#oneaday Day 71: New Piano Ownership

The new piano arrived yesterday, but as it was a working day and it arrived quite late in the day, I didn’t have a lot of time to play around with it. Today, though? Today is the weekend. So I spent some time playing it earlier.

It is very shiny. And yes, you can see Oliver in the upper-left corner. He is sitting on his tree. He is less shiny, but he wanted to see what was going on.

In fact, I did something I haven’t done for at least 20 years, which is practice all the scales. All the normal ones, anyway; I didn’t go on and do the scales in thirds and sixths like you have to do at Grade 8, I didn’t do any chromatics and I didn’t do any arpeggios. Those can wait until I’m a bit more back into the swing of things.

The new piano was definitely a good choice. I feel like I have a whole lot more control over tone and dynamics than I had with the clapped-out old thing we had before. It’s clear that the old one we had was a nice piano back in its day — Bechstein is a good make, I believe — but the fact it was nearly a hundred years old (possibly more) meant that it was definitely showing its age more than a little bit.

I’m definitely happy with it. It inspired me to pick up some classical pieces that I haven’t touched for a long time and give them a shot earlier, plus the stuff I really like playing these days, which is piano arrangements from the Final Fantasy and Nier series of video games, all sound great on it.

I don’t think anything is quite up to snuff for me to want to share at this point, but once I’ve done a bit of that mysterious thing known as “practicing” and knocked something into shape a bit more, perhaps I’ll share a piece or two via my YouTube channel or something.

It’s nice to share music, so long as it’s on your own terms and you’re not being strongarmed into it or forced to do it against your will or anything. Thankfully, I never felt like I was being “forced” into learning the piano when I was a kid; I discovered early on that it was something I was quite good at, and that I could impress people who otherwise wouldn’t give me the time of day with my piano skills.

I’ll be perfectly honest: being at university and studying music alongside people who were at my standard or even better knocked my confidence a bit. I’d probably got a bit complacent and comfortable in my abilities and my relatively “superior” position to my peers at school — I never lorded it over anyone, I hasten to add, but I did always enjoy the looks of admiration and appreciation I got from people who didn’t expect a teenager to be able to play the things I was playing at the time.

I think it’s been enough years away from all that, though, that I can start rebuilding my enjoyment of the instrument, and getting a nice-quality instrument to play is an important step in that process. Now I just have to develop the self-discipline to practice on a regular basis, and during those practice sessions to push myself a little bit rather than just falling back on the pieces I know I can play well without too much difficulty.

One step at a time. And today was definitely a good first step.

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

#oneaday Day 67: The pleasure of organisation

Ahead of the new piano arriving on Friday, we bought a new filing cabinet. The idea was to replace the clapped-out old bookshelf we have in the back room that currently holds my music books, and to just generally tidy up that back room a bit now that there’s going to be a nice shiny piano in there.

I derive quite a bit of pleasure from organisation. I often have a bit (all right, a lot) of trouble actually getting started, but once I do, I find it immensely satisfying to put everything into place, sort things into alphabetical order and know that everything has a “right place” to put things into. By the same token, our larder cupboard in our kitchen drives me nuts because it’s a chaotic bomb site of a cupboard, where you take your life into your own hands any time you attempt to extract something from it without causing an avalanche of baking materials, cereal and cat food.

I know exactly why I derive such pleasure from organisation, of course; it is doubtless to do with the autism, what with one of the key characteristics of those of us On The Spectrum being an appreciation for orderliness, routines, patterns and suchlike. Even better if said orderliness is all your own work rather than a structure built by someone else that you’re having to adapt to.

Going through the music books was nice for another reason: it made me realise that I have a lot of them, and there’s a fair old chunk of music in them that I’ve just never played. For the most part, the music books I own fall into two categories: those which I acquired while I was actively having piano tuition, which are mostly “classical” books from historical art music composers; and those which I have acquired in more recent years, which tend to be piano arrangements of soundtracks from video games and anime that I particularly appreciate. I’ve been playing a lot more of the latter in more recent years, but with the new piano it might be time to revisit (or explore further) into the other stuff.

The reason why I own so much stuff and haven’t played a lot of it is simple: when learning stuff while having piano tuition, my teachers would often suggest a piece of music to learn, which was only available as part of a larger book, usually of a single composer’s work. So for example when I learned how to play Liszt’s Consolation No. 3, I also acquired a book of other short piano pieces by Liszt (including, among other things, the other Consolations). When I learned a Mozart sonata, I then had access to all the Mozart sonatas because while you can buy some of these pieces as individual sheet music, it’s generally more worthwhile in the long term to buy “The Complete Mozart Sonatas” or equivalent.

So I’ve got a lot of stuff to explore once the new piano gets here. I’m going to have to get back into the habit of playing more frequently, but I suspect with a decent-quality instrument readily available, that won’t be too much of an ordeal. Getting myself back up to the standard I was once at might take a bit more work, but I’m sure it’ll be worth it as another means of expressing and enjoying myself if nothing else.

#oneaday Day 62: Enormous Instrument

I bought a piano today. Those who have been following this blog for a while will know that this is the second time I have done this, with the last being about nine years ago. Back then, I noted that the piano we bought was relatively cheap (about £250) and the seller noted that, since it was quite old, it wouldn’t necessarily last very long — but it would be fine for a few years.

Well, turns out he was correct; the piano was consistently going out of tune around the E-flat below middle C — interestingly, the exact same note my childhood piano consistently went out of tune on — and after a visit from a local tuner, it became clear that getting it fixed up was going to cost more than we paid for it in the first place.

I have been somewhat lax on my piano-playing for a while, and this is at least partly because when you have an instrument that isn’t quite right like this, it doesn’t incentivise you to want to play because you know you have to deal with the boingy out-of-tune notes. It’s weirdly “embarrassing”, even though it’s not the player’s fault.

But I had been feeling like I want to play some more again, and if I wanted to do that something had to be done about the poor old piano. The repair option didn’t seem worthwhile, so I started looking into replacements and/or a means of getting the old one responsibly removed — a piano isn’t the sort of thing you can just take to the tip (and not just because of its size) and the council won’t take it away as “bulky waste”, so you generally have to hire a specialist to get rid of it.

Thankfully, I found a good piano place about 40 miles from us in the form of Chamberlain Pianos. This is a company over in Haslemere, Surrey, not far from where I used to work as a teacher, and it seemed they offered part-exchange deals. So I enquired as to whether the old piano — which dates back to the 1920s — would be worth anything in part-exchange, and expressed an interest in a couple of the pianos they had on offer.

As it turns out, our old piano was not worth anything in part-exchange — which I was not surprised about, as it’s very old — but the company would be able to take it away when delivering a new one. So I made an appointment to go pay them a visit. And today was that appointment.

I was initially interested in an “Essex”-brand piano that had Steinway connections — I technically “have” a Steinway grand piano, but we don’t really have anywhere to put it right now, and I’m sure my parents are loathe to part with it anyway, which is perfectly fine as it has been a feature of their living room for a long time at this point. I gave it a go and it was… not bad, but not as mindblowing as I thought it might be.

Thankfully, the chap showing me around Chamberlain Pianos, sales director Dominic Barnett, knew his stuff about pianos and was keen to show me some other pianos around a similar price point that I might be interested in. These included a couple of Kemble-brand pianos that were about 10-15 years old (which are basically Yamahas without the badge and consequently half the price) and a brand new Kawai. I tried them all, and there was definitely a difference between them; I would have probably been happy with any of them, but the one I eventually plumped for was the Kemble “Conservatoire” model — so called because of its use in music schools, apparently — that had a winning combination of a nice action and a lovely tone.

So that should be with us next Friday, which is exciting! It’s shiny and black. I’ve always kind of wanted a shiny black piano ever since I played my secondary school’s shiny black Yamaha piano in Music Room 1. So I’m looking forward to putting that through its paces and hopefully making a bit more of a habit of playing and practicing again. I’m long overdue for doing that.

I am exceedingly grateful to my ever-generous parents for providing a contribution towards this new piano; it allowed us to plop down a deposit on a piano that is a bit nicer than we might otherwise have been able to afford by ourselves. So I guess I better make good use of it, huh?

#oneaday Day 54: Catch-Up Time

I apparently forgot to write anything yesterday! In my defence, it is so brain-meltingly hot here right now that remembering to do literally anything is proving to be somewhat troublesome. After I’m done here, I’m going to go and sit in the air-conditioning in the bedroom and watch some Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

I’ve got a week off from work next week, which I’m looking forward to. I’m feeling a bit run-down and tired at the moment, and a bit of a break is just what I need. Plus I have some potential excitement ahead: hopefully next week I will be getting a new piano, or at least ordering a new piano. The one we got for £250 a few years back has pretty much reached the end of its life, as it’s not staying in tune at all, and is, to put it mildly, displeasurable to both play and listen to. So it’s going, hopefully to be replaced with something much nicer and newer.

I’m looking forward to this, because I keep telling myself that I should play the piano more, but then with the piano itself not being at its best, I felt disinclined to spend time with it. Still, it’s had some good times here in its lifetime, and we must have had it a few years at this point. (According to the archives, we got it in 2015.) It has to go, though, and sadly, due to its age, it’s unlikely to find a new home. The place I’ll hopefully be getting a new piano from is able to take it away and responsibly dispose of it, though, so hopefully at least some of its components can live on as spares or something.

I’ve probably shared some piano stuff on here at some point in the past, if you’re not already familiar. Hold on and let me rummage through the archives.

Hmm. Can’t find anything on the blog, but there’s a couple of things on YouTube. Here you go:

And here:

Both of those were actually recorded using the electric piano I still own but don’t really have anywhere convenient to put. And annoyingly, the make of electric piano I have seems to be the one and only that they don’t make stands for. I have an X-shaped keyboard stand for it, but that’s far too wobbly and uncomfortable for everyday use — plus since the electric piano doesn’t have any built-in speakers, I’d have to find somewhere to put the amp that goes with it. Not ideal.

So yeah. Hopefully by this time next week I will have, at the very least, ordered a new piano. I look forward to sharing it with you!

2073: Night and Day

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Night and Day.”

Have you ever had an experience that was amazing the first time, but terrible the second time around? Or vice versa? What made it different the second time?

I had to think pretty hard about this one, because by now I have a fairly firm grasp of what I do and don’t like in a lot of aspects of my life, and consequently I’m inclined to seek out things I know that I’ll enjoy while avoiding things that I know I’ll dislike. There is value, of course, in trying something outside your usual comfort zone, but while this can sometimes pleasantly surprise you, often this ends up just confirming or reinforcing your existing perceptions.

One thing did particularly come to mind, though. I don’t know that I’d describe it as “amazing” and “terrible” for the first and second times, and it’s more of an abstract thing rather than a specific incident, but it otherwise fits the description.

I’m talking about playing a new piece of music for the first time, specifically — for me, anyway — on the piano.

I’m good at sight-reading. This still surprises me a bit, as it was always the part of the graded piano examinations that I hated the most (with the possible exception of aural tests, which still seem somewhat sadistic) but I think I can trace my ability to pick things up quickly back to my habitual place on the piano for the school orchestra and various other ensembles, including a local choir. Certainly in the case of my school, I was (arguably) the best pianist there, so I was often recruited to play piano parts that would otherwise go unplayed; more often than not, then, I was expected to pick up a new piece of music and be able to immediately play it.

And for the most part I can do that pretty well. However, one thing I’ve noticed about this is that the first time I play a piece at sight, it always feels like it sounds a whole lot better than any subsequent time I try to play it without sitting down and doing some intensive practice on it.

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure if this is actually the case or not — it may well be that my first attempts to sight-read something are a horrendous noise, with subsequent attempts only marginally better owing to the fact I at least have a vague idea of what to expect — but it certainly feels that way. Playing a new piece of music for the first time is enjoyable and exciting, assuming it’s not one of those pieces that demoralises you from the get-go by being ridiculously difficult and completely unplayable without months of intensive, low-tempo practice. As such, I wonder if that “high”, for want of a better word, that you get from trying out a new piece for the first time makes that first attempt “feel” better than subsequent efforts, when you know you “should” be able to do better.

I guess the above description could probably apply to a whole lot of things in life, now that I think about it. Trying something for the first time gives you that satisfying buzz of “I’m doing something new!” but after that, assuming you stick with it, you settle into more of a routine, and mistakes start to become more frustrating. At a certain point, you have to make that difficult decision as to whether you’re going to continue working on the thing in question in detail, or set it aside and try something else.

It’s a tough call with no right answers; no-one likes to feel like they’re “wasting” their time!

1854: Next Steps

I bought a piano today. This is not something I thought I’d ever be able to do, but it turns out if you look around a bit, you can actually get a decent (albeit somewhat aged) piano for a very reasonable price.

In other words, if you eschew regular music shops and instead go for a more “direct” approach, you’ll often find much better deals.

I acquired my new piano (which arrives on Wednesday) from a local business called Bryant Pianos. I stumbled across this site during my search for a place to acquire a piano the other day, and decided to pay them a visit this weekend. Bryant Pianos is, it turns out, a business run from home by the eponymous Mr Bryant, who has a workshop full of pianos that he acquires, restores, repairs and then sells on. (Sometimes he acquires, strips them for parts and then sends them off to the great piano graveyard, too.) He’s also a piano tuner — a useful person to know when you have a piano.

Anyway, I made an appointment to pay him a visit, and we did so today. I took a couple of bits of sheet music with me — Chopin’s Preludes and Liszt’s Consolations, if you were curious — and tried a few out. I don’t know an awful lot about different piano makes, to be honest, aside from the fact that the grand piano I grew up with — and which still occupies my parents’ living room — was a good (and expensive!) make because it was a Steinway. I was familiar with a few other makes but not in any great depth; I’d heard of (and probably, at some point, played) Knights, Bechsteins, Rogers(es), Challens and various others, and also knew that new Yamahas were both very nice and well out of my price range for the moment. Bryant didn’t offer any Yamahas, but he had the others, so I gave them a go.

The Rogers was the oldest piano there, hailing from 1906. It had a really nice, rich, full tone and, apparently, weighed an absolute ton, being a distinctly old-school upright piano. Its action was reasonably nice, though it proved a little difficult to control at times, particularly when playing more delicate phrases.

The Challen looked nice — somewhat “school piano-y” in a 70s sort of way — but had a rather clangy timbre that caused me to discount it quite quickly. The action was nice, but it wasn’t the nicest piano there, nor was it the cheapest.

The Knight hailed from the late ’40s and had quite a nice sound, but a slightly rickety action that, a little like the Rogers, made it difficult to control at times. It’s something I could have probably learned to live with, but while there was the choice there, I didn’t see any point in “settling” for something that wasn’t quite right.

The Bechstein, which was the one I ended up going for, had a good sound and a pleasing action. It wasn’t quite as full and rich as the Rogers, but it still sounded good, and, perhaps more importantly, it felt pleasant to play. I went back and tried the others a few times just to make sure, but felt confident that the Bechstein would be more than adequate for my needs. Bryant did say that due to its age — it’s from the ’20s — it probably wouldn’t have a huge lifespan, hence the fact it was one of the cheaper instruments in his workshop, but that it would be fine for a while yet. That’s fine with me; I need something to get started with, then if (when?) the money starts rolling in I can consider upgrading to a newer model. I’d very much like one of those shiny black Yamahas, but I can’t help but feel that’s a while off yet!

I’m looking forward to having a piano in the house again. I’ve had my electric piano for several years now, but it’s just not the same; sitting and playing it on a wobbly keyboard stand with an amplifier of questionable quality spitting and popping at me is all very well and good, but even the small amount of “setup time” required to get that going was enough to make me not play nearly as often as I should. Having a piano at which I can just sit down and play should hopefully change that; I should play more, and, all being well, it’ll form at least part of my 375th career change in my lifetime. So that’s nice.

1095: Czerny’s School of Repetitive Strain Injury

I did some actual honest-to-goodness piano practice today. It’s been some time since I practiced “properly” and I’ll admit that it wasn’t for a particularly long session today — I had work to do — but it’s a start at least.

I started learning the piano when I was about five years old and have been playing ever since. Since leaving university — and particularly since leaving the teaching profession — it’s fallen a little by the wayside, though, for various reasons. You never really “lose it” if you’ve been doing it for as long as I have, though — sometimes it just takes a little concerted effort to get yourself back to where you were before.

Why did I let it slide? Difficult to say, really. Poor self-discipline, mostly, but I also attribute it at least partly to feelings of anxiety and depression. If I get depressed, there’s really very little that I find myself actively wanting to do. Many is the time where I’ve spent hours at a time literally just staring at a wall feeling sorry for myself, even though I know how stupid that is, and that I’d probably feel better if I actually did something. As those who have suffered feelings like this will know, though, it’s not always that easy to get up and do something.

Music is a good outlet for such feelings, however, because by its very nature it is able to express a wide variety of complex concepts and emotions without the necessity for any words whatsoever. People more talented at improvisation than I am can just sit down at a keyboard and make something up to reflect the way they’re feeling — as a classically trained pianist first and foremost, however, I find this somewhat difficult and thus tend to rely mostly on music that has been composed for me.

This isn’t a lesser form of expression by any means — it may be slightly less creative, but you can certainly channel those emotions into a piece of music composed by someone else and put your own interpretation on it very easily. Particularly if the piece of music in question is from an era of music where the composers made a point of writing pieces that were particularly expressive and/or open to interpretation. It’s for this reason I’ve always gravitated more towards the Romantic and early 20th century periods than anything else — Baroque music still leaves me cold with its much stronger focus on technical expertise rather than expression, though some Classical period works for me.

Rather than jumping in to something I can’t quite play today, though, I decided to get out the books of technical exercises I got a while back but have underexplored somewhat. I can still run through all the scales back to back (though my accuracy when playing at speed needs some work) but sometimes (all right, most of the time) it’s nice to practice your skills with something that sounds a bit more like an actual piece of music.

I have a few books of technical exercises from composers with difficult to spell and pronounce names like Dohnanyi, Pischna and Czerny — it was the latter’s “Art of Finger Dexterity” books I went for today, starting from the first exercise in the first book. Its position at the front of the book doesn’t mean it’s a particularly “easy” one, mind; it involves rattling up and down scales at high speed in one hand while playing block chords with the other, then later shifting to parallel and contrary motion perpetually-moving semiquaver passages. It is exhausting, but oddly satisfying to play, particularly when you actually get it right. I was expecting my finger dexterity to be much worse than it was having had so much time off from a concerted effort to practice, but I was pleasantly surprised to find myself whipping up and down these passages without too much difficulty. Which is nice.

One of the things I’ve felt over the years with the piano is “I’ll never be able to play that” — either because it looks technically demanding, or it’s fast, or it’s in a difficult key, or whatever. With some persistent, consistent and regular exercise, though, I have faith I’ll be able to build my skills up somewhat and perhaps tackle some more adventurous pieces than I have done in the past.

Eventually, anyway. In the meantime, I shall continue to enjoy playing Final Fantasy and Persona themes for fun!

#oneaday, Day 136: Massive Pianist

Some more music for you today as it’s awfully late and I feel like I’ve been busy all day today, even though the only thing I achieved in the daytime was to buy two shirts which actually look good on me. Oh, and record these two pieces, of course.

A bit of background on these pieces for those who aren’t familiar with them. Final Fantasy has been a big part of my life for many years – at least since Final Fantasy VII came out. I believe I’ve talked about the fond memories I have associated with this game in the past – the long, hot summer days, the thirty-six hour playing stint which culminated with my friend Woody and I suffering strange hallucinations of items that didn’t exist in the game – but the thing that’s stuck with me longer than the game itself is its music. FFVII was the first time I really noticed game music as a positive thing and, just to make this even more clichéd, it was One Winged Angel which impressed me the most.

After playing FFVII to death, I tracked down the previous games in the series, which I’d never experienced before, not really knowing what an RPG was before that point. I discovered that they, too, had great music, and not only that, there were piano arrangements available.

After a considerable amount of time searching, I managed to track down some dodgy scans of the piano scores for IV, V and VI. Later, I acquired genuine copies of the VII, VIII and IX books. The arrangements of the pieces are gorgeous – proper piano arrangements in a variety of styles rather than simple transcriptions. I’ve been playing them ever since and everyone seems to think that they’re very “me”.

Persona is a bit different. I came to Persona with the third game in the series a year or two back thanks to the Squadron of Shame. We even did a podcast about it. What struck nearly all of us about that series was its peculiarly quirky and enormously Japanese soundtrack. I was very interested to discover earlier this year that both Persona 3 and Persona 4 have piano scores available too. Unfortunately, they’re not nearly as well-arranged as the Final Fantasy scores, but they certainly sound good enough – for some pieces at least. The J-hip-hop tracks don’t sound particularly good on a piano, so there is no way I am ever playing any of them in public.

Much like Final Fantasy, the Persona games hold a very fond place in my heart. Rather than having memories attached to them, though, I found the stories of both games to be very emotionally resonant. I identified a great deal with many of the characters, as Persona deals a lot with friendships, personal identity and figuring out who you are, both in yourself and in relation to other people. While I can’t point a fake gun at my head and summon a mythical beast to do my bidding, I do at least understand what some of the characters have been through, and empathise with others. It’s rare that a game is written well enough for that to happen, so both games hold a special place in my heart.

Without further ado, then, here’s two more pieces for your delectation. Just like last time, iPhone users can click on the titles to hear the tracks.

*pauses* I wish I’d remembered to upload these tracks before I started writing this. *drums fingers* Tra la la la la…

Aha! They’re done. Here. *Enjoy* the *sauce*. And yes, I know there’s a couple of bum notes. I was in a hurry. 🙂

The Oath from Final Fantasy VIII

Heaven from Persona 4

#oneaday, Day 134: Busy Days

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.

Tag: piano