Author: Dr. John Meffen

 Publisher: Allworth Press

 ISBN: 13-978-1-58115-476-4

Improve Your Piano Playing brings its readers quite close to personally accessing an exceptional piano teacher, Dr. John Meffen, who has poured extensive years of teaching, research and performance into his 160-page book in such a personal way as to make the concepts practically jump off the page.

Geared largely towards students in the beginning intermediate stages through advanced, Improve Your Piano Playing is equal parts erudition and humor.  For example, when explaining the relative ease of finding a time and place to drum one’s fingers (an amazingly simple and effective exercise he recommends in order to increase finger strength) he admits the following: “I have done more useful finger practice during boring meetings, less than enlivening lessons and tedious sermons than I care to admit.”                                       

One concept included in the book that might be considered somewhat controversial by some readers is Dr. Meffen’s opinion regarding speed.  Although many teachers would agree with the following statement: “speed is probably the most frequent reason for making mistakes [especially in the early stages of practice],” Dr. Meffen does not approve of excessive speed in general, even in the professional realm..

But as the rest of his book clearly illustrates, there is a great deal of assiduous thought behind every supposition and method Dr. Meffen presents and so each one is more than deserving of careful consideration.

The general tone of the book and the plethora of review questions at the end of each chapter reveal a teacher whose passion is to see his students play their very best.  Improve Your Piano Playing is not an exhaustive treatise but rather a distillation from years of successful teaching, research and performance.  It will not only benefit those who apply themselves to the concepts laid out by Dr. Meffen but will also be very helpful for those who teach them to others.

The above review was contributed by: Kathryn Atwood: Click Here To View More Of Kathryn's   Reviews:

Kathryn Atwood's poetry, reviews and essays have appeared in numerous online and print journals, including "The Aurora Review,", "Afterimage," "Void Magazine," "Wild Violet," and "PopMatters."  When she's not writing or driving her three kids around somewhere, she's usually teaching at a local music studio or givng vocal performances with her husband on the  subject of American song.