I Have A Nord Too. I Confess I Like It.

I have a Nord too. I confess I like it.

thepianoblog:

I’m sick to death of every band that has a synth player using Nord keyboards. THEY ARE EVERYWHERE! I mean obviously they are good if people use them but it would be nice to see some diversity. At least Enter Shikari used Korgs.

I want to watch this person play the piano.

kari-shma:

henna - hand (via darcitananda)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but unless the symphony is tied, isn't the game over?

readmorewikipedia:

ihatemusic1943:

The curse of the ninth is the superstition that a composer will die after writing his ninth symphony, but before he has an opportunity to complete his tenth. The most prominent examples are Ludwig van Beethoven, Louis Spohr, Franz Schubert, Antonín Dvořák, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler.

Wikipedia surprises me every day. I never expected to have an entry on this urban legend.

Curse of the Ninth

Deaf at the Piano

Is it possible to play the piano when you're deaf? I mean with something like satisfaction and accomplishment. The question is rhetorical, in part, because I'm thinking at the moment about my own experience on two occasions where I performed gigs that limited my ability to hear. Well, "limited" is perhaps too limited a word. I was essentially incapable in the circumstances of hearing myself. On both occasions I was not playing a "real", or acoustic, piano but rather one with a direct connection to an amplifier. And other instruments, in combination with the venue, the crowd, inadequate monitoring, etc, added to my inability to hear myself play.

A couple of things. First, I'm not primarily thinking about a situation where a deaf person sits at a piano, a real piano, and starts pressing the keys. In this situation acoustical vibrations would transfer through the soundboard, the frame, the keys and so forth to the person's fingertips and there would be some kind of feedback, I guess, depending on the sensitivity of the player. Second, even if we're not talking about total deafness, in the sense that you cannot hear yourself at all — zero realtime feedback — but rather in the sense that your ability to hear the sound you're making is significantly reduced, say 70+%, what effect that has on the possibility of playing. A relative deafness, if you will.

OK. So. Here's my experience.

Playing the piano, one is trained on a number of levels. There is a kinetic component, in which muscle memory combines with tactility to move the limbs and digits through space and time to strike keys. This is the gymnastics element of piano playing, hurtling through the air to stick the landing and score the perfect 10. (Ouch! Wrong note.) And of course there is the component that tells us whether we are playing what we want to be playing: the mind-bone connected to the ear-bone connected to the heart-bone. These two components, broadly speaking, come together to form the piano player we are at any given moment.

So if we remove one of these components, the latter — or more precisely if we interfere with the ear-part of the chain on that latter component — what is the result? After all, we still have the mind working, in its aural capacity I mean, not just the kinetic. We still have the heartsoul working. What effect does a compromised ear have? For me, the result has been fascinating and annoying. Musica interruptus. I find that the ear has an enormous, an essential, influence upon the kinetic element. I'm not a robot, I guess this shouldn't be a revelation. But, again for me, without the ear to guide my thinking, I find that my physical technique breaks down. Yes I'm still able to move through spacetime in such a way that I'm going to the right places, more or less, on the keyboard. But without satisfaction, without feedback, without that sense of rightness that, micromoment to micromoment, says Yes, proceed, you're doing the right thing, it all sounds great.

A different player may deal with all this differently. Their technique may well be much more independent, advanced, and able to handle the severe limitation of the auditory component. But this all led me to think what it might be for an ordinary, well-eared piano player to at some point during their career go deaf. (Beethoven, poor devil...) How would it affect their technique? (I think I already know how it would affect their satisfaction, in large part.) Would a listener be forced to note a sea change in ability?

komangography:

violinplayah:

blogthoven:

nostalgiya:

In Grozny Central Park, February 1995.

(via)

In a world of Taylor Swift... talk about heterogeny!

atonalitydotnet:

Elliott Carter: Two Diversions, performed by Pierre-Laurent Aimard.