Sight Reading

I have been told that I had an excellent ear when it came to music, although I believe this skill is a trade-off towards my sight reading ability.

At this moment, nothing fustrates me more then not being able to go though a score with enough precision and time without being becoming increasingly impatient! :(

I know, this is horrible for me to say, especially with the fact that I am at such a high level (embaressing), althought I'm quite sure everyone has their weaknesses.

w/e lol

Piazzolla

classically infused tango music.

sounds lame but entirely genius.

Anderson and Roe

Can anyone be more spectacular/amazing/phenomenal?

Julliard graduates right here :) I love them. Althought it makes me a little depressed knowing I will never reach their level (maybe with a million more hours of practice). But nevertheless, only prodigies are able to attend the prestigeous Julliard school.

Envious, I am. I'll post their video here soon.

Defined by Wikipedia

New Age music is music of various styles, which is intended to create inspiration, relaxation, and positive feelings, often used by listeners for yoga, massage, inspiration, relaxation, meditation, and reading as a method of stress management

Stylistic origins of New Age:
Classical music
Electronic music
Musique concrète
Progressive rock
Psychedelic rock
World music
Krautrock
Avant-garde music
Traditional folk music
Ambient music
Minimalism

New Age & Pianoworld

I finally realized that the style I loved is called "New Age".
With this style, what comes to mind are composers such as Yanni, Yann Tiersen, Michael Nyman and whatnot (I truly need work researching many more composers lol - don't judge!).

It's nice and you can listen to it on this website here
and click on Audio On

Anyways, I just discovered this amazing piano forum at Piano World. It's a great place for any opinions and musical questions for professionals musicians or anybody who plays music.

Wonderful.

I am feeling at home with music once again! =)

Sonata Pathetique!

Quite possibly one of the best pieces from Beethoven!

I love the beauty and intensity of this piece. =)

Gould is Gold?

I am currently practicing the "Partita 2" by Bach.

I searched it up on youtube and found this man playing it, who went by the name of Glenn Gould. Magnificent, is he not? I did not understand the way he had played the piece the first time I watched it because all I could concentrate on was where the humming came from. I realized then and there that the humming and singing was coming from Glenn himself! Interestingly enough eh?

Nevertheless, he has caught great recognition throughout the years for exceptional reasons for sure. He plays Bach very influentially - with love and accuracy in each note. A rare man indeed. A genius who appears to be mentally challenged.



2:05 is the climax of this piece =)

Knowing that Glenn Gould played this piece makes me honored to be learning it even further (I know this reason isn't a very good one - but I guess it just makes me even more excited to learn it anyways).

Classical tastes

A good friend of mine introduced me to a couple pieces that definitely caught my attention. They were written by a man named Yann Tiersen. At first, I was deeply evoked by the magnificent simplicity that the melodies seemed to produce. I was swept away and therefore found myself learning some of his music - which lead me to loving a whole new musical era of story telling.

Anyways, I was thinking of this to myself and I knew that this type of music would attract the general public, yet not nessesarily the die-hard piano player. This music did not have the structure of classical music that many people are used to - it was different yet still sounded pleasant.

I talk about this because when I think about the general public and classical music, the two do not seem to mix as formulated as we should. Many people would admit that they do not enjoy classical music and are therefore bored of it. I came to the interest to conclude that different types of piano music attract different people. For performance, at my high school for example, people really did enjoy a compilation I put together of a medly of about 10 pieces consisting of popular and well known classical pieces.

I also think that the general public are more interested with music with a profound melody line - such as pieces that are from the romantic or classical era (most especially Beethovan and Chopin - or late romanticism Debussy). If you were to shove a 20th century piece at them (Bartok ew lol) or a Bach Prelude and Fugue - I think they would be bored and utterly underestimate the beauty and complexity that only pianists would understand.

I think good pieces to recommend (to play) to the general public are romantic or classical pieces - from grades 5-10. ARCT may have some good songs too but are heavily complex and extremely long at most times... the general public usually label these pieces as "boring" or "too long". Which is fine, I am not critisizing their judgement as it is just as easy for me to apply those words on somebody else's ARCT performance as well, judgeing that I do not enjoy the piece.

Also, nocturnes are beautiful - Chopin ones in particular. Nocturne is the defined as night music, imagine an evening symphony or concert. Totally meant to be dark yet vibrant as the evening sets in.

This one has been labled the "Father of all Nocturnes"

I really love my pieces

I just wish I had enough time to practice them.

What I need to concentrate on

Since I am planning to learn much of ARCT on my own (without weekly lessons with an instructor), I will need to be able to practice efficiently on my own.

Three things to keep in mind while starting to practice:

1. Understand the RHYTHM before you start - using flawed rhythms that you are unsure of will be time-consuming after you realize you need to correct what you haven't learnt accurately in the beginning.

2. STRICTLY the correct FINGERINGS - vitally important, especially through 'faster-paced' passages and/or cadenzas.

3. Practice SLOWLY - I have made the upsetting mistake in the past of playing a piece at normal tempo right after I've learnt it. This creates instability with the piece and is vulnerable to mistakes being made without realization.

I know these things usually present themselves as common sense, but it's something that a lot of students overlook and tend to rely on their teachers for. And trust me, the rhythms I see aren't so simple. They consist of dotted 16th notes, 32nd note passages in various parts of the keyboard, not to mention the great amount of articulation you will need (especially in Bach). I was never the very strong in rhythm - I was more interested in the musicianship of the piece, the emotions that it presented and how to execute it. Yet I understand that to be an ARCT student, you must be more well-rounded.

I finally have an ARCT repertoire put together!

List A Partita 2 - Bach
List B Sonata Pathetique - Beethovan
List C Nocturne in Db+ - Chopin
List D La Cathedrale Engloutie- Debussy
List E Sonatine - Bartok
Concert Etude in G- (No.2) -Moskowski

I think you'd all wonder why Pathetique is there. Originally considered a Grade 10 piece, it has now (amazingly) been shifted to an ARCT level, and all you have to do is play all 3 parts to it. It is one of my favourite pieces, which is why I am thrilled to be learning it to perfection.

I love the Partita, it is much more "showy" then Bach's other pieces tend to be, so it's nice to do that after playing Prelude and Fugue in D+ a while back (even though Preludes and Fugues are technically amazing and the basis of what all piano music is all about to this day). Nocturne in Db+ is a beautiful piece - I've seen videos of Lang Lang and Maksim Mrvica play it, and I hope to one day execute it as well as they do. The Sonatine by Bartok is one piece that I'm not very sure of. I searched it up and listened to it and didn't really understand it. I know it is a 20th century piece, but this one just sounded very odd...and not something I would like to perform -- which is why I consider switching to another piece.. perhaps. The Etude in G- is very fast and ferocious, which was always something that is a lot of fun to play.

Hopefully I can pull my life together and be able to spend a fair amount of time practicing. My piano teacher really emphasized that I was not obligated to obtain my ARCT due to a hectic university schedule, but I will pretend that I am in order to pick myself out of my era of "major time-wasting" and hopefully obtain the ARCT like I said I would.

It is a must, not a choice.

Sound of my piano

I don't know why but when I watch my own current videos it sounds as if I am slamming on the keys of the piano. I swear I am not (as bad as it looks) and the reason it sounds like it (I think) is because the entire room is either wood or concrete (walls) and the 'bright' sound that the Yamaha is famous of just bounces off every crevasse in the room!

I'm quite sure about this because I have recorded a video in the past when I still had carpet floor, and the carpet seemed to insulate and absorb all the unwanted echo from the piano.

This is how my piano sounded about 2 years ago when there was carpet playing Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley:



This was back in 2007, that I have made a piano version of it myself (I learned it myself by ear listening to the guitar version). You might recognize this tune because it was played in "the OC" when the main girl died or something.

Notice how warm the sound of the piano is compared to the other videos. This is quite frustrating to me! The sound of the piece is extremely important to me and if I cannot execute it properly on camera then I don't know why I am doing so at all.

Here is another example with the carpet floor with my Noctourne in C- (also back in 2007)



There is a harsh audio-video lag on this.. This was after I had completed my Grade 10RCM. If only I did my ARCT right afterwards, then I would have almost finished by now.. It's never too late though I guess.