Paul Sheftel

Free introductory versions of George Litterst’s two masterful programs, Classroom Maestro and Home Concert Xtreme, are yours for the downloading.  I’m particularly excited because a substantial number of my MIDI files are included with the Home Concert Xtreme package including a preview of “Personal Trainer” a new pedagogical project about to be unveiled that I have written in collaboration with my dear friend and colleague, the renowned and ever gracious, Phyllis Lehrer.   Run, don’t walk.

In short, downloads include:

1.  Classroom Maestro Lite

2.  Home Concert Xtreme SE

3.  A basic collection of original MIDI files by Paul Sheftel

Click here for further information and downloads:

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Hope you will be thrilled with these products.  Let us hear your ecstatic comments.

Lots of exciting things in the offing.  Keep your eye on this page.

What a happy week.  The two events, the NCKP conference and Calgary were wonderfully exciting and gratifying for me—hopefully for others as well.  Let me comment on each briefly:

1.  The National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy (NCKP).  My role was small and prevented me from attending the conference in Chicago.  I was stationed in NY so that I could teach a wonderful youngster, Rachel, in Chicago using cutting edge technology.  Well how can you miss when you have a Rachel to work with.  Every teacher’s dream.  Rachel at age 11 is already playing with great flair, beautiful musicality and is a total delight.  Excellent teaching I’m sure has been a mighty contributing factor and Rachel’s superb teacher, Scott Donald  certainly is deserving of great admiration for his fine work.  And let’s not forget to mention Rachel’s parents who have certainly known how to help Rachel achieve this kind of mastery.  Even though we were separated by a vast distance we might have been in the same room so miraculous is the technology.  Yamaha provided us with two magnificent concert grand Disklaviers.  When Rachel played I could hear her as if she were playing my piano, but from  1000 miles away.  It was a little brief but a vastly rewarding experience.  Many thanks are due to the folks on either end who kept the technology running smoothly.

2.  The Piano Pedagogy Workshop sponsored by Calgary Arts.  What an impressive organization!  My wife Sara and I started the week exploring the Canadian Rockies from Banff where we stayed in a famous landmark hotel and allowed ourselves to be pampered.  The workshop was a joy for us.  We loved meeting many fine teachers from the area and felt a very positive response to our sessions.  A little master class featured 5 very wonderful youngsters: Chelsea, Daniel, Georgeanne, Phillip and Darcy—all playing delightfully, enjoying their piano studies, very responsive to suggestions—and beautifully taught I might add.   We were given a royal treatment—wined and dined sumptuously.  And there was the added pleasure of meeting our new family Fran, Evelyn and Sheila—all Sheftels.  Must give very special thanks to Linda Kundert-Stoll who was magnificent throughout.  And what a joy to meet Janice Dahlberg , Dorothea Johanson, Rob Whitworth and so many others, all of whom were incredibly charming and helpful.  There’s more but that will have to do for now.

On Saturday August 1st I’m looking forward to working with a delightful and precocious youngster who will be playing Grieg’s hypnotically beautiful Nocturne op. 54 #4.  What makes it interesting is that I shall be in NY at the Yamaha Salon working with a Disklavier while my student will be in Chicago using the same type of instrument.  When we play, we’ll be playing each others instruments at the same time.  In other words:  distance learning.  This is all part of the National Conference on Piano Pedagogy which is held every two years in the Chicago area.

Then that afternoon off to Calgary, Canada where my wife and I will be conducting sessions over a two day period later in the week on a wide variety of topics.  Hope to get some interesting feedback here on the webpage.  Stay tuned!

Very excited about all the new things that are in late stages of development.  Keep watching.  The Bahamas, by the way, were great.  More soon.

Atlanta was great!!  My stay was brief but the Carl Fischer showcase with Phyllis Lehrer was great fun and the Distance Learning session With Kathy Maskell from my perspective was also fun and hopefully of value to the attendees.  Had a brief session with Nick who is a born performer.  His rendition of my masterpiece Now you C It brought many in the audience to tears (whenther this was due to my music or his rendition is perhaps something we shall never know.)  Distance learning is, to use the vernacular, most cool.  The main point I tried to make at the session is that there is nothing mystical about it.  The technology is available and easy to underststand and use.  No special teaching skills are required that are not already in place—at least in my opinion.  I would not suggest that it is a replacement for traditional teaching but it sure comes in handy when, for instance, you have the greatest grandkids in the world  who, unfortunately, do not live in the same place as you.  Hope to hear from some of you.

It’s been a while since I gave attention to my site.  Starting to get back on the air.  Very excited about the upcoming events at the Music Teacher’s National Association conference in Atlanta.  At 8 AM on Tuesday 3/31 Phyllis Lehrer, my very dear friend and colleague, and I will be doing a showcase for Carl Fischer/Theodore Presser in which not only many wonderful titles will be featured but scintillating photos of our 8 grankdkids as well. If you are going to be in Atlanta don’t miss this thrilling event.  Then at 9:15, same morning,  I’ll be dong a joint presentation with another dear friend and colleague, Kathy Maskell,  on long distance learning.

In addition I’m especially excited  to be working closely with George Litterst who has designed three extraordinarily  innovative software programs that are bound to be of immense interest to teachers.  One, Home Concert Xtreme, provides an extraordinary platform for playing MIDI files.  George will be offering a large number of my files at no cost to attendees at the convention who purchase Home Concert Xtreme.  Be sure to plan to spend time at his booth, Time Warp Technologies to learn more.

Hope to see you in Atlanta.

Had a great meeting last evening with web guru Nick.  Look for some alterations and additiions to the page.

AND —Getting more recordings on the publications page.  Have just added Interludes, which has, I’m happy and proud to report, been rather a perennial favorite.  If you are playing any of these pieces you now have a way of comparing your performance against that of the composer (me).  Also have posted the duets in Festivities.  In addition I’ve posted accompaniments to most of them as well, so that you can hear them in two versions.  Hope to have the accompaniments available as MIDI files very soon.

Haven’t been updating the page of late but meeting with  Nick, our resident guru, this evening to start things rolling again.  Keep watching!!

I guess anyone who has ever written music harbors a secret wish that somehow it will be heard. Well now my not so secret wish is starting to be realized. Spent the evening with my genial, ingenious and ever gracious young friend Nick who is entirely responsible for the design of my web page who has devised a remarkably simple and straightforward way for me to post recordings of my music. I got to work today and you can see the results in the section of the page entitled “Publications & MIDI.” I’ve posted music for five of my collections (you can hear some MIDI accompaniments in Piano Patterns):

• Patterns for Fun vol 2


• Paul’s Practical Piano Pieces


• Paul’s Perplexing Piano Pieces


• Play’s the Thing


• Piano Patterns

In addition I’ve posted the music to a little four hand piece called Scherzo.

All you have to do is click on any one of these titles to bring up the contents and voila!

I’ll be discussing these collections subsequently. In the meantime I do hope you’ll give a little listen.