Just Being at the Piano

Mildred Portney Chase

Just Being at the Piano

$14.95

Harmony begins in the Soul, Long before the first note is Played
Forward by Lee Strasburg

DeVorss Publications
Paperback 120 pg | Revised Edition 2017
Subject: Music; Body, Mind, Spirit
ISBN: 9780875168937

There are many approaches to piano theory. They range from the simple technique of reading music and touching the keys, to playing-by-ear, but few have taken the inner path that begins in the soul.

Mildred Portney Chase merged her piano lessons with the discipline of mindful Buddhist practice and created an experience that evokes not just music for the pleasure of the listener, but a journey that leads the student to a world of calm and peacefulness flowing from the soul out into the universe . . . ever-evolving day-by-day within the heart of the student.

Author Note

Mildred Portney Chase

Mildred Portney Chase writes:
Just being at the piano egoless is to each time seek to reach that place where the only thing that exists is the sound and moving toward the sound. The music on the page that was outside of you is now within you, and moves through you; you are a channel for the music, and play from the center of your being . . . You are at one with yourself and the act, and feel as if the playing has already happened and you are effortlessly releasing it. The music is in your hands, in the air, in the room, the music is everywhere, and the whole universe is contained in the experience of playing.

Mildred Portney Chase

Lee Strasberg: ". . .Works toward developing the musician's sensory awareness of the sound, of the touch, of what the entire body is experiencing, so that each tone may sing."

Clavier: "This book is as useful as it is lovely, as it deals with real matters such as rhythm, finger 'balance and alignment,' the pleasures and pitfalls of sight-reading and improvisation, slow practice, and tone production. This Josef Lhevinne student has offered us a profound, touching, and quite recommendable approach."