Improving your piano skills doesn't have to be tedious! This is a message I want to shout from the rooftops. There are actually lots of fun ways to improve your practice, if you're willing to think outside the box.

It’s really common for my piano students to just start reading a piece of music from the beginning, with no preparation or planning. But just launching into sight reading with no preparation is an easy way to get lost and frustrated.

You can set yourself up for breezier success if you find some relationships between your notes before you start to play.

When we're constantly challenging ourselves and trying new things at our pianos, it can be easy to start thinking that our piano journey is nothing but one big struggle. But I want to encourage you to purposefully build times of rest or relief into your piano practice.

I've noticed a misconception that learning your piano pieces better is the key to becoming comfortable with performance.

While it's certainly important to know your pieces well, performance is actually an entirely different skill that needs to be developed separately.

Recently we’ve been talking about the chords within any major key signature and how you can use them to create chord progressions that express different feelings. Today I’d like to expand on this to talk about some of the variations to the standard chords that musicians often use to express even more emotions in their music.

If you want to start writing music, one of the first decisions you’ll need to make is which chord progressions you want to have as the foundation of your song. There are a couple of ways you can get started in this.

I think most of us have felt the pressure to be a good student and practice every day. Some people find the routine of daily practice to be really motivating. But I was never one of those people. I had to find my own ways to get motivated to practice, and today I’d like to share what I’ve learned in case it helps you!

A viewer of my previous video “My favourite rhythm pattern for beginner piano players” requested a video demonstrating how to add the sustain pedal to this rhythm pattern. I’m thrilled that my viewers want to take on extra challenges, so here it is!

If you're interested in gaining more independence in reading piano music, there is one skill I recommend you focus on that will catapult you to the next level -- and that is learning how to read rhythm. Learning how to identify the rhythm of the notes you’re supposed to play is going to unlock your confidence in a way that you can’t imagine! Today, I’d like to explain why this skill is so important, why hard for beginners to approach, and what you can do to gain your first steps in rhythmic independence :)