Episode 21 - Performance

welcome to Show 21 . Thank you for taking the time to listen to the show . If this is the first time you've heard the podcast , I hope you enjoy what you hear . If you're also a piano player or still learning , like me , let me know where you're up to .

You can contact me at david at pianofinallyshow , and if you're a returning listener , thanks very much for coming back .

Rather than recommend an entire YouTube channel , this week , I'm going to recommend a single video from a channel that I've mentioned before . Also , this week's recommendation comes with homework . I suggested watching Ryan Absheer's channel a month or so back , and I've been continuing to keep up with his videos since then .

About two weeks ago , ryan made a video called Ranking the Greatest Piano Concertos . In that video , he took his favourite piano concerti and ranked them from silver to royalty and , as he says , there are no negative tiers in the ranking . They're all good . You'll notice that Ryan uses concertos as the plural of concerto , which is perfectly fine .

It has been one of the plurals in English since the 1700s , but I prefer the other plural , concerti , mostly because I learned Italian 40 years ago . Ryan has chosen 19 piano concerti well , 18, . And Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue , which may as well be called a concerto , as it's for piano and orchestra .

In addition to the Gershwin , there are pieces by Beethoven , mozart , rachmaninoff , ravel , brahms and many more . For each piece , ryan has a short excerpt of the piece and some of the score , and then he talks about why he's chosen the piece and where it fits into his ranking system .

As he says , it's based on his opinion and some practical considerations of the video format . It's a great list and , in addition to including all the obvious choices , there are some pieces I had not heard before , and that's where the homework comes in . I put together a playlist of all 19 pieces using Apple Classical Music .

Apple Classical is a free part of an Apple Music subscription . In fact , all the musical tracks are already in Apple Music , but the Classical app allows you to search and find performances in a much more logical fashion .

You can put in the name of a piece and all the performances and often there can be tens of them will be listed , with the conductor and the soloist . It's then just a matter of adding on to the playlist If you can't pick one .

An editor's recommendation has been put up by an actual person , not an algorithm , so I'd recommend watching Ryan's video , seeing his reasoning , and then going and listening to a collection of pretty good piano pieces . Then you can see if you agree with his rankings

Performance . During the past week I got asked to be part of a group performance . It was a request that sort of came out of the blue , and my initial reaction was to say that I'm not good enough yet to make any decent contribution to a public performance . But I've been thinking about it .

The performance is still about nine months away and , depending upon what it is exactly that I need to do , it's not out of the realm of possibilities . Towards the end of term three each year the school I work at has a fundraising day that includes lots of activities , including a walkathon , carnival rides , food stalls and a battle of the bands .

I received an invitation for this last activity . A couple of my students from last year's year 10 science class want to put together an act and for me to play the keyboard . At the moment I don't know any more than that . They want to perform something by Adele .

I hadn't listened to her music before this , but it sounds quite nice and it's not too complicated . I looked at some of the scores on Sheet Music Direct and they appear to be reasonable . I think that with enough practice I could probably manage one or two .

Of course , the big question is should I worry about performing at all , especially since I'll only be a year and a half into learning the piano ? The answer is probably . I think it was the very first episode of the podcast that I said that there are two motivations for learning the piano .

You can be learning for the intellectual challenge of mastering a new and relatively complex activity , along with all the theory and other academic parts of music , or you could learn so that you can entertain using the skills you've learned . I'm learning for both reasons .

I'm enjoying understanding how music stems from the mathematics and the physics that underlie it , and I'm also better at understanding the structure of pieces and how that theory informs what composers choose to do . But in the end , the purpose of music is to share .

There are many cases of creative people producing works and then either hiding them away or at least making no effort for others to see them . There may be some cases of composers doing this , but I don't know of any . After all , unless you are only composing for instruments , you can play yourself .

You will at least have to involve others so that you can hear your work , but that's as a composer . As a player , it is entirely possible to practice , achieve your goals and never perform in public . In fact , if you have an electronic keyboard and headphones , you can practice without even performing in private . You can do this , but should you ?

If I go ahead with this performance and I haven't said yes yet , I'll have a fairly forgiving audience . This is very much an amateur , fun competition . That's not to say that the standard of some of the performances is not really high .

The school has some very hard-working music students who are becoming incredibly good performers , but there are also some acts that perhaps deserve the title novelty rather than serious . So the audience is prepared for anything . That said , though , I would want to put on the best show I'm capable of , and that means really mastering the music .

Deciding that you will perform in public on a date that you can't move is a great motivator If you want to be ready . It gives you more motivation to go to the piano and sit down to practice . In this case , it also means mastering a new aspect of piano playing playing with other people . It means learning a new style of music .

I've been playing either exercises or more classical style pieces , and I don't mind expanding to pieces based more around left-hand chords . It's a challenge , but there's plenty of time . And then there's the whole thing about performing in front of other people .

I perform in front of a lot of the potential audience members every week , although I'm talking science rather than playing notes . But there is an advantage of not playing in front of a room full of strangers . Secondly , it's a free performance , so they can't demand their money back . And thirdly , every act is always warmly received , regardless of how they do .

So I'm planning on giving it a go . I think there's still a fair bit of planning to do and then lots of work to get ready , but life would be boring if you never tried anything new . I'll keep you up to date with how the thing progresses .

Each year , the Blue Mountains Musical Society puts on a number of reasonably large-scale productions . Every year I see the banners on the footbridge across the highway . I always think I should go , but I never get around to it . This year it's different .

I'm going out of my way to support live music , so making sure that I got a ticket this year was not in doubt . I'm writing this part of the review before I've seen the production , but from the rehearsal scenes the group has posted on YouTube , it looks like it will be pretty good .

I always worry a little about amateur productions , probably based on years of attending school productions , but this one looks much more polished . I'll put a link to the YouTube videos in the show notes . I'm about to leave now to go to the theatre . I'll continue this when I get back . Well , I'm back . The show was great .

I had seen the movie Catch Me If you Can with Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio , but I didn't know it had been made into a musical , apparently on the back of the success of the film . It opened on Broadway in 2011 . The production was at the Blue Mountains Theatre and Community Hub , a venue that seats around 400 people and has a relatively small stage .

That said , the Blue Mountains Musical Society more than filled it , both with performers and with the quality of the production . The singing was outstanding , there were 10 main roles in the show , and every single performer was first class . The amount of time and effort that must have gone into getting their performance polished and flawless would have been immense .

It wasn't just the main performers that were excellent . The dancers , actors and ensemble were all excellent throughout . Although the sets were fairly utilitarian , the costuming was amazing . The number and variety of costume changes across the whole cast would have left many professional productions behind . It was a great show and a very enjoyable three hours .

It's on for the next couple of weeks , so if you're in the area , it's definitely worth getting along to see it . It makes me a bit disappointed that I didn't get to the Society's productions in the past .

Well , that's it for this week . If you'd like to contact me , email is the best way . You'll find me at david at pianofinelyshow and the website at wwwpianofinelyshow . In both cases , piano , finally , is all one word . Let me know where you are in your piano journey . The show is also on Facebook , instagram and as audio only on YouTube .

You can subscribe via any popular iOS or Android podcast application or from directories such as Apple Podcasts , spotify or Player FM . So until the next episode , I hope your piano stays in tune and you enjoy your time at the keys .

I'm giving the scales a bit of a rest . They still need work , but I can successfully play all 12 major scales , not necessarily on the first go , but I'm okay the second time through . I'm now trying some simpler pieces to work on technique .

So this week I've been working on a canon by Fritz Spindler , paying particular attention to the dynamics at the same time as learning the notes . Unfortunately , because the musical ran longer than I was anticipating , I haven't had time to get a recording done of the practice .

If I did , I wouldn't get this episode out , so I'll include some extra practice in the next show .