Mesmerizing mechanical...thing

boredmessiah · 2022-05-04T10:44:36+00:00

Doesn't seem real. I don't know how the silver ring with the balls could work mechanically.

boredmessiah · 2022-05-03T18:57:50+00:00

Oh yeah, classical music is deeply troublesome. People of colour basically never get credit and are often not taken seriously at all. Women are either derided for being sexy and lacking talent or have to fend off unwanted attention from men who would exchange favours for work.

Honestly the problems are so extensive that I'm beginning to wonder if it's even worth fighting them from within, or if it's better to transition into a more musically open career. I'm a composer as well and while I'm usually happy and confident in my work, I'm sometimes flabbergasted at what works for panels, curators, and juries. That's a whole other genre of problems though.

boredmessiah · 2022-05-03T17:33:09+00:00

I see, didn't know it was a thing for him. Thanks for explaining!

Edit: reading the comments and they're inexplicable. I found the performance quite compelling, as someone who hasn't always been keen on her. The classical world will never cease to disappoint, I guess. At least I have a new favourite interpreter of Chopin's second sonata.

boredmessiah · 2022-05-03T17:10:23+00:00

Wait, I don't get it. I'm usually extremely wary of Lebrecht but here he seems only to be calling out the orchestra for its deplorable attitude? You can see the concertmaster smirk at her playing as he suggests.

boredmessiah · 2022-05-03T16:34:41+00:00

They literally tested three tins. Those are not reliable numbers in the least.

boredmessiah · 2022-05-01T21:23:57+00:00

I suggested 25/2 because it's also just a very pretty piece to have under the fingers, at least until you can bang out Un Sospiro on demand!

Yeah I was struggling with the question of an appropriate entry point to Liszt as well, but I looked at some difficulty ratings for guidance and have a recommendation. His Annees de Pelerinage books are some of his best writing, and the first book is very approachable. I've read through it and it's great music. If you avoid Au bord d'Un source, Vallée d'Obermann and Orage, literally any of the remaining six pieces are very interesting, typical of his style, and a good step to Un Sospiro.

If you're keen on a long term project at some point, you could even attempt to do multiple pieces from the set. Orage is a beast, the only piece that would stop you from learning the complete set in the near future. Au bord d'Un source is probably just a dash outside your reach. Obermann is so beautiful! It's long and has a Ballade-like musical narrative and that kind of difficulty, but it also features some tricky octave passages. If you really can play the third Chopin Ballade accurately, smoothly, and at tempo, you're not far away from the standard for this one either.

boredmessiah · 2022-05-01T20:30:43+00:00

I've played both. Un Sospiro requires different skills so expect little carry over. I do think that it's a slightly challenging first pick to get familiar with the Liszt sound and style of writing. It also sounds like you haven't done a concert étude or something of that virtuosity before. You can do what you want but I would recommend doing Chopin's 25/1 étude first. It develops the same touch and sound as Un Sospiro without the cadenzas and the huge jumps. It has a much more developed melody which will mesh well with what you've been doing for the Ballade. It's also a gentler entry into the genre of the virtuosic étude.

boredmessiah · 2022-04-29T23:35:09+00:00

I feel like the new actions in the last five years have seen a quantum leap in quality that pulls the value of an upright into serious question. There's still a long way to go for sound and playability on digitals, though.

boredmessiah · 2022-04-29T21:36:01+00:00

The fast movement of Moonlight is completely doable on a digital piano, but that is the level at which it's imperative for the student to be familiar with the touch of an acoustic instrument - perhaps at the teacher's studio.

Beethoven is not the best music to judge pianos by, though, because it was written before the time of the modern piano. A Chopin nocturne or Debussy prelude would be accessible to someone playing Moonlight and that's the kind of music that begins to explore the vast tonal potential of an acoustic instrument. A student regularly studying that kind of repertoire would be at a disadvantage on most digital keyboards.

As you begin to explore virtuosic rep a grand is obviously good but you start learning to adapt as well, and that's beyond scope here.

boredmessiah · 2022-04-29T20:12:27+00:00

That's a hard one, it takes time to grow into that technique. You might just benefit from a few weeks off of the piece.

boredmessiah · 2022-04-29T19:58:00+00:00

Chopin études are almost all merciless. Learn as much as you can comfortably, then move on and return to it later when you're a bit better. Playing even the simplest of the quick ones at tempo in a concert is a daunting task. It's better to view them as progress work.

boredmessiah · 2022-04-29T19:54:46+00:00

Absolute pitch is not something you can train. It's immaterial, just make a reference pitch check to begin transcribing.

Relative pitch is trainable and useful. You learn it by transcribing, practicing singing scales and arpeggios, and working on sight reading and sight singing (both). You can try doing simple transcription tasks to begin with — one small melodic figure, or just the chord sequence in one section.

boredmessiah · 2022-04-29T19:50:17+00:00

I think the best choice for any young beginner today is a good quality digital piano like the Roland FP30 or equivalent. There are some triple sensor actions at that price point which rival grands for repeated note sensitivity¹ and then sound pretty good too. Plus, quite importantly, they are Bluetooth MIDI equipped, which opens up the whole world of digital music making with a smartphone or an iPad, not just a computer. Finally, they are comparatively genre neutral due to their sound banks and MIDI support and can support a developing interest in keyboard playing as opposed to merely classical piano.

Any serious learner of classical piano (or traditional jazz) would benefit from an acoustic piano at a more advanced stage. The sound, the potential for voicing, touch, and legato are all incomparably superior. However, you don't get a lot of this with uprights due to their different action mechanism. The touch of a good digital is superior to an upright, but not the sound. And grands below a certain length (5' imo) are just not great purchases either.

¹ the sensitivity is there but the physical movement of the key is slower when compared to a high end grand action, particularly the kick back. This makes it difficult to perform some virtuosic figurations on digitals unless you're really very quick and can compensate.

boredmessiah · 2022-04-29T18:58:22+00:00

You are confusing "reading" with "sight reading". A well-rehearsed performance can be given while reading from a score for pianists and any other instrumentalists. In order to play the music from memory, one needs to prepare separately and very specifically for it beyond the work required to make it performance ready in general. Chamber music can also be played from memory in the same manner, but it's not expected so very few musicians bother putting in the extra effort.

boredmessiah · 2022-04-29T18:45:49+00:00

It can be so nice to play a mostly secure solo piece from score, especially something with long slow parts that are not difficult but ponderous. Those are an absolute bitch to memorise and you achieve little in the process.

boredmessiah · 2022-04-29T18:42:24+00:00

This is not true at all. Musicians playing chamber music and orchestra are then forever doomed to inferiority because they use scores?

boredmessiah · 2022-04-29T00:32:51+00:00

ASIO through my interface, buffer set to the lowest I could manage. I think most of the latency came from the plug-in, not the audio path or driver.

boredmessiah · 2022-04-28T11:58:55+00:00

What's the latency like on a good midi setup? I tried it briefly but for serious fast stuff it was too slow. Granted, I wasn't using an SSD to optimise, but I want to know how fast it can get.

boredmessiah · 2022-04-26T14:54:53+00:00

You need to fix your gain staging. The adapter will not cause distortion (unless it's really broken) but wrong gain levels on different pieces of equipment always will. When making a connection, start with the input (keyboard) at 0 and then raise the level slowly to find the point where it won't cause distortion but will be clear.

boredmessiah · 2022-04-24T18:18:56+00:00

A lot of what is written here is headed in the right direction but the anatomy is all wrong. The fingers don't just have abductors and adductors, but also flexors and extensors to move them. The hand does indeed have muscles for the fingers (interossei). It is plain bad faith to post on a public forum with such confidence without the knowledge to back it up.

boredmessiah · 2022-04-24T18:14:57+00:00

A novice can't just learn the notes and what's written on the music and just sound like a prodigy without any musicality.

That's true of anything, not just Chopin. But novices can only become musical by trying to get there in the first place.

boredmessiah · 2022-04-24T18:12:02+00:00

Sleazy entertainment has existed as long as culture has. It took different forms in Chopin's time but in no way was that era free from sleaze — just think of the reputation Parisian brothels have over the centuries.

Plus, classical music would not compete with those forms. It is fundamentally a different kind of entertainment and back then it was mostly unavailable to anybody except the nobility and the bourgeoisie.

Finally, calling Nicki Minaj and Ariana Grande softcore porn is dehumanising and sexist. Let people be.

boredmessiah · 2022-04-24T18:06:18+00:00

Great stuff! I found the last bit so tricky to memorise but the feeling of ending a 25 minute sonata on stage with that is incredible.

boredmessiah · 2022-04-21T23:54:08+00:00

This is eye opening and kind of tragic. Are their MP and ES series affected too? Is a fix expected in future models?

boredmessiah · 2022-04-21T23:37:04+00:00

Working pianists, who are extremely unlikely to memorise their music, have generally switched to iPads much faster than soloists. Some do still prefer to perform from physical scores though.

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