Piano!

So, here's a thread for those who enjoy piano music or better yet, play the piano themselves!
How long have you been playing?
What's your favourite piece?
What are you working on at the moment?
What's the best piece you've ever worked on?
What piano do you have?

Pictures, videos, anything is welcome!


I'm playing for almost 2 years now, and my favourite piece is probably clair de lune, which I'm also working on at the moment. It's an epic and insanely hard piace for the stage I'm at at the moment, and deffinately the best I've ever worked on.


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I play a Roland HP203 digital at the moment, it's a very good digital, I liked it better than some others that cost twice as much as mine did. I would still prefer an acoustic tho, preferably an Estonia parlour grand, but even the cheap Yamaha and Kawai uprights are too much for my wallet to take at the moment...
I've played a b?????????sendorfer a couple days ago, and it was AMAZING. But I'm pretty sure I'll never be able to afford something like that...

[gouldy]

Not sure you can get the fullscreen ones to work on the forum.

http://www.youtube.com/v/zB-VfaFQqK0?fs=1&hl=en_US

probably best to just click the link ^

Or do a little version:

I've been playing piano for about 2 months, Mostly for music production though. Im still poop.
xD I only practice for about 2 hours a week.

[jayman]

today i'm trading off my '55 wurlitzer model 112 electronic piano . the guy who's getting it is very excited. i dont play keyboards but i love old synths . i have an arp odyssey, a roland sh 1000 an ensoniq eps, a roland juno 60 and 106 ( with an extra for parts) a korg polysix and the dave smith mopho, and a poop ton of old casios, some of which i've modified. and a 1967 farfisa compact.

[Coasterkidmwm]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVuP1BjbhAg

Give it about 30 seconds and it appears appears extremely difficult lol

Great topic...

How long have you been playing? 14-15 years, give or take

What's your favorite piece? Depends on the day. If you want my favorite composer, it's Debussy.

What are you working on at the moment?
My Vince Guaraldi impression
Assorted Bartok
Some Ravel/Debussy
This sweet, one-page Scriabin thing
Wind Ensemble accompaniment (boring)

What's the best piece you've ever worked on? Depends on what you mean by "best." Most difficult/longest was West Side Story (the musical book). I've done five other musicals, including all-Gershwin, and that one takes the cake. Coolest piece I've done was this two-part atonal sonatina for piano by an obscure Canadian composer. My wife mostly dislikes atonal but loves that piece. I had the fortune of playing it in concert. The most ambitious solo work I've done is Debussy's "Children's Corner," a 6-part suite that takes 17 minutes to perform. I wrote a paper dissecting its history and composition, then gave a lecture/recital on it. I have a video recording of that, but it's 50 minutes long and won't be posted [:P]

What piano do you have? My wife and I bought a Kawai CL25 (a DP) about 9 months ago. It plays very well for a digital due to the graded weighting and hammer action. We plan on buying an expensive full grand sometime in the 2020's. I really love me some powerful and resonant low-end.

Does anybody here teach piano? I'm thinking about getting into it...

^^Valentina Lisitsa's interpretations are awesome!
Check out her interpretation of Rachmaninoffs Prelude in G minor, op23 #5...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QB7ugJnHgs&feature=fvsr

^Isn't Golliwog's cakewalk a part of the Childrens corner?
I also love me some Debussy!

^That's the last movement, yes. Each piece within the suite is a completely different style, and that's the ragtime/cakewalk element.

pianos suck, syths rule and all hail the guitar.

I envy you guys. I want piano lessons.

I don't play da piano. I play tat drum dat goes rat-a-tat-tat!

[jayman]

Originally posted by gazag

pianos suck, syths rule and all hail the guitar.

YAY ! .. nah seriously .. i dont play piano .. it's one of the two classes i need to finish my degree, and it's something i'd like to learn to do .. i have literally a ROOm full of keyboards, and i can patch an analog synth like nobodies buisiness, but when it comes to actually " playing " the keyboard i suck i think i need to enroll in that class practice on my eps, which has a wonderful grand piano in it , and get my degree. but thees just soooooo many sounds that i've never gotten around to piano..

Originally posted by gazag

pianos suck, syths rule and all hail the guitar.

Shun the nonbeliever!
Seriously, you can't just say an instrument sucks, maybe you don't like it, but it doesn't suck (except maybe for french horn XD)...
I also like guitar and I'm trying to find one cheap so I can learn to play it, and synths are basically a simplified organ or piano with a pitch wheel, so I think I could play it without a big problem. Actually I've played it, because my band was wrking on a song that needed it, but I didn't use the pitchwheel...

[jayman]

Originally posted by Vid_w

Originally posted by gazag

pianos suck, syths rule and all hail the guitar.

synths are basically a simplified organ or piano with a pitch wheel,

nope. not at all , silly a true analog synthesizer camn make millions times millions of sounds. much much much much more complicated than an organ or a piano .

I ment the playing technique...
I know analog synths can produce virtually an infinity of sounds...

It's difficult to compare a piano to a analog synth to an organ; they all operate using completely different mechanisms. In fact, the only thing they share is a keyboard! Piano is a percussion instrument, snyth is electronic, and organ is wind. Piano has the highest precision, synth has the greatest versatility, and organ is the most difficult to play. IMHO, of course...

So, to bump this thread:
In the meantime, I finished Clair de Lune and am now working on Rachmaninov's prelude in C# minor, op.3 #2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtuMVBLEWJU

It's so much fun to play!

I'm a concert-level pianist. I have played many works by Beethoven, Chopin, and other composers, and I have even gone on to state-level competitions for concertos and solo performances.

I also compose a lot of music, and I have been known to sit at the piano and improvise on any given motif/melody for hours.

I am currently learning:
- Camille Saint-Saen's "Danse Macabre" (Franz Liszt's transcription)
- Francis Poulenc's "Nocturne No.1"
- J.S. Bach's "Prelude and Fugue in C Minor"
- Brahms' "Hungarian Dance No. 1 (Duet)"

I've been in concert band since 5th grade and I can't even tell you what notes are on the staff, lol. I do play marimba every once in awhile and I've learned a few songs. I usually play from memory and don't look at the music, I want to learn how to read scales and stuff but I usually forget or lose interest and start drumming.

I played for about two years when I was little, but my keyboard has mostly just been collecting dust in my attic with all of my old toys. (I really should dig it out some time... I haven't played with it in so long!) Song-wise, I played one duet with my friend Kristen on Pachabel's Canon for my recital, and I liked playing "Fall Leaves" from my piano book because I thought it sounded really pretty, but that's about it. I gave up after that.

I'm a music education major and am required to learn piano and must jury out of piano to take upper level music classes. I am terrible at piano!!! I have always loved to listen, never to play! I don't have the two hand coordination! I am a mean trumpet player tho! We have classes like Theory I-IV and Orchestration to study piano music. I'm currently taking an Orchestration class which is the in depth study of the instruments in the orchestra, learning to arrange and compose for orchestra, band, choir and smaller ensembles. We get a piano score and two listens, then we must arrange for the set ensemble. So I have "studied" piano music for a while.

So, I've been working on this lately...
http://soundcloud.com/vid-vodopivec/18t ... hmaninov-1

What do you think?

I'm currently working on these now:

1. "Fantasie-Impromptu" by Chopin
2. All 8 of Francis Poulenc's Nocturnes
3. "China Gates" but John Adams
4. Beethoven's "Waldstein" Sonata in C Major.

How long have you been playing?- I've been teaching myself for around year now.
What's your favourite piece?- I haven't really worked on much, so I don't have one.
What are you working on at the moment?- Muse-Bliss
What's the best piece you've ever worked on?- Probably the one I'm working on right now.
What piano do you have?- Not really sure, I''d have to go check.

Have played piano for about 5 years, I've played drums for about 9 years, and now I'm teaching myself how to play the ukulele. I play preferably by ear but I can read sheet music fluently. In jazz band as lead pianist for modern songs. I can play a ton of popular music, but my favorite pieces have always been by Yiruma, they just have so much emotion and I can really get into them. I have a yamaha portable grand at home and I play on a Steinway grand piano at school. Right now I'm teaching myself some more Yiruma songs, I hope to play one at the upcoming high school talent show, and maybe even dedicate it to the girl I like. haha ;)