I’ve already done a review of last year and talked a bit about some of the things I did [or not did] last year. But I have signed up for Pianist membership so that I get [what I have wanted for a long time] ongoing access to the digital archive – this matters to me because they have a lot of really nice music and accompanying tutorials.
In the latest issue which I think is from pre=Christmas, there is a piece on deciding (as an adult) to do an exam and a lot of practical advice. I value it a lot. It covered some practical advice, some timing and planning advice, discusses some of the pitfalls.
I’m also interested in using the sheet music as a resource for improving my sight reading. I’ve two major goals I think:
Complete the prep for Grade 6 and do it
Start the prep for Grade 8.
Supporting that are some improvements in basic skills, such as the dreaded polyrhythms and above all else, the sheet music reading fluency. For me, it’s not good enough but having gone through a lot of the tutorials on reading sheets, it’s obvious to me, I have the basic skills in place. None of the hints are new, I understand intervals. I understand the mnenomics and have done for years. I have some trouble with extreme ledger lines. These things are basically practice.
In the last few months, maybe the last 6 months, I have put a lot of resources into becoming a better piano player. This site is one; I’ve signed up for ToneBase, I have signed up for a Pianist membership, you can find me on Tonic for practice accountability. I have bought a metronome and I want another one (you can probably have too many metronomes – I have a lovely Seiko one which is totally not helpful for dealing with my Bach pains). What I want, more or less, is to be able to play any [bits of] music I want to. The grades are less to do with that and more to feed a little piece of my ego that is feeling neglected.
I’m also looking at practice journaling – I already log what gets practiced on a day to day basis since start of this year (a very nice Japanese agenda is used for that). One of the points raised in the Pianist article I mentioned above related to the difference between practice and rehearsal. This is not something that occurred to me but I’m happy enough to consider it – it allows me to highlight the differences between my Mendelssohn (rehearsing, sort of) and my Bach (ugh practising).
When I look at my weaknesses, the number one item on that list (according to me anyway) are polyrhythms. I understand how to calculate how the beat is divided but I struggle to make it work. So I addressed this Gap via Professor of Music Youtube.
For 2/3 polyrhythms, there are two notable videos which I am going to place here:
RIAM Practising 3 against 2 rhythm
What I like about this one is it provides a scale exercise for making your fingers work on the concept.
Denis Zhdanov has a very useful video here also.
Currently I am working on these away from the piano and I’m interested to see that I can manage them away from the piano.
A couple of social media things over Christmas to note: Sebastian Dupuis is working his way through Liszt solo piano albums on YouTube, it’s very enjoyable and watching him play is always a pleasure.
Gavan Reilly, one of the leading political journalists in Ireland, took an hour out of his family Christmas to sit and play internet piano bar from requests sent in via Instagram while he was streaming. It’s an interesting idea. It demonstrated the extent to which I don’t know pop culture (I know very few tv themes, for example). But he put out a fair few tunes and raised over 3000 euro for charity. He did it by ear as well, so fair play to Gav for that.
Firstly, I need to apologise to Cork Airport. They have a piano, as in Dublin, it is in Arrivals on the ground floor of the terminal and you need to retrieve a key to use it. If I have time on Monday I will do so. The piano is supplied by Moloney Pianos and my point about there needing to be one airside still stands.
Before Christmas, I passed through both Brussels and Amsterdam and played pianos in both airports. As Brussels is my local departure airport, I know the set up there slightly better and they have two pianos, one in each terminal, A and B (Schengen and non-Schengen). I always try to find time to sit there for a while and play and I duly did. I’m in the process of setting up a YouTube channel for this site so will add some bits and pieces from public pianos over the years when it is up and running.
The one that surprised me was Amsterdam. I hadn’t known there was a piano there and I found it by accident in what I think is the non-Schengen side of the airport on Christmas Eve. There was a young American with a leaning towards jazz and blues playing there. I was impressed and listened for quite a while. His flight had been cancelled. Two teenaged boys came up and asked if they could have a go. The first of them played Beethoven’s 7th Symphony, the second movement, and then he played a medley out of what I think was the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Hans Zimmer. The second played a couple of bits by Yann Tiersen, at least one of which was from the Amelie movie. I played some stuff from Ireland.
The piano is in the library in Amsterdam Airport. Already, I love that they have a library area, I love that there is plenty of place to sit and relax or work, plenty of sockets. It’s a K.Kawai, and from what I can see from the internet it has been there for more than 10 years. It’s in tune, and in reasonably good condition. So AMS takes care of it and that’s to the benefit of passengers passing through.
What I loved about that interlude on Christmas Eve was how supportive a) all of the musicians were of each other despite playing very different music and b) how supportive the audience were. In fact, I’m always surprised by the feedback I tend to get playing public pianos – I’m not Lang Lang – but I have had people come up to me on trains in Ireland who heard me playing on the pianos in Heuston, and each of the four of us playing in the Library in Amsterdam Airport on Christmas Eve got rounds of applause. It makes you feel good.
I didn’t learn the name of the young American pianist but he was utterly charming. He showed a four year old how to play scales and then improvised with her so that they made something very special. We need more people around doing stuff like that, I’ve done it in Heuston once or twice when children show an interest. It’s one of the reasons I think public pianos are important.
The two teenagers were French I think. At least one of them spoken English with a heavy French accent. The other said very little.
I’ve played public pianos in Belgium, Ireland, France and now the Netherlands. I’ve not seen any of the public pianos in Germany and I couldn’t get near the train pianos in St Pancras the last time I was in London. I think this is kind of a good thing.
I’m listening to a programme on the place of the piano in Irish traditional music, which for me is a contentious issue, and this has not started well to be honest as it’s focused on piano as an accompaniment.
But that’s not why I am here. I got a delivery of music this morning and of course there are the more recent acquisitions in bricks and mortar shops here i Brussels and in Strasbourg as well.
Karl Ekman arrangement of Passacaglia
Wege zu Franz Liszt
Czerny 599 because I don’t have it and I am not disciplined about doing these kinds of exercises.
Saint Saens – 6 Etudes pour piano OP 52
Schuman Carnaval op 9 – Wiener Urtext
Glinka-Balakirev – the Lark
Schubert-Liszt 13 songs in transcriptions
Jean Sibelius Opus 76 nr 2
Clara Schumann – Romantic Piano Music including Opus 16
It’s 17 December. I suppose I should have done this a few weeks ago. Sorry about that.
Anyway, there are just a few ideas to think about if you are stuck. I’ve no handy pictures. When I do this next year I’ll do it better.
A piano
Most pianists already own a piano but if you are a multibillionaire with a nice big house, then Steinway Ds or Faziolis are always popular. If you are not wealthy and your pianist already has some sort of piano, then the chances are this is not your market segment.
Lego do have a grand piano model which is several hundred euro worth of bricks. You may want to consider it.
Annique Gottler has a grand piano model on a shelf in her studio. I covet it. I have no idea what it is but as she is a Boston ambassador I’m going to guess it might come from Steinway.
Sheet music
The safest bet here are vouchers for your pianist’s sheet music dealer of choice. There may be several. Credit for Henle Digital is always useful too but difficult to do in secret.
The cotton hardback editions of Rach and Bach are an attractive addition to any bookshelf. I don’t recommend Bartok in any shape or form. If your pianist is a teenager, consider books of computer games music as well.
But vouchers. Vouchers are always possible
Concert tickets
Or vouchers. Most concert halls do them. Vikingur Olafsson’s Goldbergs are the hit tour of the minute. Check out your local options or plan a trip to, say, Verbier, the Elbphilharmonie. Are they notably partial to a particular concert pianists like Martha Argerich or Danil Trifonov?
Verbier’s schedule is out on 15 Jan, and public sale starts on 29 Jan. Not sure what will be available but let’s put it this way. I would love to have been in the room for this.
Bach concerto for 4 pianos at Verbier in 2002
Metronomes
There are Metronome apps on both the Apple and Android stores. But there are battery operated little beauties (I bought one the other day) and then, your budget can cover a multitude with the Wittmer or antique ones. I’m conflicted between a turquoise or a ruby red little Wittmer. Ebay is full of antique wooden pyramids with brass fittings. If your pianist has a youtube channel, check their styling. A 19th century brass thing is going to look out of place in a cold modern black and white studio.
Digital Services and online teaching
You can get lifetime subs to ToneBase and Josh Wright Piano. I’m not going to recommend one over the other and these are high end gifts anyway. But there are some pianists who give private lessons on line lessons. Youtube premium for ad free watching of Garrick Ohlsson lectures might also be an option but that is a monthly commitment.
Absolutely anything which has a grand piano printed on it
Cups
Totebags
Scarves
Hats
Brief cases
Stickers for their laptop
Notebooks. The Beethoven Paperblanks is still knocking around in a few shops. I regret missing the Chopin and Schubert ones.
Earrings and other jewellery
Rulers
Pens
Blue print of a Steinway
Books such as The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, The Lost Pianos of Siberia.
It is a hard call how to review a year in which nothing much was planned, at least not initially, and yet, which seems to have been highly productive.
I started 2023 at near 0. I’ve been playing the piano since I was 8 years old and while I rarely played during the 20 years I didn’t have a piano, I have had a piano for most of the last 6 years now and was playing reasonably regularly if not too much of the challenging stuff. I bought some music in Germany but it’s only since I moved to Brussels that I actually seriously started buying stuff I want to learn.
I’ve never felt I fit quite into the online world of piano. I spent some time as a gold subscriber to Piano Street; I really did not get on with Piano World at all. I questioned my right to call myself a pianist at times. During Covid, I moved from Luxembourg where I played concerts to Brussels where I don’t play concerts. In the background, work was extremely busy and plans I had to go back to university to do a masters in European integration were consistently kiboshed by the absolute certainty that I would miss lectures, and that I was simply too tired to work around work, lectures, assignments, all these things which are fixed in time. Which brings us to April.
I think it was April. Maybe it was not. Anyway, university ruled itself out again, I took a long hard look at the calendar and started thinking about the difference between what I should do and what I would want to do and realised that they were starting to diverge. What I wanted was to get better at playing the piano, start facing into some of the classical repertoire I hadn’t touched since I was 16 years old and learn to play some things like one of the Mendelssohn Gondola songs. I was ambitious too, so you could say I was foolhardy. I wanted to learn stuff that I heard Alexandre Tharaud play. I mean, I would love to play Chopinata but while I was foolhardy, I wasn’t really that stupid. But I went to a Chopin concert with someone in March and on the agenda was Sonata number 3. I have always loved it since I heard it on an Evgeny Kissin album when I was about 21 years old. The someone said he thought the second movement should be possible.
So I started thinking about lessons, and if I wanted to do lessons, I needed to be able to explain my objectives in some sort of rational manner rather than Hey, I wanna play a Chopin sonata. I decided to take a look at the grade repertoire and see if it had improved since I was 15. RIAM wise, no. ABRSM though, it had a list a mile long for each grade, and they had performance grades which meant I could spend time learning to play music rather than being terrified by how awful the sight reading test would be. Yes, past traumas were coming out. Anyway.
Performance grades. That could be recorded and submitted. But I would have to do Grade 5 Theory first.
So I did, and in August, I got a distinction in it. Congratulations me.
When I started looking at the grades, the initial point was to target Grade 8. When I looked at it though, I realised that actually, if what I wanted to do was grease my ego, I would probably want to target the diplomas as well. This made for a big project so now, for the next 10 years, I’m working towards FRSM. And one of the pieces I have lined up for the FRSM is that 3rd Chopin sonata. For 2024, I will need to decide what I need to do about teaching. I’m starting the grades with grade 6 and while I can probably manage that alone, the truth is I will need a regular teacher really soon. For 2024, the objective is to find a teacher who can teach me outside my working hours.
In the meantime, I’m working on some Bach, some Mendelssohn, some Rebikov, and some Milne, the latter being some what jazzy. I intend to do that sometime early in 2024 – my schedule in the second half of 2023 fell apart so while the Mendelssohn is on the cusp of being finished, the Bach is not because I have some issues with counterpoint. So this is behind the big schedule. I have very little time at the piano.
But there’s a great sense of achievement in managing even what I managed. For most of 2022, I didn’t play at all, so already…things are good.
In addition to my own digital Kawai, I have now access to rehearsal rooms with a beautiful Steinway B. In practical terms, things are good. I’m working on exam pieces, all of which I like, and the sight reading is improving however slowly. Next year I will start learning something by my beloved Rachmaninoff, not in C minor mind, but D flat minor.
In other news, I met Evgeny Kissin, the first concert pianist who truly blew my mind (I knew others, I knew William Kempff, I knew Julius Katchen. I knew Tamas Vasary). He played Rachmaninoff, and still did a meet and greet. The concert was life changing. I met Vikingur Olafsson, who is probably the best concert pianist in the world at the moment. His Goldbergs are sublime and so is his Rameau album. If I were to recommend one album for a newbie, it would be his Rameau album.
I also listened to a couple of talks by Boris Giltburg, also playing Rachmaninoff. Those sessions were fabulous and I am sorry I did not get to go to his other two performances in November.
On the digital services point of view, I signed up for Tonebase, and listen into the lectures regularly. I signed up for Tonic but would prefer that to pick up bluetooth as I often practice late at night and so, by definition, headphones are required. I also bought some piano instruments for Pianoteq and love how they sound when I play. I tend to emulate a Steinway D or a C Bechstein concert grand. I would like them to model Fazioli pianos and then my life would truly be complete. I also finally put sheet music software, namely Henle Digital Library, forScore and imslp, on my iPad. The last thing I kind of need is a page turner.
I played a concert again, possibly the last for a while. But done, nonetheless, and with a lot less of the panic and nerves compared to the first concert a few years ago.
In terms of music I discovered this year, I came across The Cyclops by Rameau when looking for something for Grade 8. I’m also interested in bits of Liszt’s B minor Sonata. But to see what I came across this year, it’s worth looking at the Sheet Music Category. I need to learn some of this stuff. I’ve looked at some Rachmaninoff, I’ve looked at some more Bach (easy stuff). I bought the Anna Maria notebook because Barenreiter did a Jubilee edition. I heard someone say at some point that you should work on your weaknesses, and for me, Baroque really is. Bach is mathematical, so he should work for me, although he doesn’t. Let’s change that.
I read two piano focused books, one of which I did not like, one of which was engaging. I bought myself another copy of the Piano Shop on the Left Bank.
For 2024, I have some ideas and some plans. On the main objective side, there are two primary KPIs:
Take and pass Grade 6 Performance with ABRSM
Start the Grade 8 pieces.
After that, I have some ideas. I put together an instragram account which has been neglected. The fact that I cannot embed videos from there is infuriating. I’m considering setting up a YouTube channel. I’m not a virtuoso, and I have gaps in my knowledge. But I like things like the 1 minute 10 minutes 1 hour challenge that Annique Gottler does. And I have ideas for sight reading challenges, and occasional live streams. I’ve livestreamed from the Steinway rehearsal room once and found technical glitches. So this will require some planning.
I am also looking at some of the intermediate repertoire recommended through Tonebase, and one of the items which popped up today was Raindrops by Chopin. I occasionally sight read Chopin but there isn’t anything my repertoire so that’s an idea. After that, I want to look at some of the other pieces from my learning list.
I also want to learn some bits of a couple of piano concertos. I love the opening phrase of Beethoven 5, for example. And I used to be able to play a chunk of Grieg and Rach II. I’m hoping that as I get better, more chunks of all three become accessible.
We’ll see. 2023 was unexpectedly fruitful when I made that sudden decision to take this much more seriously. I hope 2024 gives me the change to finish the Grade 6 pieces and make inroads to the grade 8 pieces.
I’m way behind in a couple of things but it is Friday evening, Sebastien Dupuis is streaming some Liszt practice. I’m ashamed to say I play no Liszt so I picked up a book of easy Liszt (for a given value of easy, when Liszt is at play) today. I didn’t deliberately intend to do that, but there you go.
I was in Strasbourg this week which means two main things: another shop to visit selling sheet music and stuff, and I didn’t practice at all. It’s safe to say I am now awfully behind with the whole Grade 6 things and it is frustrating to say the least.
I’m behind in photographing and uploading books and sheet music, although on the sheet music front, it’s just Strasbourg and Brussels.
On the book front, I bought another lot of Notes Legeres, a biography of Clara Schumann = still looking for one particular piece of music by her. I also bought a book galled Guide de la Musique de Piano which intrigued me and there is, somewhere around my book collection a copy of the letters. All of this is in French. The dtv-Atlas Musik came from Trier – not sure I mentioned that.
On the sheet music front, I bought a couple of bits and pieces. I bought the Wiener Urtext of Schumann’s Carnival. I bought some studies by Camille Saint Saens, and I’m sure there was something else, oh yes The Lark by Glinka-Balakirev. Here in Brussels, I bought a Handel Passacaglia arranged for piano and now I am hoping it is the “right” Passacaglia. I’m not sure it is which is going to be challenging (but that’s what Reddit support is for). I will take a look at that later. I also bought 599 Czerny as the in-the-knows on Reddit bang on about it and I have never done very much technique work.
So yeah, I need to catch up with photographing all that stuff and maybe updating the piano sheet music and literature library.
36 hours of Leif Ove Andsnes. Definitely worth your time
I love listening to Leif Ove Andsnes. I especially love his Rach and his Sib. But this is an interesting selection and the Nielsen album is something I want to listen to in a little more detail. I somehow missed that this was coming out.
