New Jazz Appreciation Series
July
15th,
2013
[caption id="attachment_618" align="alignright" width="300"] By Codingbq (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons[/caption]As a young’un, I played the usual instructional piano stuff, starting with the then ubiquitous pedagogic set by John Thompson, red-covered piano books beginning with a series called “Teaching Little Fingers to Play” and then moved on to “John Thompson’s Modern Course for…
As American as tarte aux pommes! Celebrating the Fourth with some American Music
July
9th,
2013
[caption id="attachment_612" align="alignright" width="300"] THE star spangled banner, the one that flew over Fort McHenry that fabled night in 1814, today housed in the Smithsonian[/caption]I began blogging about a year-and-a-half ago. I was working with a publicist at the time that in turn worked with a vast number of sites. She would suggest topics to…
Comments on the Child Prodigy
July
2nd,
2013
A friend sent me the video below of a “child prodigy” with a request that I “comment”. Here goes. I would begin with a rhetorical question: is there anything more tiresome, more irksome than a “child prodigy”? Prodigies: they stand as a reminder of our own mediocrity, and if we could, we’d squash ‘em like…
Robert Greenberg Composition — Lemurs are Afraid of Fossas
June
24th,
2013
With all my recent “talk” about composers and such, I thought it would be appropriate to “walk the walk” and post some more of my music, if only to verify that I am not completely full of cow chips when I presume to assert what composers “are” and “aren’t”. So I am taking the opportunity…
Behind a Composition – Technology Conversation Continues
June
17th,
2013
I was pleased as punch by the discussion generated by my last post regarding digital technology, digital-shortcuts, the piano and composers. A number of correspondents argued that digital notational programs like Finale and Sibelius are simply “the next thing”, and that the limits placed on one’s creativity by actually composing on one of these programs…
Behind a Composition – Technology
June
14th,
2013
[caption id="attachment_597" align="alignleft" width="500"] My rig: piano, drawing table, sharpener, metronome, pencils and paper.[/caption] I am fond of saying (overly fond, frankly) that “technology is our friend, except when it isn’t.” We all know that this is true although it is tiresome to repeat. Nevertheless I have repeated this truism as a reminder that our…
Recording the Pianists at The Great Courses – Part Three – True Professionalism
June
3rd,
2013
[caption id="attachment_592" align="alignright" width="300"] A picture of Dr. Melkonyan at the piano taken on Friday, May 31st while battling the bug.[/caption]Ah, the idealized romance of the virtuoso pianist! A solitary figure sitting at a piano communing with her innermost thoughts and feelings through the medium of a repertoire second to none; wresting from the instrument…
Recording the Pianists at The Great Courses – Part Two
May
31st,
2013
[caption id="attachment_589" align="alignright" width="300"] Eun Joo Chung[/caption] Today we had the opportunity to meet and hear the third of our three pianists, Eun Joo Chung. She recorded the excerpts for two great and most virtuosic works: Johannes Brahms’ “Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel” and Aaron Copland’s “Piano Variations”. She was absolutely stunning.…
Recording the Pianists at The Great Courses – Part One
May
30th,
2013
[caption id="attachment_586" align="alignright" width="200"] Woobin Park[/caption]As anticipated in my previous post, I have travelled to Chantilly, Virginia – HQ of The Great Courses/The Teaching Company – to oversee the recording of the musical examples for my latest course, “The 23 Greatest Solo Piano Works.” The three professional concert pianists tasked with recording the excerpts are…
The Making of a Course – Part Ten
May
28th,
2013
[caption id="attachment_581" align="alignright" width="240"] Dr. Magda Melkonyan[/caption] Tuesday, May 28th I return to The Great Courses/Teaching Company studios in Virginia to complete work on my latest course: “The 23 Greatest Solo Piano Works.” We recorded the actual lectures back in January and early February, a process well-documented on this site (scroll down for the blogs…