Due to COVID-19, Joe’s in-person lessons are postponed. To schedule a lesson over zoom, visit https://joebloom.com/schedule-a-lesson/
Welcome to the
Piano Project!
A platform for the teaching and ideas of pianist, teacher, and composer, Joe Bloom.
The map to a deeper connection in your musical life.
Covid-19 Update
Music is more than entertainment, it carries the performer and listener beyond the structures of time, and classical music immerses us in the genius of some of humanity’s greatest minds, and makes them part of our own experience.
“A truly cultured and sensitive artist” – Henryk Szeryng (violin virtuoso)
“Joe has taught music theory and piano to my daughter since she was eight-years old. With great skill, infinite patience, and generous emotional support, Joe has developed the skills of a reticent beginner into that of a blossoming Musician.”
Who It’s For
Professional Pianists and Musicians • Teachers • Students of any Level
How It Benefits You
- Overcome obstacles to your playing.
- Receive step-by step-procedures of getting from an idea to a detailed end result.
- Gain an understanding of the body’s role in performing.
- Hear what you’re producing and what’s really happening in the music.
- Learn to evoke, sublimate, and control emotions for optimum performance.
How To Use The Site
- Explore the Video Collection to eavesdrop on lessons in which real students work on real issues in real time.
- Check out Joe’s Blog to get more insight on specific issues, ranging from body tension to Joe’s insights on the best recorded performances.
About Joe
Joe Bloom embodies a unique understanding of the deepest traditions of Western Classical Music. His background, his own pianistic gifts, and a lifetime of teaching, performing, and accumulating tens of thousands of pages of notes on piano technique and musicality has made Joe a true virtuoso as a pianist and teacher.
“His ability to get results with students at all levels is truly amazing; he is universally loved” (Norman Derby, Dean, Bennington College)
“His breadth and depth of music and performance skills is phenomenal. His patient persistence brings out the best in us – gives us confidence where there may be too little, and stretches our limits. He never settles for less when he knows he can get more, doing it gently and with kindness.” (Dr. Margaret Harrington)
Latest From the Blog
Joe Bloom
Beginning students: when the student surprises you. A six year old student at her third piano lesson.
January 10,2021
C.P.’s lesson on 12/31/20
For the beginner, learning to interpret music notation is sometimes difficult, in particular merging information coming into the eyes from the page of music and physically producing ordered sounds at the piano. Part of this in turn has to do with whether the student is aware of everything that is on the page or only notices part of it. We must begin with finding out what the student consciously sees.
Read MoreBeginners. C.C.’s lesson on 12/16/20
C.C.’s default is to memorize. She finds this easiest, and less confusing then trying to turn on her ability to comprehend what she sees on the printed page and convert it into a series of actions and sounds at the piano keyboard. For instance, before she plays two first two measures of a particular piece she says to me: “Is this where the notes go C C D C?” And if I say yes then she plays the notes by recalling from her short term memory the order of what she just said.She has difficulty multi-processing. Especially when it involves two
simultaneous procedures that initially seem very distinct and unrelated one to the other, but which is presented to her in such a way as if as if they are somehow meant to accompany each other in time, and a confusing promise that eventually she will form a synthesis of the two so that they appear to her as a single activity. In this case, she was being asked, on the one hand, to process the visual symbols on the page of music (and to do so in the correct temporal order) while, on the other hand, learning the physical coordinations necessary to manipulate the keys of the piano to produce a series of sounds in the same temporal order.Read More
Bach: Well Tempered Klavier: Book One: Prelude in C# Major
A.B.’s lesson from several weeks ago.
Confusing the student…the “feel” of what key is under a finger versus the name given that key in the score:
Read More