Hello everyone! Apologies for the late hour. It’s been a genuinely busy day today, despite it being a Bank Holiday (or Memorial Day if you want to be all American about it).
My day started with waking up several times, snoozing my alarm and then waking up again. The last snooze inexplicably went on a lot longer than the other ones so I had a minor panic when I woke up the last time, because I actually needed to get up today.
Why? I hear you ask. Well, today was my first performance in public for ages. What? I hear you ask. For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been playing the piano for quite a long time now. Since the age of five, in fact. Which makes it… a long time that I’ve been playing. I haven’t performed in public for quite a while, though, and my friend Sam assures me that he’d never heard me play in public before. I’m convinced otherwise, but he’s very insistent on this matter. I know he certainly didn’t see the last piano performance I did at university, which was a duet performance with one of the strangest people I’ve ever had the curious fortune to encounter in my life that was followed with one of the most memorable and terrifyingly inappropriate pub conversations I’ve ever experienced. Those who know who I’m talking about also know what the conversation was about. Those who don’t… well, I feel it would be improper for me to discuss it here. Unless you really want to know, in which case leave me a comment and I’ll tell you there.
So today was my first performance in public for ages. We’ve established that.
What did you play? I hear you ask. Demanding, aren’t we? Perhaps you should stop asking so many questions and let me get on with my story because it’s entirely possible I might have been about to tell you what I played. In fact, I’m half-tempted to just not tell you now.
Except that would make this blog entry run rather short and not allow me to include the lovely media that I’m about to. So I’ll tell you.
A few years back, I discovered the Final Fantasy Piano Collections and managed to acquire most of them. Some of them I have the actual books of. The older ones I managed to track down some scans from the Internet. More recently, I managed to locate some piano scores for the music from Persona 3 and Persona 4. These respective series have some of my favourite music of all time, so I figured a public performance would be a good opportunity to spread the love and let other people know what they’re all about. So that’s what I did.
The event itself was part of Southampton’s “Keys to the City” event, celebrating local arts and the piano in particular. Today’s performance took place in the city’s art gallery, tucked away on one side of the Civic Centre near the library. I got the impression not many people know about it. But there’s a lovely Steinway piano there which has clearly been crying out to be used for some time, so my friend and ex-colleague Stephen McCleery of Retrograde Recordings helped to organise an event to give it a bit of attention.
Here’s three of the pieces I performed. I’ll be recording the others over the next few days, so there’s a few posts ready to go if I’m short of inspiration!
If you’re reading this on an iPhone, don’t get pissy about the Flash audio players not working. I’ve been good enough to supply direct links to the files. Just click on the title. I’m good to you people. Not every blog would do that, you know.
Anyway… enjoy. More to come over the next few days.
Main Theme from Persona 4
Prologue from Final Fantasy
Velvet Room from Persona 3
Discover more from I'm Not Doctor Who
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Absolutely beautiful 🙂 well done
So….. What was this conversation about?
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it, Amy… Plenty more where that came from, too. 🙂
Was that the performance I page-turned for you? If so, I remember who it was, but not the conversation. Although I can probably guess 🙂
Yes. There was a common, uh, thread of discussion with that person, wasn’t there? Remember that time in the computer room?
Oh good for you! Similarly played since… well, put it this way, determinedly reaching for the keys on wobbly tip-toes is one of my earliest memories, heh.
Unfortunately, one way or another, I ended up sans piano. One of my biggest regrets, and something I have every intention of rectifying once I have the money and space. But I digress…
I always hated playing for others. Hated it! Didn’t matter how good I got, the sheer stress took any potential pleasure out of it for me. You have my utmost respect for getting out there and playing.
Of course, now I’m curious to know the story behind the university performance!
I only have an electric piano. Technically I have a grand piano, just nowhere to put it, so my parents get the pleasure of its company. One day I’ll have a place big enough for it. Even if that means putting a mattress underneath it and sleeping there. 🙂
As for the university story… Well, suffice to say it involved a discussion of a somewhat intimate nature between two people who had only just met.
Was it Mad Judy?
It WAS Mad Judy! Do you remember the little factoid she told Sara having only just met her?