I'm giving a free performance on Thursday, January 12, 2012 at Rehearsal Studios NY and all are welcome. 

Rehearsal Studios NY
853 7th Avenue - Rear Lobby
New York, NY
7:30 PM - 8:30 PM

I'm playing my program for this month's Piano Dedication at Hayner Cultural Center (Sunday January 29, 2012 at 2:00 PM in Troy, Ohio).

Schubert. Sonata in A Major, D. 664
Debussy. Estampes
Chopin. Barcarolle

This is Robert Rabinowitz (flute) and I performing his music back in our college days. I loved it at Arizona State and it was fun collaborating with Rob.

I'm performing at Steinway Hall in the Heinrich Steinway room on Saturday 1/7/2012 from 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM. It's free and all are welcome. I would love to see you, but seating is limited so if you wish to come please email me at jai@jeffryes.net.

Steinway Hall
109 West 57th St.
New York, NY
212-246-1100

The Heinrich Steinway Room is on the second floor. I'm playing my program for next month's Piano Dedication at Hayner Cultural Center (Sunday January 29, 2012 at 2:00 PM in Troy, Ohio).

Schubert. Sonata in A Major, D. 664
Debussy. Estampes
Chopin. Barcarolle

There is no such thing as a weak fourth finger. There is only poor leverage. If you are striving to strengthen your hand, I suggest strength isn't the problem. You could be giving yourself an unnecessary headache.

Go to Alan Fraser's Craft of Piano website and try this exercise invented by Franz Liszt: Bicycle Spokes Exercise.

The exercise is didactic in purpose. When you play,  you aren't going to leave your fingers immobile and you aren't going to activate them solely by moving your forearm. The intention here is to illustrate the solidity of playing on your skeleton by lining up the bones.

Give it a try,and if it helps you, I recommend Alan's books. (This is an unsolicited endorsement.)

The proof lies in how it works for you. For inspiration, check out Horowitz playing Scriabin in his concert in Moscow. Bless his heart, he's 83 and when he stands he's feeble. Not so, sitting at the piano! Formidable hand structure with skeletal alignment affords him the power to break strings were he to unleash it fully.

Dan Chen is what you call a "people person." He appears to like everyone. I don't know his secret. I think the secret is he means it.

Dan used to manage Radiance Tea House. Radiance is located just steps away from Carnegie Hall. It's a lovely place to hang out before a concert. My friend, Bob, and his wife, Cindy, introduced Jan and me to Radiance and to Dan. We liked going there, not just for tea, but to say hi to Dan.

Radiance is still nice, though poorer for losing Dan. But Bob!, I found Dan. I checked out a rehearsal studio I hadn't visited before. Rehearsal Studios NY is on 7th Avenue between 54th and 55th Streets. When I walked in the office, there was Dan! Dan showed me around and let me shap a shot. I invited him to include his company in the picture.

This, from the WQXR blog on 12/27/2011. Are you in the game?

Classical Pianist Finds YouTube Fame: If you’ve ever done a search on YouTube for Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata or Chopin’s 24 Etudes, chances are you've encountered a clip of Valentina Lisitsa. The Ukrainian pianist has become the most popular classical pianist on the video-sharing Web site, with her homemade performance clips racking up more than 35 million views and 45,000 subscribers. As a promotional tool, the videos paid off: Lisitsa has a growing slate of concert dates, including a recital at Royal Albert Hall set for June 2012.

I'm performing at Shetler Studios in Penthouse 1 on Wednesday 12/28/2011 from 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM. It's free and all are welcome.

Shetler Studios
244 W 54th St # 12 
New York, NY 10019-5515
(between Bdway and 8th Ave.)
(212) 246-6655

The Penthouse is on the top floor. Then you ascend another flight of interior stairs.

I'm playing my program for next month's Piano Dedication at Hayner Cultural Center (Sunday January 29, 2012 at 2:00 PM in Troy, Ohio).

Schubert. Sonata in A Major, D. 664
Debussy. Estampes
Chopin. Barcarolle

My wife, Jan, gave up coffee. She is very focused.

But before she did that, for years I used to get up on the weekends to make her coffee for her and bring it to her in bed. I enjoyed that ritual. It was nice.

One morning, I woke up and said to her, "Honey, would you like your hot young stud to bring you your coffee?" Without missing a beat, or even opening her eyes yet, she replied, "No honey, I want you to do it."

Coffee and classical music are a lot alike. There's tons of both, and tons of it are really pretty good. Why did my wife want me to bring her her coffee when there is so much great coffee around? Well, first, because I was there. Second, it's nice to have someone you care about do something for you and to enjoy it together.

In other words, it wasn't just because the coffee was good.

Classical musicians for the most part produce music that has already been produced. And since everyone has access to every recording ever made, we won't entice anyone to listen simply by being good (although we aspire to be good in any case). We should be good, just like the rest, but we must give our listeners one more reason besides that to say, "I want you to do it."

I will perform a recital program at the Hayner Cultural Center in Troy, Ohio on Sunday afternoon the 29th of January 2012 at 2:00.

In 2011 the Musicians' Club of Troy presented Hayner with a new grand piano. This program will dedicate the new instrument and feature music of Schubert, Debussy, and Chopin. Phyllis Warner of the Musicians' Club will open with a few musical selections.

I like to participate in the piano technique forum at Alan Fraser's The Craft of Piano Playing. I recently shared a tip I learned from Steven De Groote for fingering parallel scales.
Steven liked to finger parallel scales so that the thumbs play together. The big problems in scales are to get them smooth, without bumps, and to keep the hands perfectly together. The turn over/turn under in scale playing is hard. If you align the fingering to play both thumbs together, it gives you a little more of a fighting chance to smooth that out.

In the traditional fingering of a B-flat major scale there is no meeting point of the thumbs. However, you can make the thumbs meet if you wish to. In a parallel B-flat major scale, Steven would put his left thumb on C and F. 

C major would have the left thumb on C and F, D major on D and G, etc. This isn't dogma. It's just a choice if you have a passage that has a long parallel scale or even a fragment that could benefit from getting the thumbs together. 

It's not traditional. I don't teach children, and I don't know when it would be appropriate to introduce them to such an idea. I learned that in college. 

It's another choice. Maybe someone else will like it, too.