212: From The Notes On the Page To Artistry And Mastery, with Dennis Alexander (Premier Piano Course) - a podcast by Musical U
from 2019-11-20T08:00
Today we have the honour of talking with one of the top authors of piano books over the last nearly 35 years: Dennis Alexander.
With over 400 publications and recordings on Alfred Music, including Alfred’s flagship piano method Premier Piano Course, Dennis is one of the world’s most prolific and popular composers of educational piano music for students at all levels. In 2015 he was awarded a “Lifetime Achievement Award” by the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy in recognition of his extraordinary service to the music teaching profession.
Mr. Alexander provides a rich learning experience for his students by bringing awareness to the importance of musicality. Often dull topics like music theory and reading notation are brought to life with a creativity and a consciousness of musical expression.
In this conversation we talk about:
• How Dennis’ background in playing by ear and improvising feeds into how he approaches composing.
• The main difference between children and adult learners and one great way to make learning more enjoyable and improvisation less intimidating if you’re an adult learner.
• And the specific aspects which you should have in mind to bring a rendition from a strictly-correct but unmoving one through to a compelling, musical performance.
Enjoy this glimpse into what makes one of the top piano methods much more than just “playing the right notes at the right time”. Even if you’re not a piano player you don’t want to miss all of the deep musical insight in this interview!
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Full Show Notes and Transcript: Episode 212
Links and Resources
• Keys to Artistic Performance
• Dennis Alexander on Alfred Music
• Dennis Alexander Compositions
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