piano

In the immortal words of Marvin the Paranoid Android

“Pardon me for breathing, which I don’t do so I don’t know why I bother to say it anyway, oh GOD I’m so depressed.”

I think I may have used that one before, but whatever. I don’t have time to worry about such things; I just got back from Walt Disney World and I will be spending the rest of this regular, humdrum, real-life week mere seconds away from bursting into tears. In an effort to combat this near-inevitability, here’s an absurd video in which pianists take off their clothes. You’re welcome.

Always phrase your requests carefully

I can’t believe this method of page-turning never took off.

My, what big teeth your piano has!

This Saturday Strathmore will be hosting Video Games Live!, which is one of those video-games-and-music-and-lights-and-dancers-and-stuff extravaganzas, one of the few orchestral performances that come with a seizure warning. You know the type.

I’ll be working the concierge desk for the evening show, and I’ve already pulled my “I <3 Alistair” t-shirt in preparation. Want to get ready too? I’d recommend you practice pulling your hands off the piano keyboard; you never know when that thing’ll grow teeth.

Scarring? Jarring? Alar(m)ing? Face your fears and teach yourself to play the Mario theme.

Andre Watts, Colin Currie, and Jean-Yves Thibaudet are always hanging in my apartment

Fun fact: Andre Watts, Colin Currie, and Jean-Yves Thibaudet hang in my apartment all the time.

HA! See what I did there?

You’ve just been afforded an exclusive glimpse into the Baroquelair, where loot stolen from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra graces my walls. Of course, when I say “stolen” I mean “Benevolent Dictator Jamie told me I could have old posters back when I was a BSO intern” but I’m trying to build up a mystique here.

What I like about the three I was given lifted in a clever heist is that they all feature a concert I attended – in the case of the Watts poster, I saw Brahms’ German Requiem; I saw Colin Currie perform Incantations and  pissed off Hannu Lintu with my thoughts on his tempi; and I saw Jean-Yves Thibaudet in “Demons, Drama, and Dance”. (I’ve linked back to my reviews for all of them, so go nuts!)

As an added bonus, check out this old playbill I legally purchased from the post office gift shop at Colonial Williamsburg.

The Beggar’s Opera! This old-timey comic opera was cause exceeding great joy in my musical partner-in-crime Bekah and I when it appeared in our undergrad listening tests. It is truly an inspiration to every parent who has ever wanted their little girl to grow up to be a prostitute.

In case you’re wondering, here’s what’s on the opposite wall:

Yeah, I know. You’re so surprised.

* Note: My deepest apologies for the deplorably shoddy cell phone photo quality on display above. It’s a super-cloudy day, I lack sufficient lighting in my apartment, and I suddenly remembered that I’d left my SLR at my parents’ house. If I haven’t replaced them with GOOD versions in a couple weeks, just poke me about it. Sorry So Sloppy!

Music Gifts: Leg-o-less the Piano

Look, I know how it is. You’ve got that friend — the one who is just too obsessed with Beethoven. Didn’t think it was possible, but he found a way. He goes around wearing an ascot, waving around a pen and getting ink everywhere, demanding that you speak to him through an ear trumpet and pretending not to hear you when you do. All that writing in his book is starting to make your hand cramp and you do not want to encourage this behavior.

And yet.

And yet. What if your Beethovenophile could emulate Beethoven’s musical genius as well as his eccentricities? Wouldn’t that be great? Think for a minute. What’s standing in his way?

You are correct. What he needs is a legless grand piano. Korg tabletop grand piano to the rescue!

It can play like a grand piano or synthesize other instruments; it can memorize short phrases; operates on electricity or battery power; you can plug in a damper pedal or even headphone if your buddy will quit malingering. Yes, truly this is all he needs to become the spiritual successor of Beethoven. Certainly better than that Brahms fellow. What a giftless bastard!

I found it at Urban Outfitters for $320. Or, if that sort of behavior lands one on your holiday naughty list and warrants only something cheap, why not go for a “You can’t see me ’cause I’m Haydn” t-shirt from the AB store? Maybe a little Haydn away will break him of the Ludwig thing.

That would explain the sense of entitlement

I kid, I kid. (Mostly. You know who you are.)

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Composer Cagematch!: Chopin vs. Liszt

Now THAT was more like it.

Handel, you will likely be unsurprised to discover, won his match, but unlike the Gershwin-Bernstein slaughterhouse [funf!], Haydn put up a real fight. Handel only took it by a couple of votes, although, as my dad always says, it’ll look like a line drive in the box score.

And now, friends and neighbors, you better lift up that keyboard cover and adjust the piano bench, because in this corner, transmitting the preludes through his hair and fingertips, it’s

FREEEEEEEEEEDERIIIIIIIIIIIC CHOOOOOOOOOOPIIIIIIIIIIIIN

And in this corner, dramatically throwing his velvet gloves into the audience, it’s

FRAAAAAAAAAAAAAANZ LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISZT

Piano…. FIGHT! Do you choose the man whose lightning focus never wavered from the instrument? Or the man who broadened his horizons now and again? The man who preferred quietly playing for small groups of friends? Or the man who gloried in being, shall we say, the center of attention? Chopin is brilliant, but then I once declared that one of the qualities I looked for in a friend was the ability to headbang to Liszt. Maybe we should just throw Berlioz into the ring and see who has the larger portion of him in the end.

Familial exploitation

Hi there! You guys are subject to an awful lot of my opinions. In an effort to inject some variety into your life and impart some actual information, I have dragooned the incomparable Sheri German into writing a guest post. That’s right, you’re going to hear from my mom. And you’re probably going to like her way better than you like me — she actually, like, knows stuff: she has a masters in music performance, spent many years as a piano teacher, worked backstage at the freakin’ Kennedy Center, and could kick any and all of your asses at drop-the-needle. Make sure you tell her how much you like this post, because I’m trying to coerce her into telling some of those Kennedy Center stories, especially the one about that thing Rostropovich did that one time that she thinks is embarrassing (I kid, Mom, you don’t have to ). And now, without further adieu…

Back in the 1980s I was a music student who earned my living as a “traveling” piano teacher. In other words, I braved the traffic of the city to teach my students in their own homes. I taught a nice little group of boys and girls who lived around the Northwest area of Washington, DC.

Every so often I would take them on field trips. On one occasion I took them to the Kennedy Center to see the great Rudolf Serkin play a solo piano recital. The children were quite young — mostly in the 9 to 14 year old range — and the program was probably a little long and ponderous for them. Serkin was considered a musicians’ musician and played a lot of German music.

Still, the children were well behaved and seemed to derive some benefit from the experience of being in the Concert Hall of the Kennedy Center listening to one of the great pianists of the 20th century. After the concert was over, I took them backstage. I felt like the mother duckling in Robert McCloskey’s Make Way for Ducklings as all my kids trailed after me to the backstage “Green Room.”

Serkin graciously signed the program of each child and was very gentle with them as he asked them about their own studies. Then he turned to me and very seriously asked the most astounding question.

“Did you think it was OK?”

I was stunned. Did I think it was OK? I couldn’t believe that this remarkable  pianist was looking for my reassurance. I gulped and told him I thought it was one of the most magnificent concerts I ever heard. He looked pleased and my students and I said our good-byes.

I am not sure what I took away from this experience except to think that perhaps even the most lauded among us still want to know that they have reached an individual when they perform, not just a collective audience. Or maybe it’s as mundane as no matter how accomplished you are, you still harbor feelings of insecurity. Whatever the case, Serkin died in 1991, and the only performances I can see now are ones like the Schubert Piano Sonata in B flat on You Tube.

Yeah, just ask the Queen of the Night

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“Pull that piano crap on me? Please!”

Did you know? Your piano can double as a burglar alarm. Maybe you should install one in your car.