Episode 80 - Not planning, not failing

G'day everyone! Welcome to show number eighty. It's the new year, and despite a rocky start with unseasonably cold morning swims, everything is going well here. I've been busy tidying up the house, potentially making room for a new keyboard once the driveway is sorted!

Podcast Update: The Rest is History I need to make a quick correction to last week’s episode. The new musical episodes of The Rest is History, covering Tchaikovsky and Wagner live from the Royal Albert Hall, are available now. They are excellent listens, exploring the lives, scandals, and music of these giants—even if, like me, you aren't Wagner's biggest fan.

Essay: Not planning, not failing As we head into the new year, I discuss why I have no intention of making a strict plan for my piano playing. For adult learners, "failing to plan" isn't planning to fail; it's simply giving ourselves permission to take detours and have fun. My only goal is to enjoy the process, whether that means sticking to the syllabus or getting distracted by Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.

Review: YouTube Keyboardists Continuing my review of YouTube channels, this week I look at the keyboard players I follow for inspiration and education:

• My Keys to Music: Run by Marc Larochelle, this is a must for Nord keyboard owners, covering everything from sound emulation to in-depth setups.https://www.youtube.com/@MyKeysToMusic
• DSoundman: Douglas, a worship leader, reviews and demonstrates a huge range of keyboards beyond just the piano, including Nord, Yamaha, and Arturia.https://www.youtube.com/@DSoundman
• The Salisbury Organist: Ben Maton travels the UK playing organs in quaint village churches. It’s part travelogue, part performance, and completely unique.https://www.youtube.com/@SalisburyOrganist
• Paul Fey: Similar to Ben but focusing on the grander sounds of cathedral organs. Paul often includes technical details and history in his videos.https://www.youtube.com/@PaulFey

Progress, I'm continuing my experiment of recording my entire practice session to beat the "performance effect," and it seems to be working! A Wild Chase is improving, and I'm slowing down the Trumpet Tune to get the articulations right. I've also started a lovely new piece, Sea Song by Australian composer Christopher Healey—chosen via the rigorous method of "it was on the right-hand page!"

If you'd like to share your own piano journey on the show, drop me an email at david@pianofinally.show.

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

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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 Welcome
• 1:10 Podcast - The Rest Is History - Music
• 3:50 Essay - Not planning, not failing
• 7:17 Review - Keyboardists
• 10:22 Closing
• 12:27 Progress

Transcript

Episode080: 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 80. Thank you very much for listening. If you're back for another episode, then thanks for returning. But if this is the first time you're hearing the podcast, I hope you enjoy what's in the show. And please don't forget to subscribe if you do like it. Are you learning a musical instrument? If you are, let me know how you're going with it. You can contact me at david@pianofinally.show Well, it's the new year and it's already off to a rocky start. Not here, everything is going well. Although the weather has been unseasonably cold when going for a swim in the morning, but then the days have been milder. Nothing big has been happening, just a lot of tidying up around the house. It needs it, especially if I have to make room for a new keyboard once the driveway is done. I have to make a slight correction to last week's episode. I said that the next musical episodes of "The Rest is History" would be coming out in the new year; I was only half correct. On the Monday after show 79, they put out the first episode, the one covering Tchaikovsky, and then on New Year's Day, they released the Wagner episode. They are both available to listen to now, and are well worth your time. It's not surprising that Tom and Dominic are getting awards all over the world for this podcast; it really is one of the best things available on the internet right now, whether free or paid. These two episodes were recorded in May at the Royal Albert Hall with the Philharmonia Orchestra in front of a live audience. The music is great, of course, and features a selection of popular pieces by the composers, with the addition of singers where appropriate. The first half of the evening became the Tchaikovsky episode, exploring his life in Tsarist Russia and how the political climate shaped his music. It also looks at what would now be considered scandalous love interests, as well as his ill-fated marriage. The show also covers the place Tchaikovsky's music had and has in Russian culture, and its ongoing influence on other music. I wasn't looking forward to the Wagner episode, particularly as I don't really like his music. I have listened to all the Ring Cycle, and even been to see a few of Wagner's operas, but never really found his style appealing. Add to that the man's appalling opinions on many subjects, and I was thinking that I could take it or leave it. Of course, Tom and Dominic did an excellent job. They detailed the aspects of Wagner's upbringing and life that informed his music and put into context the events that led to him becoming one of Germany's greatest composers- and there is definitely some competition in that space. They don't shy away from the bigoted opinions Wagner was quite open in expressing and which still taint his music. Both these programs are excellent and I hope that there will be more in the future. I'm guessing that these are quite expensive to produce with a full orchestra and a world-class venue, but given the success of "The Rest is History" podcast, perhaps there will be funding available. Definitely catch up with these episodes. I'll put a link in the show notes to these and the earlier two programs on Mozart and Beethoven as well. But be warned, you may end up listening to a lot more than just the musical episodes. Not planning, not failing. It's the beginning of a new year. We're four days in, and already it's not looking promising on the world front. I suppose it's nice that when I'm concentrating on getting that chord sequence right in "A Wild Chase", I'm not really thinking about anything else. Maybe that will encourage me to spend some more time practising. The beginning of January is also traditionally a time for planning the rest of the year, something I have no intention of doing when it comes to my piano playing. I've made some decisions already. I'll be continuing my music lessons with Devi; having that regular check-in keeps me on track with practising and helps me move forward. I've found one of the biggest helps in that regard is when I can play all the notes, but it still doesn't sound like music. Devi will show me how it should be played, and suddenly the music appears. There are other things that are fixed in place; the school term dates are fixed, and Devi will have a piano showcase at some stage, and this time, I'll make sure I have the date correctly entered in the calendar. I'll travel up to Queensland to see family in July or September, and that's it. Everything else can be flexible. And I think that is how all of us older adult learners should approach our playing, no plans. There is a saying that "Failing to plan is planning to fail." I don't know if that is necessarily correct, but I do know that I'm not worried by it. As adult learners, we can't fail, mainly because we're learning the piano out of enjoyment, not out of obligation. I am learning it to have fun, so the only way I can fail is if I fail to have fun. And I think learning is fun, but I'm a teacher, so I would think that. I think we all have some goals we are working towards with our playing; some of them will be easily achievable, others may take a long time, but having them means that at least we can keep moving in the right direction. I know which way I'm heading, but I don't have to plan every step of the way. Not planning also means that we can take detours. If I were seriously planning my piano progress using approved pedagogical methods, then there is no way I would have Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" sitting on the piano music stand; I'd have just the ANZCA or AMEB grade one books and some exercises. But that wouldn't be as much fun. My goal is to eventually be able to play pieces competently, but as an adult learner, I have permission to take as long as I like or even to change goals completely. If I had a plan and then didn't follow it, the results may be the same, but I'd have the nagging feeling that I had failed to live up to my plan. By not putting a plan in place, I can keep moving towards my goal of getting better at playing the piano, but without the pressure of self-imposed restraints. So don't stress about planning, know where you want to eventually end up, stay flexible to new challenges and opportunities, and never forget that the reason we chose to start learning the piano later in life is to have fun. In my continuing review of the YouTube channels I watch fairly regularly, I'm going to cover the different keyboard players I follow. These are the channels I watch when I want to see someone using the skills they've developed. They often contain some educational content as well; in particular, Paul Fey and Ben Maton add a good deal of extra material about the instruments or the music to their videos. This is by no means a comprehensive list, and I'm sure there are lots of equally good channels that I don't watch regularly, but all of these are worth trying. The "My Keys to Music" channel is run by Marc Larochelle and is aimed at people who own, or are considering owning, any of the Nord keyboards. Marc's videos often cover how to use the keyboard to emulate the sounds of iconic pop and rock music, along with an analysis of the music itself. Marc also runs a Patreon membership where he expands on the examples and shows more in-depth setups. This channel is a must for anyone who uses Nord's keyboards. DSoundman is actually a bloke named Douglas who works with keyboards in his role as a worship leader. Although you will often see Douglas sitting at a red Nord keyboard in many of his videos, Douglas also looks at a wide range of other keyboards, including Akai, Arturia, Yamaha and many more. Each of Douglas's videos includes a fair amount of him simply playing the keyboards, demonstrating what is possible with each unit. This channel is great if you want to see what's possible if you move away from the piano keyboard for a bit. Ben Maton is the Salisbury organist, and his channel is unlike nearly everything else on YouTube. In his videos, Ben travels around the United Kingdom visiting the small churches and chapels which dot the landscape and playing the organs he finds there. The music he chooses for the video will usually have some relation to the church or the area. In some of the videos, Ben talks about becoming an organist and working in that field. As part travelogue, part performance, the Salisbury Organist's videos are well worth watching. Paul Fey travels around playing organs in a similar way to Ben Maton, the difference being that Paul plays in cathedrals and similar places rather than quaint churches. Again, Paul adds a bit of a travel narrative to his videos and often discusses the history of the venues and organs as he goes. In some of the videos, he includes playing notes and technical details, making them an even more useful resource. The music he chooses really makes use of the power and variety of the instruments, and if you like that grand organ sound, then this channel is definitely worth checking out. Next week, I'll conclude this review of channels by looking at the businesses I follow even when I'm not thinking of buying anything. Next Saturday is the next rehearsal for the choir performance on the 25th. It's the first rehearsal with all the singers present, so it should be an interesting time. I'm hoping there are a few more lower-register voices than there were last time. The practising is at Carriageworks, one of Sydney's newer performing spaces, built in the buildings that were initially used to build New South Wales' railway fleet. It means I can add that space to my list of venues I've sung at, which now stands at two. I've sung on stage at the Sydney Opera House as well. I'll let you know how it went in next week's show. Now that this podcast has settled into a rhythm and the downloads are slowly increasing, 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 piano journey and where they're at, and then shares 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 concrete plans. I have one person who is interested, but if you'd like to join in, drop me an email, and we can work something out. If you'd like to contact me, email is the best way. You'll find me at david@pianofinally.show and the website at www.pianofinally.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 are you managing your time? 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 with the experiment from last week of recording all the music during a normal practice to see if the performance effect goes away. I recorded this week on Saturday, and I think it is making a difference, it did this time. Just recording something ordinary should stop it from being special and consequently create fewer distractions. I'll keep it up for a few more weeks."A Wild Chase" is still coming along. I now play it correctly more often than incorrectly, but it still needs extra concentration during the middle section. I'm going to start being much more strict about the tempo next week. The "Trumpet Tune" is coming along; I'm getting up to the correct speed if I don't worry about the articulations, so I'm practising much more slowly to make sure that I get the left-hand staccato notes correct."Moonlight Sonata" is sort of stuck at the moment. I'm working on getting it smoother up to where the melody begins. I'm still practising it last as those octaves really muck up the other intervals in whatever I play next. I've also added the first of the new pieces,"Sea Song" by Australian composer Christopher Healey. It's a really lovely, gentle piece of music and I'm enjoying playing it. I've only done the first half so far. The process of choosing it next was very rigorous. Devi and I have picked three pieces from the new Series 19 AMEB Grade One book. I marked them with sticky tabs to make finding the pages easier. Because I put them on the right-hand page in each case, it is easier to open the book from the back, and "Sea Song" is the last of the three pieces, and so the first one I opened. 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.[Practice pieces] Thank you.