as closely as possible
4. Repeat this process. Avoid overthinking the differences between your hands. Instead, focus on how each hand feels and let your left hand naturally make corrections as you go.

🎥 YouTube video:

I didn’t release a new video this week, so I thought it’d be fun to look back at my most popular video since launching my YouTube channel. The winner, with more than 25,000 views (🤯), was: “How to Play the Piano WITHOUT Looking Down”​

Making videos is like any skill; I have grown better at it over time, and so looking back at this older video, I see plenty of flaws in the production values, and I'd certainly make it differently today. Nevertheless, I stand by the content: if you’ve ever struggled with constantly looking back and forth between the music and your hands while playing, this video has some helpful tips. I cover techniques to help you become more sensitized to the topography of the keyboard and rely more on muscle memory—so you can keep your focus (and your eyes) on the music! Click here to watch it.

💜 Some of My Favorite Things

1. 🎶 Performance: Lili Boulanger was the younger sister of esteemed composer Nadia Boulanger, and a composer in her own right. She was the first female winner of the Prix de Rome prize. Tragically, she died at age 24, cutting short a promising career. After winning the Prix de Rome, she composed Trois Morceaux pour Piano - a set of three charming miniatures. Here is a beautiful recording of the set, performed by Natalia Kazaryan.​
2. 🎹 Technique Resource: Technique for the Advancing Pianist (Cisler & Hinson). People often ask me to recommend collections of technical exercises. This is a resource for upper intermediate students or advanced students who need review. I like this volume because it is in two parts: the first part consists of exercises for scales, arpeggios, and chords. The second part uses exercises excerpted from other technique books to focus on specific skills, such as speed and agility, trills, and double notes. Click here to see my other recommended books of technical exercises.​
3. ✈️ Travel Hack: Trusted Housesitters. Okay, this isn’t music-related, but this is too good not to share. Trusted Housesitters is a membership site that connects homeowners with people who can stay at your place and take care of your pets while you’re away (and vice versa). We’ve used it twice now, and both times have been great! You can sign up either as a pet sitter or as a homeowner looking for one. Sitters go through background checks and provide references, and when you’re ready to travel, you get to review and interview applicants to pick the best fit. Thanks to this, we’ve been able to leave our pup Tucker at home instead of boarding him at a kennel when we travel.
   If you're interested, use this affiliate link to receive 25% off your new membership.

🎹 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!