IN THE BEGINNING HOW TO LEARN A NEW PIECE

he challenge of learning new music keeps us feeling inspired and motivated. Done efficiently, the pleasure and satisfaction gained far outweighs any patches of frustration we may face along the way. Learning how learn best is crucial. It’s not unusual to sense that our fingers or brains are coping less well with one or more aspects. As an examiner and adjudicator, I frequently witness a misalignment of skills – players whose rhythmic or coordination control appears to be a couple of stages behind (or indeed ahead of) their current expressive capacities perhaps, or whose nimbleness conspicuously outstrips their present ability to phrase effectively. Such unevenness is to an extent inevitable for all of us of course, though with patience we can