Northern Lights? Nature and Music Meet at Quiescence Music

Northern Lights ... that brilliant display of color one normally associates with arctic regions have been seen, in all places in Alabama. But that's not the only place these shimmering waves of light have occured.

People have reported seeing this amazing display in New York, Kentucy, and New Mexico. And that inspires New Age pianist and teacher Edward Weiss.

Weiss has been teaching and playing piano in the 'new age' style for over 15 years so when news broke of this rare natural phenomenon, he got out his keyboard and began composing.

Weiss has this to say about the composing process...

"When something inspires me, I take out a note pad and jot down just 2-bars of melody. That initial melody grows into a full composition. Composing this way has the benefit of allowing me to quickly pen the inspiration. It's than fleshed out more at home."

Northern Lights aren't the only things Weiss is inspired by though as evidenced by a list of the lessons he offers at his website. Titles like 'Coral Reef' and "October Sky' abound as students learn how to improvise and create their own unique new age piano creations.

Weiss remarks:

"I've always loved nature and piano music so combiing the two just seemed the thing to do. And now that I can do it, I have fun sharing what I know with others who enjoy this peaceful pastime."

The video can be viewed on YouTube at http://youtu.be/HyeG0uwMMcE

Quiescence Music Celebrates 10 Years Online!

I've been online 10 years now! 10 whole years. That's a lot of time for any Internet business. But I owe it all to you and your love of New Age piano playing. Thank you! Below is a new press release about it...

The year was 2000, the cusp of a new millennium. The Internet was big and about to get a whole lot bigger. And composer-teacher Edward Weiss had an insight:

I constantly saw business after business starting up online stores and selling products. But the same technology that could sell books and software could also be used to help people learn new skills. Playing the piano was one of them.

And so Quiescence Music was born an online academy of music where anyone with a computer, a musical keyboard and the desire could learn to play piano.

Edwards approach took the mystique and trepidation out of learning to play. People who never thought they had a musical bone in their body were not only able to master the chords, but actually compose their own musical scores, particularly New Age music.

As Edward describes:

I chose New Age music because this style just seems to naturally flow along with learning to play. Its a liberating, inner expression of music and one that students pick up almost without any conscious thought.

Success may have been initially slow, but year by year the sites popularity grew and so did Edwards reputation.

In fact, endorsed by one of the grand masters of New Age music David Lanz, and listed on the prestigious Steinway & Sons compilation of professional teachers, Edward has gained a bit of well deserved fame himself.

Says Weiss:

I never thought a giant like David Lanz, with multiple platinum albums to his credit, would even notice my work, much less enthusiastically endorse it. But he did, and soon after that Steinway gave me their thumbs up as well. Its been an interesting decade.

For anyone wanting to put their untapped talents (and their unused pianos) to use, starting couldn't be simpler. Edwards method is basically Look, Listen and Learn. He promises his online direction can teach anyone to play the piano or electronic keyboard and be composing their own New Age piano music right away.

His detailed video instructions provide everything needed except of course the keyboard. Visit http://www.quiescencemusic.com/ for more information.

Major Audio Improvement Coming to Quiescence Music!

Most of you know that I record my piano lesson videos on something called a "flip camera." It's a relatively inexpensive, but very easy to use device that quickly lets me upload video to the web.

Problem is, the sound quality's terrible. All of that's about to change. On October 9, of this year, Zoom is relasing their new video corder with state of the art digital sound!

And I'm going to be buying one of these as soon as they come on the market.

You see, I've been teaching online for so long (before YouTube) that I had to catch up with technology. Remember when "podcasts" were all the rage? Now no one cares about them. It's all about video.

I'm pretty excited about this because the sound quality (which is everything when trying to teach music online) is superb!