Damian OxboroughComments Off on Songs with Good Piano Accompaniments
I think it’s fair to say that piano is a versatile instrument and as such it’s possible to translate the accompaniment parts of lots of (the majority of?) songs into a recognisable arrangement for it. But, some types of songs work better than others. For example, piano is particularly good as the backing to ballads if performing as a soloist… Read more »
Practise scales the right way Over the years I’ve found the students expect to start each lesson with a series of exercises – more often than not, scales. This is especially true of people who have previously been taught by someone else. My view is this: that not every lesson / practise has to start in the same way, and… Read more »
Damian OxboroughComments Off on Update & Nostalgic School Assembly Songs
YouTube Recording Project Partly as a bit of fun (but also to help increase my web presence), I have recently started a little project recording songs that we used to sing at assembly at school. There are loads that people will be familiar with from the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s. I’ve been playing them on piano and uploading to YouTube… Read more »
Hope everyone’s looking forward to an extra day off on Monday. For me, this effectively means that my normal 5 days of teaching will be compressed into 4 days. And, the upshot of this is that the coming week’s slots are all FULLY BOOKED up. Do keep coming back to this blog each Saturday morning for a list of the… Read more »
Damian OxboroughComments Off on Update: Music Theory / Composition
The vast majority of my students first and foremost learn some musical performance skill: how to play piano / guitar / ukulele / bass or to sing. Along the way, most inevitably encounter issues of music theory. Theory is, after all, a lot to do with the written language of music – how we communicate our musical ideas to one… Read more »
Damian OxboroughComments Off on ‘Watch How You Go’ by Keane – CORRECT chords
I use guitar TAB websites all the time to get started working on songs (mostly) that my students would like to learn. But, invariably I find that the chord and TAB sheets that are available are littered with errors. I either edit them myself, or just start from scratch. A case in point is the Keane song ‘Watch How You… Read more »
For the past few years, the most common repertoire request I’ve had from student pianists has been to play music by Ludovico Einaudi. People hear his music on television, often as a backdrop to adverts or trailers for TV shows – it’s real ‘mood’ music that uses trance-like repeating patterns to lull the audience into a relaxed state of mind…. Read more »
Covid-19 Safety Measures With face to face lessons resuming this week, I’ve put in a series of measures aimed to reduce the risk of spreading the Covid-19 virus. These policies are in compliance with current UK Gov advice for close contact businesses, and will remain in place until that advice changes: Performance Psychology I’ve recently been learning new some new… Read more »
When new students first approach me about learning piano or guitar, my first point of enquiry is to establish whether they are interested in playing their instrument as a soloist or as an accompaniment to something else. Customers broadly fall into one of three camps: 1, I’m only interested in playing on my own. 2, I want to play and… Read more »
Damian OxboroughComments Off on Concert for Médecins Sans Frontières: LIVE NOW
Click on the window below to watch our LIVE concert, streaming from the Skipton area across the globe on YouTube! You can also support the charity by going onto my Facebook page: www.facebook.com/skiptonmusicteacher and scrolling down to the DONATE button.
