◈ Homepage — http://lamusiclessons.com/Skip to content HOME LISTEN HOMESCHOOL CHARTER SCHOOLS CONTACT ME BLOG EAR TRAINING VIDEOS FOR STUDENTS Home Give your child a chance to learn the piano in a supportive, structured environment! L.A. Music Lessons is a piano studio for students of all ages who want to learn piano in a fun and professional setting. Whether you are just starting or want to strengthen your skills, I can help you to make progress and enjoy the process! I offer RCM, CM, and ABRSM examination preparation for students looking to learn the piano with one of these curriculums. I also offer score reading, figured bass, counterpoint, and solfege lessons. Lessons are $45/half hour, $90/hour. Students typically take lessons once a week, and lessons are booked monthly. My teaching studio is located at 1300 W. 48th St. Los Angeles, CA, 90037 From Parents: Cindy: Andrew has been very helpful in getting our daughter over a slump in her playing. He has been encouraging and patient through the process. Nery: Andrew is very patient with my daughter. He is very patient and knows how to encourage her in her piano playing. He customizes his lessons to her musical interests. From Students: Abigail: My experience with Andrew as a piano teacher has been great. He is very knowledgeable and explains things well. His patient and encouraging approach combined with his expertise make him an excellent teacher. Andrew has helped me improve my playing so much since I started taking lessons with him. Please Contact Me Now to Schedule Your Trial Lesson, Space is Limited! [email protected] |  213-538-2988 (Call or Text) Learning Piano John Thompson: Teaching Little Fingers to Play Andrew Boyle–June 27, 2022 Here is a video of a complete play through of John Thompson's method book Teaching Little Fingers to Play. Read More Practicing Why Every Pianist Needs A Practice Journal Andrew Boyle–June 24, 2022       Once you have been playing piano for a while, it will eventually take new strategies to continue your improvement. Especially once you may be in music school, it is going to take a lot of thinking to figure out how to manage all of... Read More Education iLEAD Charter Schools: How to Get Free Piano Lessons Andrew Boyle–June 23, 2022 iLEAD Charter Schools: How to Get Free Piano Lessons An amazing opportunity that is available in Southern California to students who are pursuing homeschooling is called iLEAD Exploration, often called iLEAD Charter Schools or just iLEAD. In its own words, "iLEAD Exploration Hybrid is a... Read More Improvisation How to Use Passacaglia Loops to Improvise Andrew Boyle–June 22, 2022 There is a great essay by early music scholar and performer Nicola Cumer you can find here on Spiridionis that explains how to use a passacaglia bass line to improve your improvising skills. There are all kinds of fun ideas in here that I think... Read More Practicing What is Deliberate Practice? Andrew Boyle–June 22, 2022 Deliberate practice. That term gets thrown around a lot by music teachers, but what exactly does it mean? The term has appeared in many books as well and gets discussed quite a bit in academic settings as well. Let me tell you what helped make... Read More Sight Reading Three Strategies to Practice Sight Reading Andrew Boyle–June 20, 2022 Everyone who takes piano lessons has heard at some point that you are supposed to practice sight reading. But how are you supposed to actually get better at it, and at what point does it become fun instead of a painful process of deciphering notes... Read More Improvisation An Interesting Creative Activity Andrew Boyle–January 19, 2022 Here is an improvisational strategy that works on a more intuitive level that can help you develop musical ideas. It works on any piece, but it is best to start with a shorter work with a clear form, like a minuet. First you need to... Read More Theme by The WP Club | Proudly powered by WordPress ◈ Interior Pages — 20 pages crawledLearning Piano – L.A. Music Lessons Skip to content Menu Home Listen Homeschool Charter Schools Contact Me Blog Ear Training Ear Training Level 1 Ear Training Level 2 Ear Training Level 3 Videos for Students Latest Posts Under: Learning Piano John Thompson: Teaching Little Fingers to Play June 27, 2022 0 Comments Theme by The WP Club | Proudly powered by WordPress Sight Reading – L.A. Music Lessons Skip to content Menu Home Listen Homeschool Charter Schools Contact Me Blog Ear Training Ear Training Level 1 Ear Training Level 2 Ear Training Level 3 Videos for Students Latest Posts Under: Sight Reading Three Strategies to Practice Sight Reading June 20, 2022 0 Comments Theme by The WP Club | Proudly powered by WordPress Listen – L.A. Music Lessons Skip to content Menu Home Listen Homeschool Charter Schools Contact Me Blog Ear Training Ear Training Level 1 Ear Training Level 2 Ear Training Level 3 Videos for Students Listen Beethoven: Sonata No. 31 in Ab major Op. 110 Ravel: Valses Nobles et Sentimentales Bach: Partita No. 5 in G major Chopin: Etude Op. 25 No. 11 "Winter Wind" Rachmaninoff: Etude Op. 39 No. 5 in E flat minor Chopin: Nocturne in C minor, Op. 48 No. 1 Theme by The WP Club | Proudly powered by WordPress Blog – L.A. Music Lessons Skip to content Menu Home Listen Homeschool Charter Schools Contact Me Blog Ear Training Ear Training Level 1 Ear Training Level 2 Ear Training Level 3 Videos for Students Blog Learning Piano John Thompson: Teaching Little Fingers to Play Andrew Boyle – June 27, 2022 Here is a video of a complete play through of John Thompson's method book Teaching Little Fingers to Play. Read More Practicing Why Every Pianist Needs A Practice Journal Andrew Boyle – June 24, 2022 Once you have been playing piano for a while, it will eventually take new strategies to continue your improvement. Especially once you may be in music school, it is going to take a lot of thinking to figure out how to manage all of... Read More Education iLEAD Charter Schools: How to Get Free Piano Lessons Andrew Boyle – June 23, 2022 iLEAD Charter Schools: How to Get Free Piano Lessons An amazing opportunity that is available in Southern California to students who are pursuing homeschooling is called iLEAD Exploration, often called iLEAD Charter Schools or just iLEAD. In its own words, "iLEAD Exploration Hybrid is a... Read More Improvisation How to Use Passacaglia Loops to Improvise Andrew Boyle – June 22, 2022 There is a great essay by early music scholar and performer Nicola Cumer you can find here on Spiridionis that explains how to use a passacaglia bass line to improve your improvising skills. There are all kinds of fun ideas in here that I think... Read More Practicing What is Deliberate Practice? Andrew Boyle – June 22, 2022 Deliberate practice. That term gets thrown around a lot by music teachers, but what exactly does it mean? The term has appeared in many books as well and gets discussed quite a bit in academic settings as well. Let me tell you what helped make... Read More Sight Reading Three Strategies to Practice Sight Reading Andrew Boyle – June 20, 2022 Everyone who takes piano lessons has heard at some point that you are supposed to practice sight reading. But how are you supposed to actually get better at it, and at what point does it become fun instead of a painful process of deciphering notes... Read More Improvisation An Interesting Creative Activity Andrew Boyle – January 19, 2022 Here is an improvisational strategy that works on a more intuitive level that can help you develop musical ideas. It works on any piece, but it is best to start with a shorter work with a clear form, like a minuet. First you need to... Read More Theme by The WP Club | Proudly powered by WordPress What is Deliberate Practice? – L.A. Music Lessons Skip to content Menu Home Listen Homeschool Charter Schools Contact Me Blog Ear Training Ear Training Level 1 Ear Training Level 2 Ear Training Level 3 Videos for Students What is Deliberate Practice? Author: Andrew Boyle Published on: June 22, 2022 Comments: 0 Comments Deliberate practice. That term gets thrown around a lot by music teachers, but what exactly does it mean? The term has appeared in many books as well and gets discussed quite a bit in academic settings as well. Let me tell you what helped make the concept click for me and why I think it is a useful term. Deliberate practice was a term invented by K. Anders Ericsson and his research team to describe what they uncovered as the essential difference between experts and non-experts. Rather than being a matter of inborn talent or skill, expert performance at complex tasks often boils down to aspects of training and practice using the right strategies over a period of years. This can sometimes turn into a nature-nurture debate about whether we can really control our abilities or if they are actually pretty fixed and limited by our genetics or upbringing. While this debate may be of academic interest, I love the concept of deliberate practice because it puts the ball in my court. It tells me what I need to do to make my own skills better, so I don’t have to waste my time wondering how my level of talent is going to limit my progress. The difference between deliberate practice and not-so-deliberate practice is that deliberate practice is fundamentally goal oriented. It isn’t necessarily about enjoying what you are doing right now. It isn’t about trying to fill a certain amount of time or reviewing what you already know. Instead, it is about using and testing strategies that are going to improve performance. Those strategies will often be used under the feedback of an expert teacher. Deliberate practice requires focusing on things that you are currently NOT able to do well. In the research of K. Anders Ericsson, he has consistently found that this approach is what distinguishes people who are extremely good at what they do vs. people who remain average through a lack of deliberate practice. Deliberate practice is a great concept because it means that anyone can start to dramatically improve their skills if they approach their improvement in the right way. It means that you need to find a great teacher, start working on your weak areas, practice consistently, and test strategies that are going to give you the most yield for your effort. Deliberate practice puts the ball in your court. Three Strategies to Practice Sight Reading How to Use Passacaglia Loops to Improvise Theme by The WP Club | Proudly powered by WordPress John Thompson: Teaching Little Fingers to Play – L.A. Music Lessons Skip to content Menu Home Listen Homeschool Charter Schools Contact Me Blog Ear Training Ear Training Level 1 Ear Training Level 2 Ear Training Level 3 Videos for Students John Thompson: Teaching Little Fingers to Play Author: Andrew Boyle Published on: June 27, 2022 Comments: 0 Comments Here is a video of a complete play through of John Thompson's method book Teaching Little Fingers to Play. Why Every Pianist Needs A Practice Journal Theme by The WP Club | Proudly powered by WordPress Ear Training Level 2 – L.A. Music Lessons Skip to content Menu Home Listen Homeschool Charter Schools Contact Me Blog Ear Training Ear Training Level 1 Ear Training Level 2 Ear Training Level 3 Videos for Students Ear Training Level 2 1. Bach: Minuet in G http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/21BachMinuetG.m4a 2. Bach: Minuet in G minor http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/22BachMinuetGminor.m4a 3. Purcell: Air in D minor http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/23PurcellAirDminor.m4a 4. Corelli: Sarabande in E minor http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/24CorelliSarabandeEminor.m4a 5. Telemann: Aria in G http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/25TelemannAriaG.m4a 6. Telemann: Lamento in F http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/26TelemannLamentoF.m4a 7. Purcell: Minuet in F http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/27PurcellMinuetF.m4a 8. Mozart: Violin Sonata in G, No. 6 K. 11 http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/28MozartViolinSonataG.m4a 9. Mozart: Violin Sonata in F, No. 24 K. 376 http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/29MozartViolinSonataF.m4a 10. Je suis un petit garcon http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/30JeSuisunPetitGarcon.m4a 11. Schubert: Heidenroslein http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/31SchubertHeidenroslein.m4a 12. Telemann: Loure in C http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/32TelemannLoureC.m4a 13. Dvorak: Sonatina for Violin http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/33DvorakViolinSonatinaG.m4a 14. Did You Ever See A Lassie http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/34HaveYouEverSeenALassie.m4a 15. Happy Birthday http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/35HappyBirthday.m4a 16. Offenbach: Can Can http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/36OffenbachCanCan.m4a 17. My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/37MyBonnieLiesOverTheOcean.m4a 18. Marie: La Cinquantaine http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/38MarieLaCinquaintaine.m4a 19. Saint-Saens: The Swan http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/39SaintSaensTheSwan.m4a 20. Clementi: Sonatina in C http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/40ClementiSonatinaC.m4a Theme by The WP Club | Proudly powered by WordPress Education – L.A. Music Lessons Skip to content Menu Home Listen Homeschool Charter Schools Contact Me Blog Ear Training Ear Training Level 1 Ear Training Level 2 Ear Training Level 3 Videos for Students Latest Posts Under: Education iLEAD Charter Schools: How to Get Free Piano Lessons June 23, 2022 0 Comments Theme by The WP Club | Proudly powered by WordPress Videos for Students – L.A. Music Lessons Skip to content Menu Home Listen Homeschool Charter Schools Contact Me Blog Ear Training Ear Training Level 1 Ear Training Level 2 Ear Training Level 3 Videos for Students Videos for Students 1. Major Scale Construction 2. Minor Scale Construction Theme by The WP Club | Proudly powered by WordPress Homeschool Charter Schools – L.A. Music Lessons Skip to content Menu Home Listen Homeschool Charter Schools Contact Me Blog Ear Training Ear Training Level 1 Ear Training Level 2 Ear Training Level 3 Videos for Students Homeschool Charter Schools LA Music Lessons is a certified vendor for the home school charter schools listed below. The home school charter systems provide excellent support for arts education and wonderful opportunities for homeschooling students. I am currently a certified vendor for: iLEAD Exploration Charter Blue Ridge Academy Sage Oak Charter Schools   If you are a member of another home school charter and would like LA Music Lessons to be a vendor, don't hesitate to ask! Theme by The WP Club | Proudly powered by WordPress An Interesting Creative Activity – L.A. Music Lessons Skip to content Menu Home Listen Homeschool Charter Schools Contact Me Blog Ear Training Ear Training Level 1 Ear Training Level 2 Ear Training Level 3 Videos for Students An Interesting Creative Activity Author: Andrew Boyle Published on: January 19, 2022 Comments: 0 Comments Here is an improvisational strategy that works on a more intuitive level that can help you develop musical ideas. It works on any piece, but it is best to start with a shorter work with a clear form, like a minuet. First you need to be able to play through the piece with everything there. You can’t be creative with a piece if you can’t even play it. The next step looks different if you are working with a digital or a paper copy. If it is a digital copy that you can edit, you create a colored box that you can use to cover over a single measure of music. If it is a paper copy, this is more complicated, but you can cut out several squares of paper. It is easier to lie the music down flat, and then you can put the squares down over the measures you want to cover. I would recommend using a pdf on this one. Now, what you cover up depends on what you want to do. You can cover just the right hand, or just the left hand, or both. The number of measures you cover is also up to you. My preferred method is to only cover the right hand, and to cover one measure at a time. Once you have covered up your measure(s), then you play through your piece as normal. Once you get to the blank measure, your job is to make up something convincing in the space. You can try it several times and do different options.Then you can add more blank measures. This means that you will be improvising more and more as you play through the piece. Eventually, by covering up one measure at a time, you will end up with a completely blank score, and you will be improvising something new with exactly the same number of measures that you started with. It is interesting to see what the end result is after you have gone through the process! Three Strategies to Practice Sight Reading Theme by The WP Club | Proudly powered by WordPress iLEAD Charter Schools: How to Get Free Piano Lessons – L.A. Music Lessons Skip to content Menu Home Listen Homeschool Charter Schools Contact Me Blog Ear Training Ear Training Level 1 Ear Training Level 2 Ear Training Level 3 Videos for Students iLEAD Charter Schools: How to Get Free Piano Lessons Author: Andrew Boyle Published on: June 23, 2022 Comments: 0 Comments iLEAD Charter Schools: How to Get Free Piano Lessons An amazing opportunity that is available in Southern California to students who are pursuing homeschooling is called iLEAD Exploration , often called iLEAD Charter Schools or just iLEAD. In its own words, "iLEAD Exploration Hybrid is a free, public charter school program where each family is assigned a credentialed teacher (facilitator) who assigns and creates a customized, individualized learning plan each year in conjunction with the student and family, based on grade level standards and the learner’s passions. Instructional funds are used to support and enhance each learner’s individualized learning plan." This is a beautiful program because it means that students are provided with the funding they need from the charter school to pursue extracurricular activities of their choice. This includes piano lessons and anything else you can find from their list of qualified and approved vendors. L.A. Music Lessons is an approved vendor for iLEAD Exploration. The charter school will pay for your lessons and it is an amazing opportunity for your children to get outstanding extracurricular educational opportunities with the support of the network. If you are currently homeschooling or considering homeschooling in Southern California, I strongly suggest you look into their website and get in touch to find out how to enroll. I personally support homeschooling not just as a teacher but also as a parent and believe that this program offers many outstanding opportunities to homeschoolers regardless of my involvement as an approved vendor.   Take a look at their website and fill out their general inquiries form to find out more about their program.   How to Use Passacaglia Loops to Improvise Why Every Pianist Needs A Practice Journal Theme by The WP Club | Proudly powered by WordPress Why Every Pianist Needs A Practice Journal – L.A. Music Lessons Skip to content Menu Home Listen Homeschool Charter Schools Contact Me Blog Ear Training Ear Training Level 1 Ear Training Level 2 Ear Training Level 3 Videos for Students Why Every Pianist Needs A Practice Journal Author: Andrew Boyle Published on: June 24, 2022 Comments: 0 Comments Once you have been playing piano for a while, it will eventually take new strategies to continue your improvement. Especially once you may be in music school, it is going to take a lot of thinking to figure out how to manage all of the responsibilities and music that you have to learn. Let me share with you something that was a game-changer for me in music school that I frankly wish I had discovered way sooner. It started because I had an almost overwhelming amount of music to learn and prepare in a relatively short window of time. I was working on the Rachmaninoff Cello Sonata, the Beethoven F major Cello Sonata, the Debussy Cello Sonata, the Ravel G major Piano Concerto, Stravinsky's Trois Mouvements de Petrouchka, Beethoven Op. 110, Bach G major Partita, two Rachmaninoff Etudes Tableaux, a Ligeti etude (Fanfares), a Chopin etude (Winter Wind), the Nutcracker Concert Suite arranged by Mikhail Pletnev, and Brahms Eight Pieces Op. 76, and each of these pieces were going to be performed over a period of about a month and a half. I had about five months beforehand to prepare all of them, and many of them were brand new.   Needless to say I was quite overwhelmed to have five months to prepare so many different pieces. I knew that I needed a strategy to get a handle on this project. So I decided that while I worked on figuring out what my strategy was, I was going to keep a practicing journal. I needed to know what I was spending my time on in order to make sure that all of these pieces got the attention that they needed. So I wrote down what piece I played, for how long, what I did, what practicing techniques I used, what errors there were, and when I took breaks. At the beginning of each practice session, I would spend some time looking over the previous entries and seeing if I could notice any patterns.   The whole experience was a revelation to me because it totally changed how I perceived my practicing. Suddenly I made connections between what I had done on previous days and what I was seeing later on. I saw what worked and what didn't work. I understood what effect each technique I used had on my playing. It brought a level of big-picture clarity to my practicing strategy that I had never had before without using a practicing journal.   I am proof that it is never too late to start using a practicing journal. I had gone through years and years of recitals and performances and never really used one. But when things got too crazy, I started using one and it made everything not necessarily easy but at least somewhat under control. I can genuinely say that I am extremely proud of each of the performances I did during that time both for the quantity of difficult repertoire that I managed and also for the quality of the performances.   If you want to add just one routine to your practicing to help you improve much faster, I would say you should keep a practicing journal. Its really easy to start: just get a paper notebook or even use a Google Doc or Evernote, and write down a brief description of what you did when you practiced and the date. Its that simple. You don't have to write paragraphs upon paragraphs, and you don't have to necessarily try anything radically new. What you are doing is bringing long-term awareness to what you are practicing and that will make a huge difference, and gradually your note taking habit will accumulate into a lot of stored up wisdom and insight. iLEAD Charter Schools: How to Get Free Piano Lessons John Thompson: Teaching Little Fingers to Play Theme by The WP Club | Proudly powered by WordPress Practicing – L.A. Music Lessons Skip to content Menu Home Listen Homeschool Charter Schools Contact Me Blog Ear Training Ear Training Level 1 Ear Training Level 2 Ear Training Level 3 Videos for Students Latest Posts Under: Practicing Why Every Pianist Needs A Practice Journal June 24, 2022 0 Comments What is Deliberate Practice? June 22, 2022 0 Comments Theme by The WP Club | Proudly powered by WordPress Improvisation – L.A. Music Lessons Skip to content Menu Home Listen Homeschool Charter Schools Contact Me Blog Ear Training Ear Training Level 1 Ear Training Level 2 Ear Training Level 3 Videos for Students Latest Posts Under: Improvisation How to Use Passacaglia Loops to Improvise June 22, 2022 0 Comments An Interesting Creative Activity January 19, 2022 0 Comments Theme by The WP Club | Proudly powered by WordPress Contact Me – L.A. Music Lessons Skip to content Menu Home Listen Homeschool Charter Schools Contact Me Blog Ear Training Ear Training Level 1 Ear Training Level 2 Ear Training Level 3 Videos for Students Contact Me Please text at (213) 538-2988 or email at [email protected] Theme by The WP Club | Proudly powered by WordPress How to Use Passacaglia Loops to Improvise – L.A. Music Lessons Skip to content Menu Home Listen Homeschool Charter Schools Contact Me Blog Ear Training Ear Training Level 1 Ear Training Level 2 Ear Training Level 3 Videos for Students How to Use Passacaglia Loops to Improvise Author: Andrew Boyle Published on: June 22, 2022 Comments: 0 Comments There is a great essay by early music scholar and performer Nicola Cumer you can find here on Spiridionis that explains how to use a passacaglia bass line to improve your improvising skills. There are all kinds of fun ideas in here that I think can be applied in a wide range of ways to instantly start understanding how the music you are playing is put together. Improvising goes a long way to develop stylistic fluency and confidence, and by using a simple loop you can apply this idea to essentially any piece. The idea here is simple: just because a piece doesn’t use repeating patterns in the left hand doesn’t mean you can’t turn them into repeating patterns for the sake of learning. Find a section with a coherent number of measures, preferably a multiple of four like four, eight, twelve, or sixteen. Now you are going to remove the right hand part and just play the left hand alone. When you get to the end of that section, just start the same section again and play it in a loop. Once you are in the groove of doing that a few times, its time to let your right hand start coming up with ideas. I am not going to deal in this post with how to make decisions about what your right hand should play to sound stylistically appropriate. However, each time you loop through the section you chose, allow your right hand to play something new while your left hand stays the same. This will give you a chance to try the same thing multiple times and get a sense of what ideas you can come up with in the right hand that match. The reason I would call this a passacaglia is because the passacaglia is a musical form where the left hand bass line stays the same through the whole piece. The right hand melody, on the other hand, changes each time. It’s kind of like a theme and variations, except the left hand is much more consistent, and the section is usually much shorter. For those who have heard the term chaconne, it is pretty much identical to a chaconne or a ground bass. The clever idea here is to look for places in pieces that are NOT passacaglias or chaconnes that could nevertheless be turned INTO passacaglias by repeating them over and over again. This gives you a way to really internalize the way a particular phrase structure works and explore many options in your right hand improvisation within a clear constraint. Nicola Cumer found this idea in a treatise by Spiridionis but the idea applies to music of all eras. Try it in a piece of music you are already playing: find one eight measure section that you could repeat the left hand on in a loop. Then, as you go through it each time, give your right hand a chance to try small variations, then big variations, then totally whatever comes into your head. This is a great way that anyone can move from simply playing the notes on the page to understanding how the music they are playing is put together and get better at improvising on top of that. What is Deliberate Practice? iLEAD Charter Schools: How to Get Free Piano Lessons Theme by The WP Club | Proudly powered by WordPress Ear Training Level 3 – L.A. Music Lessons Skip to content Menu Home Listen Homeschool Charter Schools Contact Me Blog Ear Training Ear Training Level 1 Ear Training Level 2 Ear Training Level 3 Videos for Students Ear Training Level 3 1. Chopin: Waltz in A minor http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/41-Chopin-Waltz.mp3 2. Kabalevsky: The Clown http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/42-Kabalevsky-Clown.mp3 3. Brahms: Waltz in B major, Op. 39 No. 1 http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/43-Brahms-Waltz.mp3 4. Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 8 Mvt. II http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/44-Mozart-Sonata.mp3 5. Schubert: Moments Musicaux, No. 6 D. 780 http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/45-Schubert-Moments.mp3 6. Clementi: Sonata in Bb major Op. 12 No. 1 http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/46-Clementi-Sonata.mp3 7. Faure: Dolly Suite, No. 2 "Mi-a-ou" http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/47-Faure-Dolly.mp3 8. Bach: French Suite No. 1 Sarabande http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/48-Bach-French-Suite.mp3 9. Chopin: Prelude Op. 28 No. 15 "Raindrop" http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/49-Chopin-Prelude.mp3 10. Mendelssohn: Cello Sonata No. 2 in D major Op. 58 http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/50-Mendelssohn-Cello.mp3 11. Haydn: String Quartet Op. 20 No. 4 Mvt. III http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/51-Haydn-Quartet.mp3 12. Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Mvt. II http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/52-Rachmaninoff-Symphony.mp3 13. Brahms: Clarinet Sonata in Eb Op. 120 No. 2 http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/53-Brahms-Clarinet.mp3 14. Beethoven: Piano Sonata Op. 13 Mvt. III http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/54-Beethoven-Sonata.mp3 15. Bach: Violin Concerto in E major, BWV 1042 http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/55-Bach-Violin.mp3 16. Bach: Invention in G major, BWV 781 http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/56-Bach-G-Invention.mp3 17. Ravel: Piano Trio, Passacaglia http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/57-Ravel-Piano-Trio.mp3 18. Prokofiev: March from The Love for Three Oranges http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/58-Prokofiev-Three-Oranges.mp3 19. Mozart: Clarinet Concerto in A, K.622 http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/59-Mozart-Clarinet-Concerto.mp3 20. Bach: Partita for Solo Violin No. 2 in D minor, Gigue http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/60-Bach-Partita-Gigue.mp3 Theme by The WP Club | Proudly powered by WordPress Three Strategies to Practice Sight Reading – L.A. Music Lessons Skip to content Menu Home Listen Homeschool Charter Schools Contact Me Blog Ear Training Ear Training Level 1 Ear Training Level 2 Ear Training Level 3 Videos for Students Three Strategies to Practice Sight Reading Author: Andrew Boyle Published on: June 20, 2022 Comments: 0 Comments Everyone who takes piano lessons has heard at some point that you are supposed to practice sight reading. But how are you supposed to actually get better at it, and at what point does it become fun instead of a painful process of deciphering notes one at a time? I personally remember trying to play through a reduction of a Mozart symphony for piano four hands with another pianist and getting totally left in the dust. Yet I have found that steadily working on the following strategies over the years has helped sight reading become something I find incredibly enjoyable. Here are three tips that have helped me move from confused to competent enough to enjoy the process. 1. Never look down at your hands. This one might seem obvious but honestly makes such a big difference once you really commit to it. It is simplistic to underestimate how important it is for sight reading that you are able to play without looking at your hands. If you haven't seen the music before, you need your eyes to be looking at the music 100% of the time. At first this will mean going very slowly and probably ignoring the rhythm in order to build your knowledge of the keyboard by feel alone. If you need to start with just one hand alone, go for it, because pianists have an extra challenge in using two hands at the same time that other instrumentalists don't face in the same way. Only once you are feeling more comfortable finding your way around the keyboard without looking down should you move on to the next tip. 2. Establish a pulse, no matter how slow. The pulse can come from many different places: you can use your foot to tap on the ground, you can use one hand tapping on your leg while the other hand plays, you can count out loud, you can use a metronome. Pick one that works for you for right now. The point is that your pulse will keep you accountable to playing not just the correct pitches like in the first tip, but also the correct rhythm. Now, many people try this and instantly crash and burn because their tempo is WAY too fast. So they try and slow down their speed more and more until it is so slow that they can't even keep track of the pulse anymore. Then they give up and say that they will never learn how to sight read and their rhythm is too poor. The secret here is that once your metronome speed dips below 60 beats per minute, it is hard even for a well-trained musician to stick to it. Instead, you have to double the speed of your pulse, in this case to 120, but keep using it as if it were at 60. In other words, if 60 was the quarter note, 120 is now the eighth note. Then you can slow down from 120 until you find a tempo you can use. Let's say you finally can manage it at eighth note equals 70. You probably wouldn't have been able to do it at quarter note equals 35, but eighth note equals 70 is much easier to follow. 3. Read good music, especially with other musicians. My love for sight reading really began when I started reading through music I actually liked. I spent a whole summer spending two hours a day dedicated to reading through new pieces VERY slowly. I went through Mozart Piano Sonatas, Beethoven variations, Bach suites, the Well-Tempered Clavier. Now, at first this was a pretty arduous process, and I will freely admit that my rhythmic accuracy was pretty subpar and tempo consistency almost non-existent. But getting a chance to look through this music on my own was enough to convince me that it was worthwhile to develop this skill further. The next step was to go through more music with other pianist and string player friends to convince me that I also needed to develop the consistency of my pulse. Its all well and good to have a teacher tell you that you should observe the dynamics and articulations when you are sight reading, or that you should work with a metronome, or that you should always be counting, but a lot of those things will fall naturally into place if you are trying it out on genuinely good music you are interested in with other musicians who can play well. The music and the musicians will help hold you to it. For me, that felt like falling on my face quite a few times at first but it helped motivate me to keep going to the point where I spend time almost every day reading new music just because its fun and my kids will start dancing around. Everyone knows working on sight reading will at least theoretically benefit their playing. Most music examinations like the Royal Conservatory of Music exam require a sight playing section which includes both rhythm and playing. Yet slogging through the process can feel arduous without some key strategies and a clear goal. For me, the goal was to be able to play on my own or with others in a way that I enjoyed the process and liked what came out, even if it wasn't perfect. Those three tips helped get me a long way and over time took me from pretty confused to quite comfortable. Above all, being able to play music I actually enjoyed and not just some exercise took it from being something imposed on me to something I wanted to be able to do for myself, and I hope that you find the same thing to be true. An Interesting Creative Activity What is Deliberate Practice? Theme by The WP Club | Proudly powered by WordPress Ear Training – L.A. Music Lessons Skip to content Menu Home Listen Homeschool Charter Schools Contact Me Blog Ear Training Ear Training Level 1 Ear Training Level 2 Ear Training Level 3 Videos for Students Ear Training 1. Hot Cross Buns http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/1HotCrossBuns.m4a 2. Mary Had A Little Lamb http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/2MaryHadALittleLamb.m4a 3. Ode to Joy http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/3OdeToJoy.m4a 4. God Is So Good http://lamusiclessons.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/4GodIsSoGood.m4a 5. 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