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Last year I held a piano concert – we called it a Piano Bash! – to celebrate all the pianists who learn the piano with me. And plans are already afoot for another Piano Bssh this year! I was blown away by the positivity and courage of all my young performers last year – playing in front of people is nerve-wracking! – but luckily learning to play a musical instrument is a super-power. And here’s why….

Learning an instrument gives us courage. When we have music lessons we are constantly being taken out of our comfort zone. Everytime I give my students new and more challenging pieces, there are new skills to learn in order to be able to play the piece well. And as they rise to the challenge, my students’ faith in themselves grows, and their self confidence flourishes. They are more likely to do something that they might not ordinarily have been brave enough to do – like performing in front of an audience! Basically, learning an instrument makes us braver.

Learning an instrument also affects the way our brain functions. To play the piano, we read two lines of music at once, we use our two hands and ten fingers at once and we listen to what each of those hands are doing. We also use our feet to control different pedals. As a result of this, different pathways in the brain are used and people who play the piano can concentrate better, multitask, solve complex problems more easily, and our brains stay healthier into later life. Playing the piano turns our brains into better functioning machines.

But for me, it’s the wellbeing aspect of music that is so important. Being involved in music and learning an instrument gives us connections to other people and to ourselves that we might otherwise struggle to make. It helps us to regulate our emotions and thoughts, it helps us to make sense of what is sometimes a confusing world, because in reading and playing music we are constantly moving through periods of harmony and dissonance, and we become comfortable with that. For those of us who compose, music allows us to take our thoughts from imagination and turn them into reality, and in that way music is the most amazing form of escape. But at the same time, playing an instrument can also be a place of refuge and safety, and a way to express worries or secrets.

When students come to me for lessons it is, at its bare minimum, thirty minutes of time away from screens or time away from whatever has been bothering us that day. But at its best, it is about creating something beautiful and meaningful out of a piece of wood and metal and vibrating air. And when students leave my lessons, I always think they leave a little bit calmer and a little bit more buoyant – more ready to face the world, maybe – than when they came in. Put simply, music brings out the best in us.

And when we realise the benefits to our sense of self worth and self esteem, to the improved way our brain functions, to the connections it can give us to ourselves and other people, and to our own emotional well-being and mental health, then it becomes a no-brainer – it’s non-negotiable – we HAVE to keep encouraging our young people to be involved in music and we have to keep championing and celebrating that involvement everyday from the very beginning.

And that’s what the Piano Bash last year was about. I truly believe that music is a huge part of what makes us human. It has been giving our lives meaning since cave-man times. It is escape, freedom and joy. It’s everything we need more of in our lives. So that’s why there will be another Piano Bash this year, and I can’t wait!

Above my piano I have a couple of pictures depicting two singing children, a cat, a dog and a bird. They’re posters from an opera called Brundibar, written by the composer Hans Krasa – a cousin of my great grandmother’s. Brundibar the opera is so significant – culturally, historically and musically – that there is a festival named after it,The Brundibar Arts Festival. The opera is performed regularly throughout the world – it is being performed this month by Opera North Youth Company in Leeds and Gateshead. It has been turned into a picture book by Maurice Sendak. Sometimes I look up at these colourful posters on my wall with my relative’s name on them, and feel inspired. Other times I turn away; they make my stomach churn and my nose prickle. They make my heart sink. These posters represent to me everything that music is, and can be. But they also remind me of the very darkest times in my family’s, and the world’s, history. 

Brundibar was written as an entry for a Czechoslovakian children’s opera competition by Hans Krasa in 1938. Before the winner could be announced however, Jewish music was banned by the Nazis. But music can find its way even past evil, and within a year secret rehearsals of Brundibar were underway at a Jewish orphanage in Prague. Before he could see it premiere however, Hans Krasa had been arrested and deported to Theresienstadt concentration camp, shortly followed by nearly all the orphanage staff and children.

In Theresienstadt living conditions were squalid and the death rate was high. But the Nazis, masters of deception, presented the camp to the outside world as a “model ghetto” in an attempt to dispel growing reports of the exterminations and atrocities actually being carried out in their camps. As part of the disguise, musical endeavours were permitted. So with a partial copy of the piano score smuggled into Theresienstadt by the Prague orphanage director (“as precious treasure” he later said), Krasa was able to re-orchestrate and rehearse his opera. He had a half broken piano, a few string and brass instruments, and children who sang. When it had finally been rewritten and rehearsed, Brundibar was fully exploited by the Nazis for their propaganda purposes (apparently missing the irony of the opera’s plot – children resisting and finally overcoming a bullying tyrant). Within just one year, It was performed officially 54 times for SS officers and visiting dignitaries, and dozens of times unofficially in dormitories, hallways and yards for other prisoners. Keen to deceive a visiting contingent from the International Red Cross in 1944 who were inspecting conditions at Theresienstadt, the Nazis arranged for an extra special staging of Brundibar. After all, what could be lovelier and more wholesome than a group of musicians and children singing? The Red Cross committee were successfully fooled by the elaborate hoax and, convinced that conditions were good and the prisoners well treated, left the camp. That 55th performance was the last one. Within two weeks, the Nazis had sent Hans Krasa and most of the musicians and the child performers and chorus to their deaths. 

I cannot imagine the horror of being in that camp. I cannot imagine the horror of being a child there. My hope is that the music and singing brought some form of comfort to many of the incarcerated children and adults. It perhaps gave them a means of expression. It allowed them to be part of something creative in the face of dreadful adversity. It allowed them, for just a few minutes, to forget where they were. 

The power music has on us is strong. After all it is used as a form of therapy for people traumatised by war. I like to think that the prisoners in the camp may have felt something like hope when they sang. A small light in their continuing darkness. So on Holocaust Memorial Day this week I will light my candle and look up at my Brundibar posters, and remember Hans Krasa and the rest of my murdered ancestors – the Krasa and Heimler families. And I’ll remember the musicians in Theresienstadt who kept playing. And the children who, through the most horrific and brutal of circumstances, continued to sing.

Piano lessons are back in full swing! Straight back into it for children’s lessons this week with lots of games and activities to pull everything we’ve learnt previously about notes and rhythms from our slightly locked-down, foggy brains, including scrabble letter races up and down the keyboard; pulling surprise objects out of a lucky dip bag and playing what comes out; making caterpillar rhythms; paying matching games; stepping and skipping up lego steps, plus lots of imaginative compositions, duets, clapping, tapping and generally having a lovely time.

Music lessons are amazing for improving concentration levels (for children and adults), for zoning out of the craziness of day to day life, for feeling like half an hour has been spent well, and for enabling us to connect to something that is beautiful and expressive when words don’t seem to work. Personally, I don’t think we’ve ever needed music more than we need it right now, and I’m so happy to be back.

I’m full for after school / evening lessons at the moment, but if you have contacted me about lessons for your child, then I have you on my waiting list and will get in touch if and when spaces become available.

Adult lessons are also starting up again – give me a nudge if I haven’t made contact with you yet. And if you’ve been looking at a piano or keyboard in your house for the last year and wishing you could play it and are ready to commit to some lessons, then now is the time to start!

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What is the connection between keys and music?! Key signatures are the building blocks of which (Western) music is built. They’re a group of notes that sound satisfying to our ears. When played in sequence – do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do – it’s called a scale. When played in a random order, it’s a tune! There are major keys and minor keys. Minor keys are the sad or depressing sounding ones. For example if you wrote 2020 as a piece of music, it would definitely have to be in a minor key, though perhaps with the odd flurry of excitement in a major key, for instance when my mother left wine on the doorstep, or the children went back to school!

I’m a bit of a scale nerd, but not everyone is! I mean, they’re really not that fun to learn. So, in my music room, every key signature learnt and played as a scale or in a piece earns a key ring with the key signature on it, and an awesome little key. Ultimately, learning keys opens doors to playing a broader range of music

My family and friends organised this amazing surprise birthday cake for me this week…. I love it so much I don’t think I can ever cut into it! If you come to me for lessons you will recognise a few things, other than just the piano – like the bird picture and the metronome and the heart lights. The tiny music is even Happy Birthday in miniature!

New term starts tomorrow! These guys have missed you! See you soon!

Pirates of the Caribbean! This has to be my lockdown piece, encompassing the atmosphere in our house for the last two months – the slight feeling of dread every morning (me) as another day of home-learning looms; the fighting (kids); the dawn raids and pilfering (kids again); the drinking (me); the chaos and mutiny and frequent lawlessness of it all, but also the moments of fun and mayhem and the sense of being on a seemingly endless adventure together. Somehow, we are staying afloat. For everyone feeling lost in the storm, this is for you. And for my own crew of fierce pirates, navigating this strange time in their childhood fearlessly, with joy and optimism coursing through their veins, this is for them too – Pirates Forever ???:

(like lockdown days, this is far from perfect!)

I am excited to be taking part in Learn To Play Day 2020 – an event organised by the charity Music For All, offering FREE taster sessions on musical instruments for the general public. These opportunities are for complete beginners, or people wishing to reconnect with a musical instrument after some time away! Music For All is a great charity, promoting the life changing benefits of music making which, on a personal level, can help us find balance in our busy lives, improves our wellbeing and helps us discover who we are through creative self-expression. Socially and culturally, music is an essential part of our lives and an extremely powerful means of communication.

So, if you have always wondered what it feels like to sit at a piano and play, or are considering taking up an instrument but are not sure where to begin, then Learn To Play Day is the perfect opportunity to find out. I am offering piano taster sessions on 28th and 29th March, so please get in touch to book in a session, or check out the Learn To Play website for other venues and instruments! Get playing!

This is my favourite place – a beautiful, big room especially for piano adventures! ??
There is lots of space for: the ever-growing games and resources I use; a blackboard; a table (no more wobbly manuscript paper on knees); loads of seating for impromptu concerts (and early arrivals – or when I’m running late ?) plus a seriously beautiful piano ❤️❤️ which has been named by my children The Black Pearl ??

My 5 year old loves messing around on the piano and trying to play tunes he likes. So, I’ve been making these colour-coded sheets of his favourite tunes for him to play (avoiding the boring nursery rhymes!). Each coloured sticker corresponds to a note on the piano, so it’s easy for him to work out what to play on his own, without having to know note names and position on the stave. All it requires is some small pieces of coloured paper to put on the actual piano keys so he can match what’s on the music, to which key to play on the piano. If you have a young child who is showing an interest in playing the piano, but is perhaps still a bit young for formal lessons, then using colours is a really great way of helping them to navigate the keyboard and “read” music.