Elizabeth Anne Middleton

I spent many years playing the piano and not getting much better at it, although I had a natural flair for it and began lessons at a very young age. 

There were no competent piano teachers in my small town in Kansas; my first teacher was the grade school principal who knew a little about music, then a relative who just wanted me to play hymns, and then a high school English teacher who taught piano on Saturdays. 

My mother drove my sisters, me, and my younger brother many miles every Saturday for piano lessons when a teacher could be found. I taught myself, mostly, banging away at grand pieces by Chopin, Liszt, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff.

At the University of Kansas, in Lawrence, Kansas, I majored in voice. My voice teacher, Mirabah Moore was a great teacher. I loved her because everything she asked me to do made perfect sense, felt good, and made my voice stronger. I had little interest in practicing the piano and just wanted to play for my own enjoyment. 

Finally, I was privileged to meet and study with Nigel Coxe, at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. He told me at our first meeting, after hearing and watching me play, that I was gifted but had some problems that needed to be rectified. 

He made piano technique crystal clear. It involved practicing scales and arpeggios in a certain way, with correct posture (including the right way to sit at the piano!), totally relaxed arms and flexible wrists, relying on the strength of the fingers for power and control. When I’d go to the practice room I knew exactly what to do. I saw clearly the value of having a good technique and how that would set one free to really “play” the piano. 

Nigel Coxe was kind, patient, encouraging, witty, (sometimes wickedly hilarious) and inspiring. He was also a world class concert pianist! It was always exciting to hear Nigel Coxe play; he made music come alive, visually and viscerally, and sing to my own heart. 

When he demonstrated a passage to me, it was revelatory. Practicing began to be enjoyable. Then it began to be positively addictive! Soon I began to look forward to my piano lessons with anticipation instead of with dread.

It takes only one good teacher to set a talent free. I had one good teacher and I have been forever blessed.

Elizabeth Anne Middleton composes and performs piano music. Inspired by work with the Iroquois Confederacy in the 1970s, Elizabeth began writing songs about animals and the natural world, a theme that continues in her music today. She has recently recorded the 10th album of her Pianorama CD series.

Steve Burks

The problem with telling everyone how great your music is – is that you might be wrong. Simply let them hear the music. Don’t try to get people to believe that it’s great before they hear it.

Otherwise you risk backlash if they don’t like what they hear. Some would argue that no promotion equals no ears, because the “attention economy” is tough. But that’s only true if you need a minimum number of customers, a critical mass. When you’ve spent a lot of money and want to earn it back (plus some), that’s when the arithmetic comes in.

As an independent artist, I don’t have a critical mass. There is no minimum number of downloads or CD sales that I need to make, no overhead I need to maintain. Because of the Internet, I am able to do what was heretofore impossible: make music widely available to those who like it. It might take 10 years to collect a fan base, but it would be a real one.

For those who do have expenses to recoup, and don’t have my 10-year luxury, some ways of making promotion less problematic are:

• Get credible, objective parties to say that your music is good (music reviewers, producer panelists in competitions, etc.).
• Win some awards or place in contests.
• Ask reviewers to compare it to the music of major artists if they think it’s actually comparable.
• Qualify subjective opinions, by using phrases like “we think,” or “in our opinion.” It won’t make people think the music is good, but acknowledging your bias can make you look more honest. Potential customers might trust you more.

People are either going to like your music or not. Telling them to like it often elicits the opposite effect; they think you’re presumptuous and will actively turn away from your music. The terms “hit,” “hot,” “blazing,” “No. 1″ and so forth have been thrown around so much now that they no longer have any value.

Steve Burks is a graduate of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Currently, he’s a vocalist and keyboardist in the International House of Blues Foundation’s “Blues School House,” a live musical presentation for 5th through 12th graders that traces the history of blues music and its influence on other forms of contemporary music.

Steve Burks

Lyrics and melody get the spotlight in songs, but the underlying chord changes can make or break tunes. Here are some ways to come up with chord changes for a song:

1. Take a music theory class or learn it on your own. Studying music theory will give you the fundamentals about how chords are individually constructed, and how they work and sound together.

2. Learn to play a harmonic (chordal) instrument (piano, keyboard, guitar). Piano is good because it enables you to “see” the chord laid out in front of you.

3. Take an ear training class. Recognizing chord qualities by ear can be hard, depending on your level of natural ability and the style of music. A good teacher can help you develop this skill.

4. Identify the types of chords that you like. Make a list of these chords, and work on using them in your songs.

5. Experiment with changing the order of chords. Do this until you hear something that you like. Harmonic arranging includes an element of trial and error.

6. Learn to play the chord arrangements for songs that you like. When you make up your own songs, you’ll pull from the chord progressions that you learned.

7. Identify how individual chord types make you feel. Use these chords with lyrics that have that same emotion. For example, sustained 13 chords sound “hopeful” to me. Semantics in music is an abstract discussion, but I think it’s where music’s sum is greater than its parts.

Steve Burks is a graduate of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Currently, he’s a vocalist and keyboardist in the International House of Blues Foundation’s “Blues School House,” a live musical presentation for 5th through 12th graders that traces the history of blues music and its influence on other forms of contemporary music.