Episode 34 - Planning

Welcome to Episode 34 of Piano, Finally, hosted by David Reidy. In this episode, David reflects on the start of the new school year, shares his goals for piano learning, and dives into some fascinating content from the world of classical music.

In This Episode:

🎹 Introduction:
David kicks off the episode with updates on his return to teaching and the new website at www.pianofinally.show.

🎶 Musical Insights:

• Arsenii Moon’s Winning Performance: David discusses Arsenii Moon’s joyful performance of Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini at the 2023 Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition.
• Tiffany Poon’s Practice Routine: Observations on Tiffany Poon’s latest YouTube video, highlighting the challenges even professional pianists face during practice.

🎥 YouTube Spotlight – Ben Laude’s Channel:
David revisits Ben Laude’s channel, featuring behind-the-scenes content from the National Chopin Piano Competition:

• Contestants Reflect on Chopin
• Finalists Prepare for the Concert
• Chopin’s Polonaises with Karina Tseng & Anthony Ratinov

🗒️ Planning for the Year:
David shares his personal piano goals, including:

• Mastering preparatory and preliminary level pieces
• Exploring pop music chord progressions with Scaler 2
• Diving deeper into music theory and composition with Guy Michelmore’s course

🎭 Review – The Stephen Sondheim Collection:
David reviews a comprehensive collection of Stephen Sondheim’s scores, perfect for fans and aspiring pianists:

• Volume 1
• Volume 2
• The Almost Unknown Sondheim

🎧 Progress Update:
David shares recordings of:

• Bagatelle in F by Daniel Gottlob Türk
• Afternoon Snooze by Andrew Craggs
• Czerny Op. 599, Exercise 1

You can contact me:

• via email at david@pianofinally.show; this is probably the best option
• the show website, www.pianofinally.show
• Instagram and Threads @pianofinally
• and on YouTube
• all the podcast directories - list
• here's the RSS feed

Some of the links to books and other items mentioned in the podcast are affiliate links for Amazon or other providers. If you use one of these links, a commission may be paid to me at no additional cost to you. Thank you if you use a link.
All reviews of products, websites and services are unpaid, and no sponsorship has been received for any content on this podcast.

Chapters

• 0:00 Opening
• 0:14 Introduction
• 2:16 Ben Laude - Chopin Interviews
• 4:36 Essay - Planning
• 7:57 Review - Sondheim Scores
• 10:52 Closing
• 11:50 Progress

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Good day everyone. I'm David Reidy. Welcome to Piano, finally, a podcast by an old bloke is getting around to learning the piano. Finally, welcome to show 34. Thank you very much for taking the time to listen. If this is your first time hearing the podcast, I hope you enjoy what's here. If you're a returning listener, then thanks very much for coming back. If you're learning the piano or another musical instrument, let me know how you're going with it. You can contact me at David at piano. Finally show the new website appears to be working correctly and you should automatically go to the Buzz Sprout supplied site from www dot piano. Finally show the appearance may change over the next week or so. Buzz Sprout has different customization options and I'm looking into them. Well, I went back to work on Friday. The students don't return until next week.

(01:01):

The new students will arrive on Tuesday and everybody else on Wednesday. I'm looking forward to getting back into teaching a six week holiday is about long enough. I mentioned last week while watching a classical concert. None of the orchestra members looked like they were having fun. Earlier today though, I was watching ARS and I moon compete in the final of the 2023 Puccio Bisoni International Piano Competition on Deutsche Grand Fons Stage plus service. Ars and I played Mannos Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini. It's a great performance and he's clearly enjoying himself. The judges must have thought so too as he won the competition. A final call back to an earlier episode. I was watching a bit of YouTube after writing the show notes and before recording, and I saw Tiffany Poons latest video. Tiffany has a concert coming up next week in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the video shows her practising a particularly tricky piece of revelle. It's interesting to see that even world-class concert performers have some of the same practise problems as those of us just starting out.

(02:16):

I've mentioned Ben Laddy a number of times on the podcast and he's back once again this week on the back of hosting the live streams for the National Chopan Piano Competition, Ben has added some videos to his channel showing some behind the scenes from the competition. The three most recent videos on each channel are interviews with contestants. There are links to the videos in the show notes. The first video has all 23 contestants talking about their memories of their first encounters with Chopin. These videos were recorded before the competition and in each the contestant plays a short passage illustrating one of their favourite pieces of music. It's a really interesting insight into these young pianists and what motivates them. The second video has just the six pianists who made it to the final round of the competition. This video looks at each of the competitors and their preparation for the final concert.

(03:12):

Up to this point, all the pieces in the repertoire were for solo piano, but the final concerts include a concerto, so we see the competitors rehearsing and working with the conductor and the orchestra. Again, it's a fascinating look at what goes into a performance. It's also great to see the personalities these up and coming musicians in less formal settings than on the concert stage. The third video has been discussing two of Chopin's polls with Katrina Singh and Anthony Ratinov. Katrina won the prize for the best pollinate performance in the competition while Anthony won second place overall and is off to the international competition in Warsaw. In the interview, they discussed their ideas about what they think Chopin was doing in the music and now it informs their playing of the pieces. Again, it's a really enjoyable and informative video, and even though I'll never play at the level of these young people, I'm learning a lot from what they're saying.

(04:10):

Ben has said that there will be more videos of interviews appearing on the channel on the Chopan Foundation channel. They're posting videos of individual performances, which are a bit easier to watch than the four and five-hour original live streams. So I'm really glad I found all this content. It's been really enjoyable and a valuable add-on to my piano-playing planning. It's the start of a new school year and for teachers that means a few days of planning before the students return. For listeners in the Northern Hemisphere School years down here align with the calendar year. So the long holidays between school grades are in summer with the start of the school year also comes the start of the piano learning year and I'll be having my first lesson of the year tomorrow afternoon. So I suppose I should have some plans. I rarely plan in detail.

(05:07):

Too many unexpected things happen, so I'm content to have a general idea of where I'm heading so I can wander generally in the right direction. So what are some goals? After a year, I'm able to handle after a decent amount of practise, the pieces in the preparatory repertoire books from Anka. So by the end of this year, I should be able to play the next level up the preliminary books. I still need a fourth piece for the preparatory level to fulfil the requirements of the preparatory exam. So I'll start there with Debbie's guidance. Now, I'm not necessarily going to do the exam, but I want to be firmly at that level. I think that going up one level per year is probably achievable. We'll see with the possibility of a performance as part of this year's battle of the Bands. In June, I'm going to get into competently playing chord sequences for pop music. Now that I've got scaler two and I've been able to hear chord sequences much more simply than picking them out at the keyboard, I've gotten a much better understanding of what's going on and of what Devy showed me when we first looked at the Adele song. I'm going to keep experimenting with scaler. They'll have to keep it simple so the theory doesn't outstrip my playing ability.

(06:23):

I'm going to keep working on music theory as well, not because it will necessarily improve my playing, but because I find it interesting. I also have Guy Mitchell Moore's course on composing and bought a textbook about orchestration, not because I'm considering a career change, but because I like to understand what's happening in the music I enjoy. There's no pressure to get any particular distance with that work, so those are my plans for the year. Is it important to plan if all you're doing is learning for your own enjoyment? I suppose it's nice to have goals, but if your primary motivation is your internal progress, then these goals shouldn't be rigid and cause stress. If I can play four preliminary pieces to exam standard by the end of the year, that will be great. If I can only manage three, it won't be a catastrophe and I'll still be really happy with the progress I have made.

(07:17):

I intend to keep the podcast going on a weekly basis throughout the year, download numbers are reasonable and growing slowly. They still have a long way to go to match Sticks and String, but I'm happy with where they are and having people get in touch with me from around the world is a great motivator. One thing I do want to start adding to the shows is interviews with other piano learners and teachers. I'll see what I can organise in the coming months. You have plans for the year you make it public. To add to your accountability, let me know via email at David at piano. Finally do show, I've said it before on the podcast that one of my favourite contemporary composers is Stephen Sondheim. If I find a production of any of his work locally, I'll buy tickets and go and see it. Unfortunately, they're not produced nearly enough.

(08:11):

Luckily, there are some filmed production. The National Theatre's Production of Follies with Amelda Thornton is great, and if you can find it in a cinema near you, go and see it obviously. Eventually I'd like to play some of sometimes' music myself, so I was quite pleased to discover a collection of his music published by Riling Music. There are three volumes in the collection. The first two contain pieces from Sondheim stage shows and movies, and the third volume contains works that were cut from the shows or never produced at all. Three volumes are big books and so they don't stay open on the music stand without some persuasion and assistance. This is not the problem that it used to be though. iPad like four score and music allow you to transfer the score for use at the piano. I'm not sure if that is strictly in accordance with the copyright terms.

(09:04):

Still, it would be nice to flip open a piece and have it stay open while giving it a play. If you have a sheet music direct subscription with Pass here in Luck, all the pieces in the books are available there electronically. The first volume of the collection contains 52 songs from 17 shows. The second has 40 songs from 14 shows, or the last volume containing the Lost Pieces has another 39 pieces you won't find elsewhere. If you're a Sondheim fan and you want to add some of his pieces to your repertoire, this is a comprehensive way to start. Of course, the quality of the printing and the score is in line with modern production standards and everything is clear and easy to follow. At the front of each book is a section of text talking about each of the shows included as well as about some of the pieces written by the editor at Richard Walters.

(09:55):

These pieces are accompanied by quotes from Sondheim and give a nice insight into the music. The scores are arranged for voice with piano accompaniment, but as I'm not a singer, if I want to play the music more than just the voice part, I'm going to have to work at filling it out. I will at least need to adjust the left hand part or swap some of it for chords and possibly a bit more if I want it to be a decent performance piece. I'm going to try using scaler two to come up with some matching chord progressions. I'm not sure how I'll get on, but it should be fun to try. I should point out there are solo piano arrangements available for a lot of this music, but I couldn't find a set that I liked, so I'm going to have a try myself. I got my copies through Amazon as none of the local stores had copies available. I'll put links in the show notes to the books.

(10:52):

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 piano. Finally show and the website at www dot piano finally do show in both cases, piano finally is all one word. The show is also on Facebook and Instagram and available as audio only on YouTube. You can subscribe via any popular iOS or Android podcast application or from directories such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on YouTube. I also post an excerpt and link for each episode as an Instagram reel if you're learning an instrument. Let me know where you are in your journey, what's going well and what are the challenges, and so until the next episode, I hope your piano stays in tune and you enjoy your time. At the Keys, I am including two pieces and the one exercise. Again, this week's progress.

(11:54):

The first piece is the bag of Tell in F by Daniel got Lob Turk. It's a list B piece, and it's ready for Debbie's input when my lessons resume this week. The second piece is Afternoon Snooze by Andrew Crags from the Anker Preparatory list C are now playing the entire piece. It's not even yet and I'm still playing it quite slowly. I'm also still on Journey's Opus 5, 9 9, exercise number one. All the recordings were made with the Kauai NV 10 as the keyboard and piano tech eight running on the M four Pro Mac Mini piano Tech is set to the Hamburg Steinway Model D enclosed player mode. Apparently there's a difference between this week's Hamburg Steinway and last week's New York Steinway, but I can't tell the difference.