particularities of the piano, such as, for example, how it sounds in the room (at home and in the Concert Hall), how to balance the sound across the piano from high to low, and develop basic skills such as balance between melody and accompaniment, as well as how to produce different dynamic ranges with good tone quality, from the barely perceptible to the thunderous. Not just loud and soft processed in an intellectual way, but, rather through inner hearing, and practice in how to use the body to produce a soft sound, a strong sound, just like an athlete knows how to use their body in their particular sport. If well set-up in the beginning, then there is less to correct at a later stage. Ingrained habits are very hard to change at a later date, so the beginning stage is very important. It's my impression that the design of the piano (keys sloping in slightly towards the felt, point of contact, 88 notes of different resistance, for example), aids the senses in the development of the conditioned reflexes that build over time in response to the musical imagination. On a grand, the sound emanates from different directions and is essentially concentrated through the end of the frame, the furthest point from the keyboard, meaning that the pianist listens to the sound in a different way than they would if using a digital (especially with headphones). The sound is living, and infinitely variable. A digital might have weighted keys, but it is not at all like the touch on an upright, or better still, a grand. Children live in a world of the senses, and this precious sensitivity and 7th anniversary, founder member Sidney Harrison’s title for his brief, but thoughtful article was, ‘What do EPTA people talk about?’ He poses a lot of questions, such as, ‘What do we think about group teaching, and what should our attitude be to touch sensitive electronic keyboards as substitutes for the familiar upright?’ Without in many cases providing answers, rather questions to provoke thought, reflection, and discussion, as might happen informally at a Conference when EPTA colleagues meet over coffee. That particular sentence struck me as a pertinent topic for discussion. Over the last 40 years a lot has changed, and the electronic keyboard is now outselling the upright by some considerable margin. Whatever the public perception might be of it, a digital will never be the same as an acoustic piano. The rise of digital is, I feel, one of the most significant changes to the piano teaching profession during the last 40 years. It is interesting that back then, when the electronic keyboard was not to my recollection very popular, Mr Harrison brought up the topic as something already being under discussion amongst EPTA members. We run a private SUZUKI™/Kodaly teaching practice, where we start beginners at three or four years of age. There is a particular educational approach to working with that age group. Very young children learn through their senses and will use all of them in learning the piano. Therefore at home, they need a well-tuned and regulated acoustic piano so as to learn the natural use of the body and a consequential healthy technique, to learn to listen to the quality of sound, tone and timbre of the piano, and to discover the extraordinary range of sounds that are possible using a grand in particular, or an upright. They need to become accustomed to the 22 Then and Now – Teaching Piano in a Digital World Originally published in Piano Professional Magazine, Issue 67, June 2025 Although at the time, this article was written for a general audience of piano teachers (the content being fundamental to the piano profession as a whole) it is even more important for Suzuki teachers to consider because ‘tone’ is key to the SUZUKI METHOD™. Preserving the young child’s truly remarkable ability to learn through the senses is also a key concept in relation to how children learn, and therefore how to devise ways of teaching the youngest children. Adults also learn through all their senses, but not to the same extent as children. I also highlighted, within this article, the often overlooked or disregarded long-term danger that the plastics in digital keyboards pose to future generations of children. I hope this will lead to an open discussion amongst Suzuki piano teachers, on what, I feel, is an important topic. sensibility is something that needs recognising and nurturing, so it is not lost or damaged, and the acoustic piano facilitates this connection between hand, brain, and heart. One expert colleague from the professional world, during a masterclass for our students, said that pedalling was 40% of piano playing. Next time he came that had gone up to 50%! I think he is 100% right. On a digital the pedal is simply on or off, which has consequences for the range of pedalling skills that can be taught, and consequently how colourful and expressive the students’ playing might become. On an acoustic, depending on to what depth one depresses the right pedal, there are several possibilities for tone colour, and atmospheric effects. When we come to the other pedals, they also have their place in the piano repertoire, and consequently in teaching. Brilliant contemporary composers such as Gerard Pesson, and Marco Stroppa, have shown how many strange and wonderful sounds the piano is capable of using the 3rd pedal. It’s impossible to play their music (and much else written since the general introduction by Steinway of the pedal in 1875), as the composer might have intended, without the 3rd pedal. Grainger, in his works, is someone who very carefully notated its use, and showed some of the remarkable possibilities of the sostenuto pedal, particularly in his transcriptions. The una corda is used in masterful ways by contemporary pianists in recital (Charles Owen, Mitsuko Uchida, and Trifonov come to mind), and on recordings by pianists from the past. One can hear enlightening use of it in recordings by Moritz Rosenthal (with his close ties to Chopin and Liszt) Benno Moiseiwitch, Ignaz Friedman, & Paderewski, for example. Of course, the una corda is often used in partnership with the other pedals. P Stephen Power ublished in the ‘Classical Music’ magazine's tribute to EPTA, on its
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