A song for dad: diamonds and rust

Posted on June 21, 2015 by Anne Ku

My dad never hesitated to share titles of the songs he loved. In his last years, he took a liking to Youtube. One of his favorite singers was Joan Baez. Continue reading →

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Somewhere in time before iPhones

Posted on June 10, 2015 by Anne Ku

Before the iPhone, the video quality was not high definition.

Before the iPhone, I wore a watch regularly. Sure, I always took it off whenever I practised the piano.

Here is a video taken before I got my smartphone. It seems strange to see my left hand wearing a watch. The original blog post appeared in Concertblog.

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Celebrating 300,000 visitors to Concertblog

Posted on June 10, 2015 by Anne Ku

My first WordPress blog “The Concertblog” passed the 300,000 visitor mark some time last week. Yay! When it hit 299,000, I started to monitor the stats more closely than before. These are number of visitors, not views. A visitor can have many page views but ONE visit to the site. Continue reading →

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Classical guitar: intimate, personal, and vulnerable

Posted on June 4, 2015 by Anne Ku

There is something intimate, personal, and vulnerable about sharing a space with a musician — unplugged. Such is the case of experiencing the classical guitar, which is a rare thing on Maui. Once a year Ben Verdery draws students and audiences worldwide to come to this tropical paradise to celebrate this instrument.

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Jukebox Piano Class: Stand By Me for Easy Piano

Posted on April 20, 2015 by Anne Ku

I should call my piano classes “Jukebox Piano Class” because I take requests. Nothing motivates a new musician more than being able to play something he or she likes. Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me” is one of these requests. The song falls into the category of “Common Chord Progressions.”

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Elegant but easy to play music from “Still Alice”

Posted on March 15, 2015 by Anne Ku

I listened to the soundtrack to the film “Still Alice” on Youtube because I missed its premiere at the Maui Film Festival last December. I became mesmerized by the simplicity and beauty of the various short pieces played on piano, violin, viola, and cello.

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How to write music people want to play

Posted on March 3, 2015 by Anne Ku

Times have changed. Perhaps it’s the instant gratification of search engines and the availability of free online videos. To write sheet music that people want to play, it has to be readable, printable, and playable.

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Maui Wordcamp: a WordPress conference in paradise

Posted on February 17, 2015 by Anne Ku

The subtitle is hard to resist. Paradise. Conference. WordPress.

For $35, you get a T-shirt, lunch and refreshments for two consecutive days. I registered when it was half-full and eagerly looked forward to it.

Part of me feared that it would be dominated by developers and WordPress pros. I would learn how much WordPress and its “affiliates” had grown, and how far behind I fell.

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Learn Piano

Posted on February 2, 2015 by Anne Ku

You can learn to read music, play all 88 keys of the piano, and get started on a piece you’ve always wanted to learn in just three lessons.

I’ve seen it happen.

For just $99, you get 3 x 2 hour workshops = 6 hours. That’s better than the going rate of $100 per hour for individual lessons. Besides, you’ll learn from your peers, too.

Register online for this non-credit course at UHMC Edventure.

Learn to play piano in three 2-hour sessions April 10, 17, 24, 2015

Learn piano on Fridays April 10, 17, 24, 2015

Read what others have said.

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Mandarin course on Maui 顧恩以教中文

Posted on February 2, 2015 by Anne Ku

I have been telling the same story for years. Chinese is much easier than English. Or rather, Chinese grammar is much easier than English. Or better, Chinese grammar is nearly non-existent.

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