Princeton Early Keyboard Center was founded to offer lessons in all aspects of Baroque keyboard to anyone who wants or needs them for any reason, and also to offer opportunities or help with anything having to do with Baroque keyboard instruments - outside of or in addition to lessons - to anyone who could use such help or opportunities. The approach taken by the Center is based on flexibility, on an emphasis on the use of truly great instruments, and on the belief that all students can learn from the beginning of study - guided by historical knowledge and by their own ears - to make artistic judgments and decisions for themselves. The Center does not offer any kind of degree or other formal credential. While this could be a disadvantage for students who are at a stage in their careers when they need to pursue such a credential, it also opens the door for the Center to organize its teaching and other work in a way that is tailored with remarkable specificity to the needs of each student. For example, if a student has the time and desire to study "full time" at a high level of intensity, then the Center can offer two (or more) long lessons a week, an essentially infinite amount of practice time on a wide variety of instruments, a directed reading and listening program, the chance to record and study one's own playing on a regular basis, field trips to instrument collections, the opportunity to work with instrument builders, performance possibilities, and more. In such a way, the Center believes that it can offer such students at least as much depth of learning about the world of Baroque keyboard as they could find anywhere else. Students whose interest is equally high, but whose lives suggest that they can only put in a more limited amount of time, can take lessons at the "normal" rate of one a week, or one every other week, or whatever is suitable. Such students will have access to the same type of teaching and the same practice facilities and other opportunities, as they need or want them. Students who want to come for only very occasional lessons, because they live far away, or because they have very busy schedules, or because they know themselves to be self-directed and need only occasional input from a teacher, are welcome to do so, and of course may also have access to the studios of the Center for practice. Furthermore, over the last several years, musicians from around the world have come to PEKC for what might be called consultations: single lessons devoted to one specific area. For example, composers have come to learn enough about the harpsichord to feel comfortable writing for it. Pianists who specialize in accompaniment have come to learn enough about continuo playing to begin incorporating it into their work. Aspiring instrument builders have come to encounter ways of thinking about the aesthetics of the harpsichord and of Baroque music. All such students are very welcome at the Center. The collection of instruments used for teaching at the Center is large and varied. It includes a German double by Keith Hill, a Flemish double by Philip Tyre, two clavichords - one late Renaissance model, and one an original eighteenth-century instrument - an original seventeenth century Italian single, and a 1731 bentside spinet by Friderick Krickhof. All of the instruments at the Center at any one time (they do move in and out from time to time) are fully available to students for practice. Students are also not only allowed but even encouraged (having first become skilled at tuning and maintenance) to participate in the upkeep of the instruments - including the antiques - as part of the learning process. All of the modern instruments have been chosen because they have a truly extraordinary sound: on the one hand, both beautiful and interesting to those who hear it; and on the other hand, similar enough in nature to the best surviving antique instruments to be a useful source of historical understanding as well as listening pleasure. The plucked instruments are all set up with wooden jacks, voiced either with quill or with delrin, so the actions are very responsive and sensitive in ways which resemble the actions of antique instruments. The idea that students can begin to understand what they are doing artistically from the very beginning of study is related to the idea that the finest instruments are themselves the best teachers. As a student works on a given piece of music at the harpsichord or clavichord, whether it is a very simple exercise, a virtuoso repertoire piece or anything else, he or she can learn very promptly to notice what the instrument is doing in response to what he or she is doing with his or her fingers. If, for example, the instrument is one on which the quality of the attack sounds varies depending on the touch, then the student can begin to notice that difference from the very first moment of sitting down at the keyboard. (The way this happens is very simple: the student hits the key hard, and listens to what it sounds like, and then presses the key down gently, and listens to what that sounds like. The difference will be surprisingly clear). If the instrument is one whose sound has some sort of bloom to it - that is, the nature of the sound changes over the life of the note, it does not just die away - then the student can hear the differences in the quality of the sound that come about with different choices of tempo and different types of articulation. If the dampers work in a way that is flexible, then the student can hear the differences in the end of notes that come about with different speeds or types of releases. If the instrument is doing its job in these and other respects, then it actually becomes easy to control expressive details, since it is so clear how the instrument is responding. As soon as a student - or any player - can hear what is actually happening to the sound of an instrument when he or she does different things at the keyboard, then that player is as well equipped as anyone to make choices about how to use that instrument to play music. Teaching at PEKC involves guiding students to hear all of these details, not telling them what choices they should make about how the music should sound. Most students also want to inform themselves as thoroughly as possible as to whatever is known about the historical dimension of the music that they are playing. If the instruments being used are accurate historically, then the artistic choices that those instruments suggest are likely to be historically appropriate: at least they have a good chance of being so. The question of what choices to make from among those suggested by the instruments can often be shaped by knowledge of what the composer would or might have done. A lot of this sort of knowledge is available to us, and of course it is growing all the time. (Though it is rarely as complete or as cut-and-dried as many of us would like it to be. And it is important - and difficult - to distinguish between actual knowledge and accrued tradition about how to interpret such knowledge). The Center can help students to explore known original sources of knowledge about music and performance, as an ongoing part of lessons, or through separate tutorials, classes, and directed reading and listening programs. As an ongoing accompniment to any program of study based on the above ideas, the Center also offers students help in developing a systematic and efficient way of practicing, so that musical insight and knowledge, and interpretive decisions and ideas can actually be inplemented. Simple but effective methods of practicing can enable anyone to make good progress as a player and performer, and make it possible for anyone - even an absolute beginner - to do rewarding and artistically worthwhile playing. The Center is absolutely committed to the idea that anyone who wishes to study harpsichord or clavichord should be encouraged to do so, and should have the right to expect to do great things with it. Anyone who wishes to learn more about the Center's program should call (732) 599-0392, or send email to pekc@pekc.org