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.

All Episodes

Piano, finally

Episode 77 - Christmas Shopping

December 14, 2025 • David Reidy • Season 1 • Episode 77

Episode 77 - Christmas Shopping

G'day, everyone! Welcome to show number seventy-seven. Teaching has finally finished for the year, wrapping up with a wonderful awards ceremony and a staff performance that was definitely more enthusiastic than musical! I’m looking forward to my last piano lesson of the year this Monday, where Devi and I will pick out a few pieces to keep me busy over the break.

YouTube Review: Merriam Pianos - Hybrids This week, I take a look at a video from Merriam Pianos featuring Stu Harrison. Stu discusses his switch from a Grotrian acoustic upright to a Kawai NV5 hybrid. It’s a fascinating watch,especially if you are weighing up the pros and cons of acoustic versus hybrid instruments. As Stu points out, an 8/10 experience you can have anytime is better than a 10/10 experience you can rarely access.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsTElPqKJjY

Essay: Christmas Shopping Despite the title, this isn't a gift guide! Instead, I explore the value of giving musical gifts,especially to young people. After forty years of teaching, I’ve noticed that engagement is key to learning. Giving a child access to an instrument—without friction—can spark curiosity and build valuable life skills like self-discipline. If you have the means, a musical instrument might just change a life this Christmas.

Review: AMEB Piano Series 19 Grade 1 I popped into Carlingford Music to pick up the newly released AMEB Series 19 books. I’m not planning to sit the exams, but these books are a great source of graded repertoire. The Grade 1 book features a diverse mix, from a sarabande by Gillock to a "swung blues" piece by Eric Baumgartner. I’ll be trying out a few of these over the holidays.https://www.ameb.edu.au/shop/music/keyboard/piano/series-19

Progress Work continues on Beethoven’s "Moonlight" Sonata; it’s slow going, but enjoyable. My flute piece is coming along, though combining hands still slows me down. I’ve also added a new piece based on Rossini's Barber of Seville, and Wynn-Anne Rossi's "A Wild Chase" is nearing completion—I can finally play it from memory!

If you'd like to get in touch or share your own musical journey, drop me a line at david@pianofinally.show.

The contents of this podcast were entirely generated by a human, but these show notes were created by Gemini.

Send me a text message.

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 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.

Episode077: 0:00

G'day everyone, I'm David Reedy. Welcome to Piano Finally, a podcast by an old bloke who's getting around to learning the piano. Finally. Welcome to show number 77. 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 also learning a musical instrument? If you are, let me know how you're going with it. You can contact me at david at pianofinally.show Teaching is finished for the year, but I still have to go into work from Monday to Thursday this week, as there are parent-teacher interviews, meetings, and first aid and fire training to do. The teaching wrapped up on Friday with the awards ceremony and mass, and lots of singing. The school band was excellent. Our new music director has rearranged some of the older tunes, and the band did an excellent job with them. The proof of that? Most of the students in the hall joined in with the singing, something that used to happen fairly rarely. The very last number was the staff singing Mariah Carey's Jesus' Oh What a Wonderful Child. On a scale from enthusiastic to musical, the staff's performance was definitely enthusiastic. This Monday will be my last piano lesson for the year. Debbie and I will pick out one or two more pieces for the holidays to keep me busy until we return next February. The podcast will keep going, the family is coming to Sydney for Christmas, so I don't need to travel, which will be a nice change. I'm really looking forward to the break. Merriam Pianos is one of those YouTube channels I watch fairly regularly, even though I'm not in the market for a piano. Merriam Music is a Canadian music business with a number of locations in Canada and the United States. Their YouTube channel is fronted by Stu Harrison, the president and co-owner of the business. Stu is a graduate of the Jazz Programme at the University of Toronto. While many of the videos on the channel are reviews of pianos and keyboards, there are also other videos on Musical Topic, their latest instalment, From German Acoustic to Hybrid, My Honest Experience, caught my attention because, as you know, my main keyboard is a hybrid grand. Although Merriam sells the piano Stu is talking about, this isn't a sales video. It is Stu talking about why he sold his old Grotrian upright piano and replaced it with a Kawaii NV5 hybrid. It's an interesting video, and it's clear that Stu still prefers an acoustic piano. As he says, an acoustic piano is perfect if you have the perfect setup. But he found that real life got in the way, and he wasn't able to make as much use of the piano as he wanted. Considering other family members and neighbours, he didn't have the opportunity to use the piano as much as he would have liked. The hybrid solved that problem. Although he only gives the hybrid a score of 8 out of 10 against the acoustic, he points out that an 8 out of 10 experience whenever he wants it is better than a 10 out of 10 experience that can only happen rarely, or not at all. If you're thinking about whether to choose a hybrid or other electronic solution over an acoustic piano, This video from Merriam Pianos is well worth a watch. There's a link in the show notes. Christmas Shopping Despite the title, this isn't going to be a set of suggestions as to what to buy for Christmas gifts. Instead, I'm going to look at the reasons why you might give something musical as a gift, especially why you should give something musical to a young person. There is a lot written about how children learn best, and having been teaching for 40 years, I have seen many fads come and go. Ideas that are all the rage for a few years are replaced by something new, and rarely is there any noticeable difference, other than there being a different set of experts explaining why you have been doing things wrong up to that point. Everything is always backed up by research, which is generally of low quality, and normal statistical variance is touted as proof of the new paradigm. So here's what I've noticed over the past 40 years. Students who are engaged in learning learn more than students who are not engaged. Surprising, isn't it? Students who enjoy learning do better than students who do not. Can I prove this? No, it's just observations. but if you consider yourself, I'm sure you do the things you enjoy better than the things you don't enjoy. So how does music fit in with this? Everyone enjoys music. Not everyone enjoys the same music, but I think it would be hard to find someone who doesn't have some form of music that they like to listen to. Tastes vary widely, and some of the music my students listen to really doesn't appeal to me. but they like it, and that's the key part. If I ask a student if they'd be interested in learning how to play the music, the answer is usually no, and the reason is that it's too hard and will take too much time. They're right, it does take time and effort, and teenagers in particular are not noted for their dedication to making and implementing long-term plans. Also, it is unlikely that I am asking them at a time when they are ready to give it serious thought. So giving a musical instrument to a child might seem like a bad idea, but it isn't. Of course, if you give a drum set to a five-year-old who lives in an apartment complex, then I think we can agree that that would be a bad idea. But a well-considered purchase is something different. The first thing to consider is the volume, but there are workarounds. Nearly every musical instrument has a silent or very quiet equivalent. Anything with amplification can be used with headphones. And there are electronic versions of violins, wind instruments and drums. Unless you want to buy Elam pipes or tubular bells, you can probably find a suitable alternative. But should you just buy an instrument and give it as a gift? If you can afford it, then yes. If an instrument is available without friction, most kids will give it a go. Asking a child to try something they have not thought about, and which seems difficult, is unlikely to get a positive response off the cuff. But given enough time to work through it at their own pace, most children are curious enough to give it a go. I've seen it time and time again when we challenge students on school camps. Those who are never going to try rock climbing or abseiling are often high up on the tower after they've had time to think and watch others. And it's the same with music. If the instrument is there, their curiosity will get the better of them. And learning music, especially today, is such a valuable life skill. Learning an instrument can't be replaced by machine learning or artificial intelligence. Shortcuts don't work. Time and practice are what is needed, and that's something that is increasingly hard to make the opportunity for. I have students who will put hundreds of hours into learning computer games, and that application to learning a skill is valuable, even though the skill itself is not particularly useful. If they have the opportunity to do the same with an instrument, then not only is the self-discipline invaluable, but the skill is also useful. Kids who have a pastime or a hobby or a competitive sport tend to do better at their other activities as well. A recent study showed that students in school bands have a disproportionately high representation in their school's student leadership positions. This might be the reverse, that the leaders tend to be musical, but I think the children get a chance to be musical long before they get a chance to be a leader. So, if you've got the means, a musical instrument as a present might make a profound change in the life of a child you know. It might be worth considering during this gift-giving season. I mentioned last week that the newer sets of piano music from the Australian Music Examinations Board have just been released. I was able to get to Carlingford Music on Saturday to pick up two of them. This is partly because I wanted to review them for the podcast, but also because Debbie and I were talking about adding a new piece or two to see me through the holidays. The Series 19 books can be used for the AMEB examinations from the start of 2026, but the syllabus lists the existing books from Series 17 and 18 also, so I assume that they will stay current for at least another year or two. Although the examination syllabus lists around 100 pieces that can be used for the exams, there are 12 included in the Grade 1 book. The exams are divided into three lists, A, B and C, and the candidates choose one piece from each list. This isn't a restriction for me, as I don't intend to do the exams, but I'm using the books to simply get pieces at the appropriate level. The four List A pieces in the Grade 1 book are a Saraband by William Gillock from the early 20th century in 3-4 time, Titans by contemporary Australian composer Daniel McFarlane, there is a Minuet and a Rondo by Jean-Philippe Rameau, and Stretching by Philip Wilcher. None of these pieces appears too difficult, but then I haven't tried playing any of them yet. They do introduce some challenges, though. The Macfarlane piece has lots of right-hand chords with quite large leaps between them, and the Wiltshire has sections where crossing your hands is needed. All the pieces have performance notes, which gives some pointers as to how they should be played. List B contains two minuets, one by Haydn and the other by a six-year-old Mozart, and two 19th-century teaching pieces by Cornelius Gerlitt and Heinrich Wolffart. These are more technical pieces, and the performance notes are quite detailed. The List C pieces are the most diverse. The first is The Old Cuckoo Clock by Mina Bachinskaya. It looks interesting, with a very strict beat from right-hand single quavers that run through the entire piece. Piece two is by Eric Baumgartner, inspired by the music of Charles Mingus. It's a swung blues piece with an interesting rhythm in the middle. Australian composer Christopher Healy provides the third piece, Sea Song, which is written using the Lydian mode, and the performance notes include an explanation of its use. The last piece is by Haida Villa Lobos and centres around the children's game from Brazil. Again, it has an interesting rhythmic structure. So that's the 12 pieces. They are certainly diverse and cover a wide range of tastes. If you're looking for some new pieces to try out at around this level, then have a look at the new publication. The book is only available in print. AMEB don't make their music available digitally although you may be able to find the scores in other places. The price, I think the price has gone up. The Grade 1 book costs 47 Australian dollars. You can get it directly from AMEB or pretty much every Australian music shop will have it. There's a link in the show notes. Sometimes doing the podcast can be dangerous While writing this week's essay, I mentioned Elan Pipes An instrument I've always been interested in I went to check that I had the spelling of Elan correct And found that you can get a full set for around $2,000 Now I'm thinking that that might make a nice birthday present for myself just one tap of the pay with apple pay button is all that is needed and there's even an online course to learn the basics based on last week's essay i'd like to help you get your music out to more people if you'd like to get your playing onto the podcast get in touch i'm thinking of adding a section to the shows where someone else tells us a bit about their musical journey and where they're at and then share some of their music. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be you. It's still only an idea, I haven't made any concrete plans, but if you're interested drop me an email, we can work something out. If you'd like to contact me, email is the best way, you'll find me at david at pianofinally.show and the website at www.pianofinally.show. In both cases, piano finally is all one word. The show is also available on Spotify and is 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 a musical instrument, let me know how you're going with it. What's going well and what are the challenges? How are you managing your time to fit all the practice in? And what pieces are you enjoying the most? 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 slowly improving, but there's still a long way to go. I'm using the score, of course, but mostly it's the notes that I've made of the quarter note progressions. It's still fun, it's still slow going, and I'm still only up to the place where the melody begins. But, over the holidays, I hope I'll move on. The flute piece is coming along nicely. I can play it at the correct tempo if I only use my right hand, but I slow down a fair bit when using both, as you'll hear. At the moment, there are two main parts I'm concentrating on. Firstly, there are a number of places where the note in the left hand is played staccato, while the right hand note is legato. I usually get the staccato right, but then also play staccato with the other hand. I haven't practiced that in this week's progress. I know I'll get there eventually. I have added a new piece to try out. It's based on Rossini's Barber of Seville, and once Debbie showed me how it was meant to be played, it started to make sense. I'm not sure if this is going to be one of the pieces I work on over the holidays, but I'll include the little bit of the right-hand melody I've been practicing. When Anne Rossi's A Wild Chase is nearing completion, I can now play the piece from memory, and it's getting more even. Once I'm happy, I'm going to start increasing the tempo, which is starting to happen a little bit already. The music was recorded using the Kauai NV10 as the keyboard, and the M4 Pro Mac Mini running Cubase 15 and PianoTek 9, with PianoTek emulating a Shigeru Kawaii SKEX Grand Piano in concert mode. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.