Discovering What Playing Music Can Be

by | Sep 6, 2020 | Uncategorized

My student Seth plays lead guitar in the Avett Brothers—a band that has often performed for audiences of 20,000 or 30,000 people. He came to me because he wanted to learn how to play Mozart. Seth already had experience playing the piano, and in his few months of...

All the World’s a Stage

by | Apr 26, 2020 | Uncategorized

“First of all,” I said, “how are you doing with this virus situation?“. The person on the other end of the phone was a customer service representative at my Internet provider company. I had no idea who she was apart from that. But I knew she was one of us. One of the...

Arising from Our Longing to Connect

by | Apr 20, 2020 | Uncategorized

I’ve been working hard for a few weeks to bring our new program to life—the online summer program for the Art of Practicing Institute. We knew we had to make it happen. But how could we turn this phenomenal in-person program, normally held on the beautiful green...

A Time for Gentleness

by | Mar 18, 2020 | Uncategorized

Last Thursday, my brother sent me an article about the coronavirus that stunned me. I canceled my plans to leave on Saturday for a meditation retreat in Vermont and am doing my retreat at home. By Friday I had asked all my students to switch to online lessons. Then...

Memorization or Intimacy? Laura’s Story

by | Mar 2, 2020 | Uncategorized

This story describes how our anxiety about having a memory lapse in performance can be overcome by cultivating our natural coordination and our natural responsiveness to sound“I was the kid who sat at the piano for three hours playing and singing every day when I was...