Although summer in Minnesota is in full swing, the start of a new school year stands firmly on the horizon. A fresh start, new challenges, and new experiences will be here before you know it. Whether you are a seasoned musician, or thinking of starting piano lessons for the very first time, below are a few ways to get the most out of our lessons together.

Listen to Music. Great music is accessible as ever! Attend live performances (see below) or tap into your ipad (on-listening), your favorite composer, genre, or artist is right there for you to discover.

Attend Live Concerts. The Twin Cities is chock-full of cultural events all year long! Several are discounted or even free:

Minneapolis Music in the Parks
St. Paul Music in the Parks
St. Paul Orchestra - Club2030
St. Paul Orchestra - FREE Tickets for ages 6-17
Schubert Club - $5 Student Tickets
Kinder Konzerts by Minnesota Orchestra
Minnesota Orchestra - Meet a Musician

Spend Time at the Instrument. Spend time at the piano on the days that you eat. (Psst! That's every day!) Make it a part of your daily routine. Even 5-10 minutes on the busiest of days can make a huge impact, and might even be a welcomed break from rushing around.

Perform. Play for family, school talent shows, show and tell, or Open Mic Night. Sign up to play for a local nursing home or hospital. Everyone will love it!

Competitions and Exams. Get involved in local music organization competitions, contests, and exams. It's a fun way to put your theory knowledge to the test, and/or perform for another teacher. They'll let you know what you're doing well, and suggest new ideas to try. Just ask if you'd like to learn more!

Upgrade Your Instrument. Get that baby tuned! If it's been more than a year, it's time to call your piano tuner. Thinking about upgrading your instrument? I'm happy to help on all fronts!

Listening to recordings from the pros. Listening to recordings of yourself. Both options are tremendously beneficial in their own way as you continue to learn standard repertoire and explore musical interpretations.

Record Yourself! 
It may seem a little scary to listen to yourself, but making a quick recording at home is an incredibly effective way to check in and assess your own progress. Even the process of making a recording will make you tune into your own performance with heightened awareness. How is my rhythm, pedaling, and dynamics? Did I actually shape this phrase the way I intended to? Am I doing better than I thought? Where are places I can give more? 

The Big League
A quick online search of title and composer yields thousands upon thousands of results. But who do you choose? The fun part is that there are many wonderful artists with their own interpretations of the exact piece you are learning. Listen to at least 2-3 different professionals, with your music in front of you. Did you just hear someone do something magical to a specific passage? Listen to it again. What did they do that made it so beautiful? Can you try to imitate this sound yourself? 

Several pros have established themselves as experts of musical periods or specific composers. While this is far from an exhaustive list, here are a few of the heavy-hitters to check out:

Claudio Arrau. Chilean pianist, 1903-1991. Beethoven, Bach, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, and Brahms.
Vladimir Ashkenazy. Russian pianist, 1937- . Complete piano works of Rachmaninoff and Chopin, Beethoven sonatas, Mozart piano concertos.
Martha Argerich. Argentenian pianist, 1941- . Schumann, Prokofiev, Liszt, Chopin,  Brahms, and Rachmaninoff. 
Alfred Brendel. Austrian pianist, composer, author, and poet, 1931 - . Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, and Liszt. 
Glenn Gould. Canadian pianist, 1932-1982. Best known for his performances of J.S. Bach, particularly the Goldberg Variations. 
Vladimir Horowitz. Russian pianist, 1903-1989. Romantic works including Chopin, Rachmaninoff, and Schumann. 
Lang Lang. Chinese pianist, 1982 - . "The J-Lo of piano." 
Evgeny Kissin. Russian-Israeli pianist, 1971 - . Romantic era, particularly Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, and Beethoven. 
Murray Perahia. American pianist and conductor, 1975 - . Bach, Handel, Scarlatti, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schumann. 
Sviatoslav Richter. Russian pianist, 1915-1997. Schumann, Schubert, Chopin, Beethoven, J.S. Bach, Liszt, Prokofiev, and Debussy. 
Arthur Rubinstein. Polish-American pianist, 1887-1982. Often quoted as the best Chopin performer of all time. 

One of the major players in Classical music, Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) was a German composer and pianist. He was a crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in music, and is widely considered one of the greatest composers of all time. 

Beethoven's musical talents were obvious at a young age. He was born in the small German city of Bonn, and recognized early as a child prodigy. His music studies were intense, vigorous, and harsh, often reducing him to tears. He studied violin, viola, and organ, with his primary instrument being the piano. At age 21, he moved to Vienna and began studying composition with the renowned Joseph Haydn. By the 1790s, he had gained significant notoriety for his compositions, improvisation abilities, and as a piano virtuoso. When he was just 26, he began noticing a buzzing in his ears. A few years later, he had about 60% loss of hearing, and by the age of 44, he was almost completely deaf. The cause is unknown, but theories range from typhus to auto-immune disorders, inner legions of the ear, and even his habit of immersing his head in cold water to stay awake. 

In Beethoven's early works (also known as the Early Period, 1792-1802), when he could hear the full range of frequencies, he made use of higher notes in his compositions. Rooted in the Classical traditions of Joseph Haydn and Mozart, Beethoven uses the language of Viennese classicism, emphasizing clarity, restraint, and balance. As his hearing declined, he began to use the lower notes that he could hear more clearly. In his Middle "Heroic" Period of composition (1802-1812), he began to break out of the conventions of classicism and wrote with a bolder, more individual tone. He explores human themes such as struggle, assertion, or celebration in large works. In his Late Period, his compositions became much more private, more contemplative, more visionary. He began to embrace a freedom from earlier structure, but maintained his notable musical depth.

In the last ten or so years of his life, he began carrying conversation books so his friends could write in them and he could know what they were saying. These invaluable resources contain discussions about music and other topics, which give incredible insights into his thinking, his relationship to art, and how he intended his music to be performed. In his lifetime, he composed nine symphonies, 32 piano sonatas, 16 string quartets, five piano concertos, one violin concerto, two masses, and the opera Fidelio. 

Check it out! Give these incredible works a listen: Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, Waldstein Piano Sonata, Pathetique Sonata, Op. 13, and the well-known bagatelle, Fur Elise. 

Most of us have seen an Opus number attached to a classical piece. But what does this actually mean? Are there other kinds of thematic catalogue numbers, and why?

Opus Number. An Opus number ("opus" being the Latin expression for "work" or "labor"), is typically a way to catalogue a Classical composer's works, most often in chronological order. This can help us to understand if a piece was composed early in a composer's career, or late in their career. Beethoven composed 32 piano sonatas, and they all have the same title. Instead of saying, "I'll be playing Beethoven's Sonata," you can say, "I'll be playing Beethoven's Sonata No. 31 in A-flat, Op. 110," which provides a lot more information! 

Deutsch. Franz Schubert didn't only get Opus numbers for his compositions; he was so "extra", he got an additional catalogue for his publications. Deutsch, or D. numbers, are used to identify Schubert's compositions. Schubert helped by dating nearly all of his manuscripts, so putting them in chronological order wasn't quite as complicated as other composers. 

K Numbers. Decades after Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's death in 1791, there were several attempts to catalogue his compositions. It wasn't until Ludwig von Kochel succeeded in producing a comprehensive listing in 1862. Although many of Mozart's earliest works couldn't be put in exact order, only estimated -- Mozart's father, Leopold, had compiled a partial list of his son's earlier works. According to Kochel's counting, Requiem in D minor, K. 626, was the 626th piece that Mozart composed. 

BWV. Also known as Bach-Werke Verzeichnis, or Bach Works Catalog in English. Assigned by Wolfgang Schmieder, J.S. Bach's 1,126 compositions were each assigned BWV numbers, grouped by genre: Contatas (BWV 1-224), Motets (BWV 225-231), Masses (BWV 232-243), Keyboard Works (BWV 772-994), and so on. 

Longo & Kirkpatrick. For Domenico Scarlatti, the Longo catalogue (L numbers) was in use from 1906, although K numbers (Kirkpatrick, not to be confused with Mozart's Kochel numbers) have generally become a more accepted catalogue. 

WoO. Most of Beethoven's works appear with an opus number, but occasionally, you'll see a WoO number. Thank goodness, because it's really just a lot of fun to say out loud like Rick Flair. (Woooo!) Beethoven's WoO numbers (also known as the Kinsky Catalogue) are compiled of his compositions that were not given opus numbers prior to 1955. 

There you have it! Of course, many other catalogues exist, but the list above covers many of the heavy hitters and catalogues you should know. 

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) transformed music. "The Father of Music," he brought us The Well Tempered Clavier, The Brandenburg Concertos, English and French Suites, Cantatas, The Goldberg Variations, and many more. Over one thousand more, to be exact. There are many stories behind several of his famous works, but the one we'll explore today is that of The Little Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach. 

​Anna Magdalena Wilcke was a young, highly-gifted soprano 16 years his junior. While little was known about her early musical education, she was brought up in a musical family. In 1721, she was hired by the court of Anhalt-Kothen as a singer. At this time, J.S. Bach was also hired by Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Kothen, to serve as Kapellmeister (director of music), likely how they met. Anna Magdalena continued to sing professionally into their marriage, while also working regularly as a copyist, transcribing her husband's music, providing additional family income. J.S. Bach had four surviving children from his first marriage (three died in infancy). Together they raised these children and had 13 children of their own (seven of whom died at a young age). Often, during their time in Leipzig, Anna Magdalena organized musical evenings featuring the whole family playing and singing together with visiting friends. The Bach house became a musical center in Leipzig. 

It was a common trend among artistic families of creating their own house albums of composed music. A total of three notebooks were discovered in the Bach household. The first was dated 1720 and dedicated to Bach's first son, Wilhelm Friedemann. The second and third notebooks (dated 1722 and 1725), had a gilt-edged binding of vellum, and was laid out lavishly. It looked like a gift that was created to celebrate a very special occasion. Most are short pieces, (including dances, arias, marches, chorales, etc.) in no particular order, and likely crafted to satisfy Anna Magdalena and her vocal talents. Some items were intended as educational musical instruction for the children. Most pieces are quite technically accessible. Johann Sebastian likely composed these works to provide a simpler and easier introduction to playing keyboard works -- especially when compared to many of his other compositions with many more layers. Most widely recognized from Anna Magdalena's Little Notebook are Minuet in G, Musette in D Major, and Minuet in G Minor. ​