Pianist Matt Rollings: How to Be a Session Musician People Want to Hire
Grammy-winning producer, pianist, and songwriter Matt Rollings shares what it takes to be a successful session musician, including what to charge and when to say yes or no to a project. He also shares how his recording career took off after he said yes to a young Lyle Lovett.
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Cuban Music Fusion: Pianists to Put in Heavy Rotation
In this excerpt from Nando Michelin’s Latin Piano Styles course, we look at how Cuban musicians traveling to perform abroad in the early part of the twentieth century created a natural mix of styles and opened the doors to brand new flavors of musical fusion.
Boston Red Sox Organist Josh Kantor on Playing Fenway Park
Josh Kantor has been playing the organ at Fenway Park since 2003, and he hasn’t missed a single home game since.
Simple Piano Tips for Songwriters
In my experience working with singer-songwriters, a topic that often emerges is how to use simple and strong instrumental techniques to express our songs.
Piano Voicing Techniques
Understanding the basics of piano voicings and the use of common tensions is a first step in creating effective orchestrations of reharmonized melodies.
Simplifying Jazz Harmonic Theory with Suzanna Sifter
Suzanna Sifter is author of Berklee Jazz Keyboard Harmony: Using Upper Structure Triads, an extraordinary book that helps pianists organize and understand tensions
Imaginary Barlines in Musical Notation
Jonathan Feist explains the concept of imaginary barlines in music theory, a notation convention designed to help the music reader know what’s syncopated.
