Episode 74 - Unexpected Benefits

We’re into the last three teaching weeks of the school year; final marking is nearly done, and I’m looking forward to a bit more time at the piano.

🎧 YouTube – Beethoven Literally Used Four Chords to Write Für Elise
YouTube analysis channels can be a goldmine. Jazz pianist Charles Cornell – co-founder of Better Piano and author of Jazz Piano Improv – has a terrific breakdown of Für Elise. He looks at the key (A minor), the 3/8 time signature (so it doesn’t feel like a waltz), and the chord movement from A minor–E and then C–G. It’s almost note-by-note, showing how harmony and melody fit together rather than just listing Roman numerals. If you’re learning the piece, it’s a great way to go beyond “just remembering the notes”.

📺 Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-W8VbPgpkU

📝 Essay – Unexpected Benefits
You’d think the main benefit of learning piano would simply be playing piano. In practice, it’s opened far more doors. 

Learning has also reconnected me with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra: spotting names like Daniil Trifonov, Sir Stephen Hough and Nobuyuki Tsujii on the program nudged me into a subscription, pre-concert talks, and a deeper understanding of composers and form. A music episode of The Rest is History podcast has slipped into my regular listening too.

All of this has brought more concerts, more conversations in foyers and festival tents, and more chances to meet like-minded people than I expected when I first walked into a piano shop.

🎼 Review – Chopin: Complete Preludes, Nocturnes and Waltzes (Schirmer)
Another “aspirational” purchase: Chopin – Complete Preludes, Nocturnes and Waltzes (Schirmer Vol. 2056). I can’t yet play most of it, but the A-major Prelude Op. 28 No. 7 is firmly on the “soon” list. The edition is edited by Rafael Joseffy, a 19th-century Hungarian-born Chopin specialist, who also provides fingering.

The book includes a brief introduction plus 26 Preludes, 21 Nocturnes and 19 Waltzes. The engraving is from older plates but clean and readable; at 248 pages it’s a chunky perfect-bound volume that will stay open with a little encouragement. For 66 pieces, AU$48.95 from Music Junction feels like good value.

Links:

• Music Junction (AU):
  https://www.musicjunction.com.au/products/chopin-complete-preludes-nocturnes-and-waltzes?_pos=5&_sid=547dbbf5d&_ss=r
  
  
• Amazon AU:
  https://www.amazon.com.au/Frederic-Chopin-Complete-Preludes-Nocturnes/dp/0634099205
  
  

🎹 Progress
Practice continues on Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata – still not as even as I’d like, but improving – and Wynn-Anne Rossi’s A Wild Chase, now mostly from memory, with the drum machine back on the piano to rebui

You can contact me:

• via email at david@pianofinally.show; this is probably the best option
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Some of the links to books and other items mentioned in the podcast may 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
• 0:15 Welcome
• 1:33 YouTube - Charles Cornell
• 3:57 Essay - unexpected Benefits
• 8:14 Review - Chopin, Complete Preludes, Nocturnes and Waltzes
• 10:25 Closing
• 11:43 Progress

Transcript

Episode074: 0:00

G'day everyone, I'm David Reidy. Welcome to Piano, Finally, a podcast by an old bloke who's getting around to learning the piano, finally. Welcome to show number 74. Thank you very much for listening. If you're back for another episode, then thanks for returning. If this is the first time you're hearing the podcast, I hope you enjoy what's in the show and don't forget to subscribe if you do like it Are you learning a musical instrument too? If you are, let me know how you're going with it You can contact me at david at pianofinally dot show Sorry there was a bit of a problem with last week's episode I use Cubase from Steinberg to put the show together and I've upgraded to the latest version Somehow I managed to turn off the track that has the short pieces of the Crab Canon between the parts of the podcast, so it was missing. I think the rest of the audio was fine. Normally, I listen to the show on Monday morning after I post it, so I don't hear problems until it's too late. I'll change the way I do things and have a listen before I push the go live button. We're into the last three teaching weeks of the school year, and if all goes well, by the time you hear this episode, I will have finished all the final marking for the year. There are still some reports to write, but there should be a bit more time for the piano. There are a number of YouTube presenters who analyse pieces of music. David Bennett analyses a lot of contemporary music, pop music in particular, and it is through him and the Axis of Awesome that I know about the standard four-chord progression used in an awful lot of pop music. So I was interested when I saw a four-chord reference in a video by Charles Cornell. Charles Cornell is one of the people behind the Better Piano website. The website offers online courses and will soon also have one-on-one lessons available. Charles is also the author of Jazz Piano Improv, an e-book that teaches jazz improvisation over provided backing tracks. The video is entitled Beethoven Literally Used Four Chords to Write Für Elise, and it starts with a brief discussion of the key that Für Elise is in, A minor, followed by Charles explaining the time signature, which is three-eight. The piece is written with semiquavers, sixteenth notes, so my background in maths makes me wonder why it couldn't have been written with quavers in three-four time, as mathematically they are the same. Charles explains what it is that Beethoven is communicating about the piece by using this time signature. Briefly, he doesn't want it to sound like a waltz. An analysis of the chords used in the opening bars follows, with Charles working through the A minor to E section, and then the C and G section, looking at the relationships and the theory behind the progression. The discussion is quite thorough, almost note by note, and is an example of the analysis that Charles provides in an upcoming product from Better Music, which he teases during the video. The video was brought out in the run-up to the release of the product and the Black Friday sales for the year. I'll have a look at them in more detail when they're announced before recommending them or otherwise. The breakdown of the piece is really interesting and informative if you're learning the piece and you want to get past just remembering the notes. Seeing what it is that Beethoven is trying to do with the way the piece is written will help in how you ultimately play it. If you like Beethoven and this particular piece, the video is well worth watching. There's a link in the show notes. Unexpected Benefits The main benefit of learning to play the piano is being able to play the piano. Or is it? Clearly, when someone, especially when that someone is an adult, sets out to learn a musical instrument, their intention is to learn the skills needed to make music with it, to a level that they're happy with. The benefit being that they can then make music whenever they wish. I'm going to suggest that although that may be their intention, becoming proficient in the skill is not the main benefit. There are many more. Firstly, I'd say that it gets me out of the house a lot more. That might seem strange, as the piano is now a permanent fixture in the lounge room and is certainly not portable, but it's true. Once a week, I go to my piano lesson. That's in a town not far from where I live, but not a town I would normally visit. When I first started, lessons meant that I visited the Penrith Conservatorium each week, a building I had only ever driven past before. And of course, the recent trip to Bathurst for the Out West Piano Fest was well outside of the house. And there were also all the extra trips to buy music and books and look at instruments. Then, once you're out of the house, you find more things. As I tend to avoid advertising as much as possible, there are things going on that I don't find out about. Being at the Conservatorium meant that I saw their posters for upcoming performances and ended up on their mailing list. So I've now been to performances there, both for music and drama. Learning has also made me more aware of the music going on around me. The banners across the highway for the Blue Mountains Musical Society were suddenly relevant. For many years, I had just driven under them. I've now been to see their last three productions and intend to keep going now that I've seen just how good they are. If I weren't learning, I might have just kept driving under them. Keeping up with local music also got me back in touch with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. I'd grown up with the orchestra and when I was at university had been able to take advantage of the heavily discounted subscriptions for students but I hadn't been to one of their concerts in many years. Seeing that pianists such as Daniil Trifonov, Sir Stephen Hough and Nobuyuki Tsujii were performing with them got me interested enough to get a subscription for this year and that has led to going to the pre-concert talks and learning a lot more about composition and composers. A music episode of the podcast The Rest is History got me interested in that show, and it has now become part of my regular weekly podcast listening. The show is mostly straight history, though some musical information often gets mixed in, such as King Henry VIII's compositions and his musical ability. I probably wouldn't have found the show, except for their musical episode, and now my knowledge of history is increasing. And of course, there are the people. Getting out to various musical events means meeting other like-minded people. Even if it's just a casual chat while waiting for the pre-concert talk to begin in the foyer of the Opera House, to the much more in-depth conversations that took place over meals at the Out West Piano Fest, deciding to learn the piano has given me the opportunity to meet a lot of new people. The decision to begin learning the piano has led to so many more experiences and opportunities than I had imagined it would when I first stopped in that piano shop. I don't think that this is unique to music. I think something similar might happen with many pastimes that involve interacting with other people. But music is special. It's meant to be shared. And so pursuing it will inevitably lead to chances to interact with people you don't know yet. It has been said that it becomes harder to meet new people as we get older. But taking on something new that is both challenging and fun is a pretty good way to get out and about. It's perhaps the most unexpected benefit I have found in taking up learning as an adult. In my recent buying spree, I bought a copy of Chopin's Complete Preludes, Nocturnes and Waltzes. This book is another one of those aspirational purchases. At this stage of my piano learning, I don't have any hope of playing any of the pieces in this book in full, perhaps with one exception. That piece is the A major Prelude, Op. 28 No. 7, and it is on my list of pieces to add to my repertoire eventually. It would be nice to be able to say that I can play Chopin, even if it is his shortest piece. The book is another one of the collections published by Schirmer. If you're interested, it's their volume number 2056. Unlike last episode's Beethoven book, this one does have an identified editor. It's Rafael Joseffy, a Hungarian-born pianist who settled in New York in the 19th century and who became a noted Chopin interpreter. He is also responsible for the fingering numbers in the score. The book includes a brief historical introduction to the composer and his works. It's very brief, and if you want to know more, I'm sure that there are many other fine works from which to choose. The collection contains 26 Preludes, 21 Nocturnes and 19 Waltzes. The printing is clear, although once again it appears that older engravings have been used in the preparation of the book, but they're better than the ones in the Beethoven collection and are easy to follow. There are no notes accompanying the pieces, so it would appear that Mr Joseffy's contribution is limited to the fingering and other markings in the scores themselves. The book is perfect bound, and it will stay open on the music stand, but only with some assistance, as it is 248 pages long and so quite thick. I bought my copy from Music Junction. It costs 48.95 Australian dollars, and it seems pretty good value for the 66 pieces. I'll put a link in the show notes to the book, and an Amazon link if you can't get it at one of your local shops. Neither link is an affiliate link. This coming week is set aside for report writing. It's the last major task of the school year, although there are still three weeks of lessons to go. Once the reports are done, there's a bit of checking to do, but then I'll have my evenings back to get some extra practice in. Those next bars of the Moonlight Sonata look promising. If you'd like to contact me, the best way, you'll find me at david at pianofinally dot show and the website at www dot pianofinally dot show. In both cases, pianofinally is all one word. The show is also available on Spotify and as an audio-only stream on YouTube. You can subscribe via any popular iOS or Android podcast application or from directories such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify or 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, how you're managing your time and what pieces you're enjoying learning the most. And so, until next week, I hope your piano stays in tune and you enjoy your time at the keys. I'm continuing to work on the beginning of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. It's not quite as even as I'd like, and I'm still using the score, but I'm making some progress. I am still really enjoying working on the piece. We've arrived at the part where the melody begins, the melody that is played with just the right-hand little finger. The aim is to get that finger to sound loudest when three other right-hand fingers are playing an arpeggio. I'm working on just getting the notes right at the moment. I'm keeping the dynamics in mind, but I'm not too worried that they aren't happening yet. Wynn-Anne Rossi's A Wild Chase is coming along. I can now play the piece mostly from memory. I'm still working on getting it even, and to that end I've got the drum machine I use in place of a metronome back on the piano. I need to get back into the habit of using a steady beat, so I have the tempo set very slow at the moment, even slower than I had been playing it. Slowly building up speed over the coming weeks is the aim. The music was recorded using the Kawai NV10 as the keyboard, the M4 Pro Mac Mini running Cubase 15 and Pianoteq 9, with Pianoteq emulating a Shigeru Kawai SK-EX grand piano in concert mode.. Thank you. Thank you.