Episode 9 - Making practice fun

Welcome to episode 9 . Thanks for joining me . This week it's been busy , school is back for term 3 , which means everything is back to a normal rhythm , but also much busier . My regular piano lessons will be starting back this coming week and I'm looking forward to learning some new things over the coming term .

Before the holidays , my piano teacher mentioned that she would be running a showcase concert in the middle of September . I don't think I'm ready to perform in front of members of the public yet , even if those members are also piano learners . I'll let you know my thoughts . A quick update on the Kawaii NV-10 repair .

The serviceman and I haven't been able to set up a time . Last week was pretty busy , but I'm hoping that we can do one afternoon this coming week , fingers crossed .

This episode's viewing suggestion is not from YouTube and is a bit broader than just piano television , although there's a fair bit of piano content included . I'm going to recommend the Stage Plus service from Deutsche Grammophon . If you listen to classical music , you're no doubt familiar with Deutsche Grammophon's place in classical recording .

The company has been around for over 100 years and has recorded just about every piece of classical music . You can imagine . A large fraction of my classical music collection is made up of Deutsche Grammophon LPs and CDs . In fact , the very first CD I ever bought was a Deutsche Grammophon recording of Haltz to the Planets .

Ever bought was the Deutsche Grammophon recording of Holst the Planets . Deutsche Grammophon's Stage Plus service combines many of its audio recordings with a very large range of video recordings of concerts and operas . Along with the musical content , there are also documentaries and interviews .

There are many historical performances and , as the company has been associated with so many European orchestras and conductors , there are often multiple versions of any given piece . All the recordings and videos are presented in the highest quality available , with 4K video , dolby Atmos and lossless audio .

Additionally , stageplus has live events that are rebroadcast for viewing , before eventually ending up on the service . Permanently viewing before eventually ending up on the service permanently . Deutsche Grammophon has been at the leading edge of recording technologies for a long time . The reason that the Holst was my first CD is simple .

When I bought it , it was the only CD title available in Australia and there were perhaps two brands of CD players available . Stage Plus is available for Windows and Mac computers , ios and Android phones and all the different smart TV devices If you happen to have an Apple Vision Pro .

Stage Plus also has a small selection of concerts recorded in spatial video , including two piano concerts and an opera . Stage Plus isn't particularly cheap . It's $149 US dollars per year or $14.90 a month , although they currently have an introductory offer of $1 for the first two months .

If you subscribe to any of the other classical music streaming services , you'll already have access to the audio recordings , but I think it's worth a subscription for the video content and I'm hoping for more spatial videos . There's a link in the show notes if you want to take a look .

Making practice fun . Piano practice is something that all piano learners have to do . Unfortunately , there's no instant way of going from not being able to play to giving Lang Lang a run for his money without many thousands of hours of practice .

I would hope that for most players , practice is at least enjoyable , but once the initial thrill of starting is over , it probably can't be described as fun , except that this week I discovered something that made my practice much more fun .

This is not a solution that will work forever , but it's going to give me a few more weeks to add an element of fun to my practice . It's also not a cheap solution and I won't suggest that you try it just to inject a fun element into your practice . But if the right circumstances arise , you can give it a try .

As I mentioned in the last episode , I needed to organise a backup instrument for practising , so I ended up getting a Roland FP-90X digital piano . I've set it up in a different part of the house where I walk past it a lot more often than the Kawai , so I can sit down and play for a couple of minutes many times each day .

The Roland has 8 modelled pianos and a huge range of sampled instruments built in , as well as a huge standard MIDI library . The first thing I needed to do was choose a setting to use as my default . This is where the fun begins .

When I got my first keyboard , I chose the sound by playing a single octave , c major scale , mainly because that was my level of playing . I chose the setting that sounded best and pretty much left it at that . When the kawaii arrived , my playing was a little better , but I just chose the default piano and started practicing and recording with it .

That's the setting you were hearing in all the progress recordings at the end of episodes . My playing has now got a little bit better so I'm able to be slightly more musical . In other words , I can play something consistently that isn't simply a scale .

So when choosing a default setting for the new Roland keyboard , I was able to play the Samuel Arnard jig that I had been working on . Then I realised that if I was going to try out all the instruments on the keyboard and play jig over and over again , that would count as practice . So that's what I've been doing . At the moment .

A practice session is made up of me playing a two octave C major scale with both hands , not quickly but at a consistent tempo , and then some playthroughs of the jig , trying to slowly increase the tempo and a bit of work on whichever bars I got wrong , and some days now that's none of them .

It's the jig practice that I'm using to test the instrument settings . I finish up with some very slow work on a new piece and then one of the level one sight reading exercises . All up , that's 30 to 40 minutes . I'll normally give an instrument at least two or three tries and I'm slowly narrowing down the list of pianos I'd be happy to use as a default .

All this testing probably means I'd run through the jig 15 times during a practice session , not including stopping to correct mistakes , and instead of it becoming a bit boring with all those repetitions , there's something different to listen to each time .

Buying a new instrument every month or so to keep your practices interesting is hardly a viable solution , but if the situation presents itself , why not take advantage of it ?

The Roland FP-90X Review , part 2 . What's it like ? Well , it sounds pretty good . What's it like ? Well , it sounds pretty good . The FP90X has a four-speaker array , two main speakers and two tweeters , with a combined output of 60 watts , so it's easily loud enough for home use . Of course , it also has headphone sockets so you can play it silently .

To complete the audio output , there is a USB connection for digital audio to a computer and line outs for conventional audio . One of the features of the FP90X that got me interested in it is the keyboard action . Roland offers several different actions in its digital pianos and all of them seem to have been well reviewed in various publications .

The FP90X uses the PHA50 action , which is also used in their more expensive keyboards . It has a long key length , weighted hammers and a realistic feel . The keys have wooden sides and their top surfaces are made of a plastic that simulates the feel of ivory for the white keys and ebony for the black .

While it doesn't quite feel the same as a grand piano , it does have a substantial weight to it and it's easy to adjust your finger pressure for different dynamics . I haven't found it fatiguing during practice sessions of up to an hour . It's the sound of the piano that's the most important , though .

The hardware is fine , but what about the software producing the notes ? The FP-90X has 106 built-in sound types , plus another 255 from the General MIDI 2 library , for a total of 361 different voices . These are divided into five categories pianos , e-pianos , organs , strings and synths .

Most of these are sampled instruments or synthesised , but eight of the pianos are different . The first eight pianos are modelled , meaning that the processor inside the FP-90X generates the sounds using an algorithm based on the movement of the piano's keys . This allows for a much more accurate representation of the piano than manipulating samples .

I like the idea , but in reality I really can't tell the difference between a sampled sound and a modelled one , but maybe someone with better ear training can . The system passes my one test for checking the quality of the modelling . On an acoustic piano , playing one note will cause other strings to resonate .

You can try this on whatever keyboard or piano you use . Hold down the key for C3 , the C below middle C , wait until there is no sound , then strike and release the middle C key . The C below middle C should be resonating quietly . That works on the FP90X . There are probably much more sophisticated tests , but that's the one I can use quickly .

There are many features you can control with the keyboard . Eventually I'll probably explore most of them , but at the moment the most obvious one after the instrument type is the environment . There are six ambience types from which to choose from a studio to a wooden hall or to a cathedral .

You can adjust the strength of the ambience as well if you want to make your cathedral into a small church . There are also my Stage settings which create a dozen matched environment and instrument settings . I'm very happy with the unit so far . Bear in mind that as a beginner , I'm hardly using all of its features .

As I discover more about this keyboard or the Kawai , I'll update the reviews . Here are some examples of the FP90X . They were all recorded using the onboard recording feature . Well , that's it for this week . If you'd like to contact me , email us at

. Thank you ,

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 pianofinallyshow and the website at wwwpianofinallyshow . In both cases , pianofinally is all one word . The show is also on Facebook , instagram and Threads .

You can subscribe via any of the popular iOS or Android podcast applications or from directories such as Apple Podcasts , spotify or YouTube Podcasts . The show notes for this episode are on the website and include a text me link which will let you send me a message .

So until the next episode , I hope your piano stays in tune and you enjoy your time at the keys .

This week's practice was once more recorded on the Roland FP-90X with the Concert Grand Piano setting . This is the first instrument in the instrument selection . It's a modelled piano , so it doesn't replicate a particular instrument . Once more , the piece is Jigged by Samuel Arnold .

Over the past week , I've been continuing to work on it , slowly raising the tempo , though it still has a way to go . I have picked a new piece to begin working on . So far , I'm about four bars into it , so there's still a long way to go , thank you .