A Powerful Perspective on Your Piano Playing-Composition Unlocks the Door
- Diana Mascari
- Jun 12, 2021
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 24
Recently, one of my young students, an 8-year-old beginner proudly played a piece for me that she had composed. “How is this even possible?” You might ask. She simply decided to experiment with the notes she had learned from her piano books. She then took it upon herself to draw her own music staff paper and put the notes she played on the correct lines and spaces imitating what she saw in her music. Her little piece had tremendous musicality because she wrote what she knew how to play. It sounded tuneful, rhythmically solid and it was simply charming. At my encouragement, she continued to compose using the music staff paper her mother bought for her on Amazon. Lo and behold, the next week she composed four more songs. Each one different and delightful.
Lest you think she is a prodigy, she sometimes spends more time playing outside than practicing or even if she practices a lot, she doesn’t compose. Nevertheless, the seeds are there. Periodically, I’ll be treated to a new piece she wrote, but certainly not every week. However, something else has happened in her musical life, she KNOWS far more about music than if she just practiced her lesson pieces.
What does my student’s creativity have to do with you?
Really four things:
1. if you’ve ever tinkered around on the piano and uncovered a group of notes that sounded catchy or kept humming a tune that you couldn’t get out of your head, you need to pay attention to that music. It’s yours.
2. The very act of putting the notes on the staff (music paper or computer software) forces you to clarify and crystallize your musical ideas. This is similar to what happens when you write a report, essay, poem, or short story.
3. Many questions come up in the process of writing that lead you to start searching for everything you can find to inspire and guide you make your piece better. You will learn more about music by composing than you could ever imagine.
4. If you are a piano student with a true love for music, you have nearly everything you need to express your musical ideas by composing something that pleases you. Did you know that 95% music performed in this country is played and/or composed by “Amateurs” i.e., those who do not get paid for their musical services? In reality, there’s not necessarily any difference between the quality of the music they compose and that of the professionals.
My 45-year career of teaching piano and performing as a jazz pianist also included 16 years of composing classical music for orchestra, chorus, and a wide variety of chamber ensembles. Without a doubt, I gained a great deal of knowledge from my two Master of Music degrees at New England Conservatory and Doctoral Studies at Boston University. What I learned through composing, studies and reading manifests itself almost every day that I teach piano students.
Maybe you feel you have some musical ideas you’d like to express on paper or in a recording?
Or maybe you just need some added inspiration to make your ideas come alive? Here’s an example of one way to get started: use a piece you really love (classical, popular, jazz, show tune, etc.) and we’ll examine it. Based on this, you will be able to experiment with your own tune modeled after that.
You’ll learn many things that enable you to not only compose more music but will help you become a better pianist.
These include:
Musical Form and Structure
Chord progressions, keys and harmonic patterns
Articulation, phrasing, dynamics, expression marks and tempo
Shape and direction of the melodic lin
construction of motives as well as voice leading in the secondary part
Timbre, character, and mood
Maybe you feel you have some musical ideas you’d like to express.
Or maybe you just need some added inspiration to make your ideas come alive?
Get in touch with me to find out how you can learn to compose your own music.
About Diana Mascari-Piano Teacher for Adults
Diana Mascari-Piano Teacher for Adults
Diana Mascari has taught piano to hundreds of students for more than 46 years. She is dedicated to enriching her students’ lives by supporting their individual musicality.
She has developed a teaching system called the Transformational Approach to Piano (TAP System). It offers her students colorful musical insights that broaden their experience beyond traditional methods.
Diana holds two Masters of Music degrees from New England Conservatory, taught keyboard harmony to music majors at Boston University, and was the music director of a multicultural Presbyterian Church for four decades.
Diana has performed as a solo jazz pianist as well as with her ensembles at many colleges and jazz clubs throughout New England. Many of these performances featured Diana's jazz compositions.
As a composer, she has explored the intersection of jazz and classical music. Her compositions reflect her deep appreciation for musical structure, enhanced by the spontaneity and emotion of jazz. Each piece has a timeless sense and is designed to move and inspire. Her works have been performed in Europe, Japan and the Eastern United States.
Diana’s vibrant personality infuses her teaching, performing and composing as she inspires piano students to achieve their musical goals.
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