"The Bach Lute Suites are a never-ending source of musical inspiration, but they're also very challenging." - Jason Vieaux

In this advanced classical guitar lesson from his online school, Jason Vieaux goes over the courante section from Bach's "Lute Suite in E minor" (aka BWV 996). The courante (or corrente, coranto, or corrant depending on what language we're using) refers to third section of the piece and is characterized by triple meter dances from the Renaissance and the Baroque era.

Bach typically wrote in two styles, French and Italian, and would utilize different spellings to differentiate between the two countries. So for this case, we use the French spelling of courante for this characteristically French piece.

We are excited to announce the winners of The ArtistWorks Classical Scholarship Competition!

Designed for aspiring classical musicians, each applicant submitted a video of themselves playing a piece from the designated repertoire for our classical music teachers to review. After the reviewing process, the judges each chose one student whose performance they felt merited the scholarship.

For Trumpet, David Bilger has selected Ryan C. For Clarinet, Ricardo Morales has selected Taylor M. For Flute, Jeffrey Khaner has selected Arnold P. For Violin, Nathan Cole has selected Paul H. Congratulations and job well done! 

Each winner will receive a $ 1,000 cash prize to help them further their classical music education. Thanks go out to everyone who participated in this competition to help make it a success!

Practicing etudes are a great way to help you improve for your instrument because they are designed to reinforce certain techniques. In this sample clarinet lesson from the Online Classical School with Ricardo Morales, we go through and analyze the Baermann Etude #18. This clarinet etude is nice because it is not only a great exercise for your fingers, but it also sounds beautiful, which makes practicing it all the more enjoyable.  

In this sample piano lesson from the Online Piano School, Christie Peery goes over a basic, yet essential component of piano technique: using wrists. In particular the drop float wrist, a technique widely used since the Classical Period and one that piano players are introduced very early on in their piano lessons. For this lesson, Christie uses the Samuel Arnold Sonata in D major to illustrate the importance of the drop float wrist technique as a way to either make the notes louder or softer.