Will Hay

Blog

  • Autumn Piano Showcase 2026

    I’m delighted to be planning our Autumn Piano Concert Showcase, taking place at The Firs School, Chester, on Sunday 15 November 2026 at 2.00pm.

    This will be a deliberately informal, open-mic-style concert rather than a formal recital. The idea is to give everyone the chance to play in a relaxed and supportive setting, whether you’re performing in public for the first time or you’ve done plenty of concerts before. 

    I’d love as many students as possible to take part. Over the next few weeks, have a think about pieces you genuinely enjoy playing and might like to share. They don’t need to be your hardest pieces or something you’re preparing for an exam. A piece you feel comfortable with and enjoy performing is often the best choice.

    After the music, we’ll stay for coffee, drinks and cakes, so it can be a social occasion as well as a concert. If families would like to bring a cake or something sweet to share, that would be very welcome.

    The important bits

    • Sunday 15 November 2026
    • 2.00pm
    • The Firs School, Chester
    • Informal, open-mic-style piano performances
    • Students of all ages and levels welcome
    • Bring cakes to share afterwards if you can!

    There’s no pressure to perform, but I hope lots of you will decide to have a go. Playing for other people is a brilliant part of learning an instrument, and this is intended to be a friendly opportunity to share the music you love with other students, families and friends.

    Start thinking about what you might like to play, and we can begin getting your pieces concert-ready in lessons over the coming weeks.

  • Autumn Leaves Project

    This term, my students have been creating a backing track for an Autumn Leaves video I made. Most have chosen to use a drum track and record a performance of their piano piece along with the drums. This provides the extra challenge of playing in time with the drums! We have used Tape Machine and Audio Evolution Mobile to record the performances and mix/align them with the drum track then the video editor on my Galaxy Note Pro to put the backing track on the video, add credits and render and upload each student’s video. Each composition has also been notated on the Noteflight Classroom.

  • Naves unrobed

    Naves Unrobed

    On Saturday 15th June at 6pm, I will be accompanying some of the items in a concert performed by members of the Cathedral Nave Choir. It will take place in the song school at Chester Cathedral. Amongst other items, the concert will include the Cats Duet sung by Becky Hay and Tamsyn Casley as featured in my Creatures Great and Small concert last summer.

    Tickets are £5 each which includes a welcome drink, available from the cathedral shop or on the door. It promises to be a jolly evening of summer entertainment. Hope to see you there!

    WILL

  • “Happily Ever After” Concert Series

    Happily Ever After Cover Photo

    The theme for the concerts this term is “Happily Ever After“.
    Dates, times, and venues are as follows:

    Sat 8th June 1100am – All Saints Church, Hoole
    Tues 11th June 0910am – St. Oswald’s School
    Mon 17th June 0910am – Upton Heath School
    Thu 20th June 0910am – Saighton School
    Thu 20th June 1020am – Eccleston School

    As well as themed solos on a variety of instruments, my students have been taking part in a number of collaborative compositions which should result in some intresting multimedia performances in the forthcoming concerts. Parents of those involved are welcome to attend the school concerts and anybody is invited to the first concert in the series at All Saints Church, Hoole.
    For this concert there is a ticket charge (suggested donation) of £3/adult, £1/child, proceeds of which go towards supporting a lesson bursary at  Kampala Music School, Uganda.

  • Exam Preparation: Scales

    Scale PractiseAs the exam entry deadline for the next session approaches (Friday 3rd May), the big question on every teacher’s mind is which students are going to be ready to enter this time. Can we afford to leave it another term or is the student going to go “off the boil”? Will the scales be perfected in the next couple of months? Would the pieces be ready in time?

    As students progress through the grades, the sheer volume of scales that need to be learned increases (almost exponentially in the advanced levels). A formal approach must be taken to ensure that ALL the scales are known. To this end I have started to use weekly scale practise sheets on which students can either record and/or evaluate their scale practise. There are eight boxes for each scale to enable the sheet to be used in a number of ways.

    Daily practise can be recorded throughout the week then the final column can be used in the lesson to assess the progress of each scale and chart improvements. Some students prefer a mark out of ten, whilst others prefer a range between crosses, circles, and ticks, or a combination of both.

    The sheets are available to download for free in PDF format and currently cover the requirements or the ABRSM piano syllabus from Grade 1-4. As time permits, I shall add sheets for the higher grades to the collection.

    ABRSM Scale Practise Record Sheets