Piano, finally
Piano Finally is a podcast by an old bloke who is learning the piano, finally. I cover the process of learning the piano and music theory as an adult learner. I also review piano books, hardware and other materials from an adult learner's perspective.
Piano, finally
Episode 13 - Planning to Play
Join me, David Reidy, in the latest episode of "Piano, Finally." We delve into the evocative music of George Winston, whose compositions provide both challenge and inspiration. I'll be guiding you through his pieces, ideal for both keen listeners and budding pianists. Plus, let's confront the demons of stage fright together, exploring how to turn performance jitters into a source of joy.
I'll explore my personal progress with Nino Rota's "A Time For Us" from the classic film "Romeo and Juliet." Struggling to maintain tempo and perfect those tricky left-hand chords? You’re not alone. Whether you're just starting out or a seasoned pianist, this episode is packed with insights and inspiration for all stages of your musical journey.
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G'day everyone. I'm David Redy and welcome to Piano. Finally, a podcast by an old bloke who's getting around to learning the piano. Finally, welcome to show 13. Thank you for joining me. If this is the first time you've heard the show, welcome, but you might need to listen to some of the earlier episodes if you want to catch up with what's been going on If you're a returning listener. Thanks very much for coming back.
David Reidy:The Kauai NV10 is still sitting silently. Stan, the technician, is currently trying to organise a set of parts so he can track down exactly what is causing the problem. This weekend started with the school running the annual winter sleepout to raise awareness of homelessness, as well as raising funds for the local area services. Around 70 of our students slept outside and, apart from a brief shower of rain at 2.30 in the morning, it went quite smoothly. I stayed at school after work rather than travelling back home, so I needed to find an instrument to get my practice in for the day. It turns out that in the band room there is an old white Hyundai Grand Piano. I drive a Hyundai car. I wasn't aware they also made pianos, but I suppose that's not surprising. Yamaha makes music and motorbikes. The piano made some interesting sounds along with the notes. I didn't open it up to see the insides. I think I'll leave that for another day, but I'll have to see if I can match the sound using the adjustments in Piano Tech.
David Reidy:Rather than a YouTube recommendation this week, I thought I'd recommend a pianist and composer whose work I've been enjoying. If you're a piano player in the United States, you probably know this person, but I found that he's not well known at all down here. The person is George Winston. George Winston was born in the United States in 1949 and died in June of last year. He became well known for his piano recordings during his career, releasing 15 solo albums, although he rejected the labels. His music has been described as both new age and classical. He described his style as rural folk piano. He also played the guitar and harmonica. You can find his music on Apple Music and I would expect that it's on other music services as well. There are also many recordings of him on YouTube, from very early appearances up until quite recently. Apparently, he had an interesting way of playing, at times reaching into the piano to mute the strings.
David Reidy:There's something else you can't do with an electronic instrument, one of the reasons I've been enjoying his works is that they seem to be approachable not for me at the moment, but down the track. Many of the pieces are named after seasons or times of day and you can see these influences. Other works are based on classical pieces but rather than being just another arrangement of the piece, they've been used as starting points for exploring the melodies. I can imagine playing the variations on the canon to a group. It starts out in a very familiar way for an audience, but then goes in a different direction as the piece progresses. I've put it on my list of things to learn. Eventually, if you want to try his music.
David Reidy:Many of George's works are available in sheet music form, including electronic versions on the Kindle. You can get them through Amazon and available in sheet music form, including electronic versions on the Kindle. You can get them through Amazon, and my regular sheet music shop has some of the collections in their catalogue, though they're all sold out. I have a sheet music direct subscription and there are close to 100 piano arrangements of his, including easy versions, available there. If you want to find enjoyable and attainable piano music, I suggest looking George Winston up on YouTube or your favourite music streaming service.
David Reidy:Planning to play. I'm going to assume that if you're learning to play a musical instrument, then you intend to at some point let other people listen to all your hard work. There are many good reasons to learn to play that don't rely on an eventual audience. Perhaps you learn for the mental stimulation or to hear some maths and physics in action, but being able to share the emotions conjured up by music is surely one of the best reasons. Why then do people avoid it when they can? I've got some ideas.
David Reidy:Performing a piece of music is the end of a vast amount of work. The five minutes of a piece may well equate to many tens of hours of practice on just that piece, not to mention the years of work it took to get up to the level to even start. As a result, there's a lot riding on a successful completion. At least there is for the pianist. Making a mistake might feel like you have invalidated a good portion of your musical life, so you don't have to contend with that possibility. If you never perform for others, of course, it's never really that bad.
David Reidy:As a teacher, I often ask students to step outside their comfort zone the one thing I can put into an assignment that is sure to cause consternation is to say that you have to present your work to the class in person. Incidentally, it doesn't matter if it's a class of 13-year-olds or adults. The apprehension is the same. Stage fright is real. In university studies conducted in the late 1990s, just over 75% of adults reported having a fear of public speaking and, I assume, public performance. These studies don't say why people fear it. Indeed, 20% of people list it as their only social fear, but I'm guessing that it's tied up with the embarrassment of not appearing to be perfect.
David Reidy:The thing is, most people are not going to realise at the time that the note you played, as a natural, should have been a sharp, and unless you make it obvious, it's unlikely that they will ever know. During my piano lesson last week, my teacher told me that if I make a mistake when playing a piece, I'm not to stop or try to fix it on the spot. This is just for those few pieces I play, rather than the pieces I am learning or practicing. If I am learning or practicing and I make a mistake, then I do stop and play it over correctly at least five or six times, so that I've played it correctly many more times than I've played it incorrectly. Therefore, unless you are playing in an exam or to a group of other pianists who know exactly the same piece and arrangement, people are going to be much more impressed by your five minutes of musical accomplishments than disappointed by a possible wrong note that they probably didn't notice and anyway would have already forgotten.
David Reidy:I perform in front of three or four groups of 20 to 30 audience members every weekday Not music, of course, but science. And you know what. It's not hard once you stop trying to be perfect. Most of us are never going to be paid to play the piano. We're doing it because we like it and want to share the joy of music. When you remember that the friends and strangers you are playing for are going to be much more grateful for you sharing your talent than they will be annoyed by a misplaced flat, every opportunity to play will be a great, affirming experience.
David Reidy:For the past two weeks I've been reviewing the Piano Tech 8 software. This software uses mathematical modelling to reproduce different pianos and other instruments. It can be used with a MIDI keyboard to experience a wide range of expensive pianos. Piano Tech 8 is made by the French company ModArt and although it's not cheap software. You can try an almost complete demonstration version for free. This week I'll examine some of the things you can do with Piano Tech to make the experience even closer to the real thing. Unless you're a world-class concert pianist, it is unlikely that every time you sit down at a piano it will have been freshly tuned and regulated. Even if your instrument has just been visited by a piano technician, it won't still be perfectly tuned when you sit down again next week.
David Reidy:Piano Tech gives you a way of adding this to your piano and varying the amount of perfection to remove from the modelling. All the instruments in Piano Tech have a condition setting. This ranges from mint to worn and it uses random factors to adjust many of the parameters away from perfect, and it does it on an individual note basis. These adjustments go much further than just putting the notes a little out of tune. It affects things like hammer, noise, unison, tunings, damper, effectiveness and characteristics and much more. On the mint setting, the piano model is perfect. The piano technician has just walked away. Slide the control a little to the right and you will start to hear slight imperfections. For a lot of the range the piano sounds fine. It's just not perfect. By the time you get all the way to the right, the piano is unplayable as a musical instrument, but if you need to record the sound of a piano that has been out in the weather and never maintained, then you have it. It might also serve as a reminder to get your real acoustic piano adjusted on a regular basis. The reason Piano Tech can do this so easily is because its modelling allows very fine adjustment of lots of the parameters used to calculate the piano's sound.
David Reidy:In next week's review I'll look into just some of the parameters you can adjust. I'll finish up with some examples of the condition setting. This is the Steinway Sons Model B piano from mint to a bit worn. I won't go all the way to the end because it sounds appropriately horrible. The piece is Samuel Arnold's Jig, thank you. Well, that's it for this week. If you'd like to contact me, email is the best way. You'll find me at david at pianofinallyshow and the website at wwwpianofinallyshow. In both cases, pianofinally is all one word. The show is also on Facebook and Instagram. You can subscribe via any popular iOS or Android podcast application or from directories such as Apple Podcasts, spotify or Player FM. So until the next episode, I hope your piano stays in tune and you enjoy your time at the keys.
David Reidy:This week's progress piece is the same as last week's. It's the beginning of Nino Rota's A Time For Us from Franco Zeffirelli's film Romeo and Juliet. I'm still working at keeping the tempo consistent and only up to bar 9.5, but the left hand chords are getting better, although still not quite as good as I would like them. I'm also working on a large range of scales with hands together and the Jennifer Eklund arrangement of Pucklebell's Canon in D. Again, this is recorded using the Roland FP-90X and the PianoTek Bersendorfer 280VC model on the player setting and I'm wearing headphones. I then use PianoTek to play it back using the classical recording preset. To give it a bit of ambience, the quality is set to mint condition the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. Thank you, thank you.
