Review: How to Sight-Read (Paul Harris)
I love to sight-read! ...and yes, I can feel you groan as you read that! No one ever really taught me to sight-read, I just seemed to pick up the…
Review: ABRSM Piano Syllabus 2025-26
The new ABRSM Piano Syllabus seems to come round alarmingly quickly. It often feels as that no sooner have I reviewed one, the next one drops through the letterbox. The…
Concert Review: Birmingham Bach Choir Summer Concert (July 2024)
As the early-evening sun streamed through the beautiful stained glass windows, the high church surroundings of Birmingham’s St Alban the Martyr provided the perfect setting for a splendidly adventurous programme…
Review: The Piano Player, Classical Chillout
As you may have guessed, new volumes of Faber Music's The Piano Player series are released far quicker than I can keep up in reviewing them. The series is clearly…
Review: 22 Nocturnes for Chopin
Given that if I was really honest, quite a bit of the stuff I’m sent for review is, at worst, pretty awful, mediocre at best, it makes it even more…
Faber Music Teachers’ Community
When I completed my PhD back in 2020, one of my recommendations was that those involved in the music industry, specifically those organisations related to music education, should: 'consider developing…
Putting the ‘Social’ Into ‘Social Media’
I've just been having a clear-out of people I was following on social media. Don't worry, it's not anyone whose posts I read and interact with, it's people who've obviously…
Review: Solo, Yiruma 20th Anniversary
If you haven't heard the name Yiruma, then even if it's unknowingly, I'm sure you've heard 'River Flows in You', probably his most iconic piano piece. South Korean-born pianist composer,…
Concert Review: St Matthew Passion (March 2024)
Birmingham Bach Choir are an amateur choir with professional standards, and tonight’s concert in Lichfield Cathedral was no exception. Bach's setting of the Passion according to St Matthew was delivered…
Review: Lang Lang Music Theory, Levels 1 and 2
These two new volumes from Faber Music, Lang Lang Music Theory, have been written to accompany The Lang Lang Piano Method. I confess, I've not seen this, but I note…
Review: The Joy of Graded Piano, Grades 1-5
If you've had any experience of learning, playing or teaching the piano, you can't failed to have missed the extensive series of books, 'The Joy of...'. Some 50 volumes have…
Review: Naoko Ikeda, The Graded Collection
Teachers, and occasionally students, can sometimes be a little cautious when it comes to collections of music by only one composer. We think of anthologies and compilations containing works by…