All over the country, and probably the world, there are sad stories of independent bookshops closing down. I suppose the same must be happening with music shops

This page is a note about how I teach sight-reading. I've posted it as a matter of public service. Usual disclaimers about no responsibility taken if it doesn't help you, or makes matters worse!

If you are an A-level (or prospective A-level student), who needs to improve their keyboard skills, then here is a possible syllabus that I would suggest, with resources for the first year of lessons.

The short answer would be "With some difficulty". If you are an instrumentalist, ask yourself, how would I practise if I didn't have my instrument with me? That puts you, more or less, in the position of a singer.

What is to be done with Debussy's Le Petit Negre? It is a good piece, but it is unusable with its current title.

I recently came across a comment by Richard Egarr of the AAM, in an interview for the Cambridge Alumnus Magazine. Does anyone else do this? Ban pencils in rehearsals?

This is my setup for teaching online. Necessity is the mother of invention. When the coronavirus struck, my private and school teaching evaporated.

Is counting natural? My experience tells me not! Many young children have to be taught to hear the pulse of music, and most of us have had to learn to keep a steady pulse. One needs to practise, sometimes, with a metronome.

Here are the Top Ten Tips for adult beginners learning the piano, from an article that appeared in Pianist (the magazine) August-September 2003 by Jocelyn Abbott.

ABRSM Aural Tests assess students' listening skills by requiring discussion of a piece of music which is played to the student on the piano. In my experience, students are sometimes disadvantaged by a lack of vocabulary in discussing the music.

Fergus Black of John Clare School talks about his experience teaching music online over the past year.

Singers often have to work from memory, in opera, for example. So, ABRSM singing exams require all song to be memorised. What is the best way to memorise vocal music? Different things work for different people.