Tag Archives: piano

Jordan Kitts Music Awards Grants to Four MSMTA Teachers

MSMTA AwardOn Saturday evening, January 12 , 2013, at the MSMTA Conference held at the University of Maryland Clarice Smith Center for the Performing Arts, Jordan Kitts Music awarded four MSMTA teachers with the William J. McCormick, Jr. Grants in the amount of $400. The 2013 winners are: Susan Roberts, Linda Kazmarek, Carole Gauthier, and Bok Hwa Kim.

Martha Blakely, NCTM, Artist-in-Residence and Manager of the Jordan Kitts Music School Beltsville, and also a past MSMTA Vice-President, presented the four awards at the MSMTA Gala Concert.

William J. McCormick, Jr. began the teacher grant award program more than 23 years ago. Mr. McCormick believed that not only was education an important part of the business of piano sales, but also working with and helping local area teachers. Following in the tradition of William J. McCormick, Jr., co-owners of Jordan Kitts Music, Chris Syllaba and Ray Fugere are continuing the tradition of awarding teacher grants on a yearly basis.

Yamaha E3 Piano Overview by Sue Downs

Teacher Spotlight: Olga Boeva

Olga Boeva is our featured teacher of the month! She heads up the teaching staff at Jordan Kitts Music School in Sterling, located on Route 7 in the Sugarland Crossing shopping center. Olga has been teaching full time with Jordan Kitts Music since 2003, offering both group and private lessons. Her studio operates 7 days a week.

Her musical training at the University of St. Petersburg in Russia helped develop her broad background in music education. She is able to offer lessons in piano, violin, beginning and intermediate guitar, and will tutor children on the recorder. She is our certified Yamaha teaching specialist at the Sterling location, where she offers Junior Music Course, an incomparable foundation for musical study on any instrument. Four and five year old beginners experience singing, music reading and writing, playing piano, ear training and creating music.

Olga has a remarkable ability to communicate with children and engage them in the learning process. When asked what she loves about teaching, she will say the joy lies in building relationships. She takes great pleasure in watching young people grow and blossom in their musical abilities.

Now is the time to enroll in Junior Music Course with Ms. Olga for the spring semester. Class begins in February. Enrollment is on line. Follow the link at www.jordankittsmusic.com/lessons

Community Concert for Benjamin T. Rome School of Music

This was a community concert in our Rockville store last Saturday. Music
Theatre students from Catholic University of America’s Benjamin T. Rome
School of Music Theatre Division performed. These were 4 very talented
Juniors that performed various Broadway (and a few non-Broadway)
selections. I will send you the program separately, as well as some pics
from my cell phone.

Nikita Fitenko organized it for us. He is an international Yamaha
concert artist and on the piano faculty at Catholic. He is a big fan of
Yamaha and Jordan Kitt’s and has organized a community concert series
for us for the second year in a row.

Typically there are six concerts each year as a part of the series and they are held in the Rockville MD store. He is also co-founder of the Washington International Piano Festival (heading into it’s fifth year next year), which is becoming a very well known and well attended festival each year. It attracts participants from all around the world with top notch artists participating. This year that included Alex Kobrin, an internationally
acclaimed Yamaha artist from Columbus, GA.

Roland HPI7F Piano Review

Have you ever wanted to learn how to play the piano?   Is the answer a definite Yes?    Well, what if I told you that your piano can teach you how?  It’s true!   Whether you are a beginner, a hobby player, or a professional composer, the new Roland HPI7F is the perfect fit for you. The world has never seen a piano that can interact with the player on so many levels!

First and foremost, the Roland HPI7F Intelligent Piano is the most authentic digital piano music experience.  Roland’s Technology (they call it SuperNatural) captures the full expression range of a 9 foot Concert Grand Piano and the touch, tone and feel of the keys makes you feel like you’re performing on a Steinway at Carnegie Hall.  It will simply blow you away!  If you are a music reader, you may bring your own sheet music or use the HPI7’s built-in sheet music display, a huge 9 inch screen right on the music rack in front of you.  The piano has hundreds of built in songs that you can learn to play or you may download free music from the internet and learn to play virtually any song you like.

The Visual Lesson feature will allow you to learn music at your own pace and covers all the stages of education. Like a teacher, it grades your performance and gives you a score.  My six year old son has a blast trying to beat his latest high score and improved his rhythm and timing in the process. If you have a child that is learning how to play piano, they will love this feature!  Roland also takes the redundancy out of practice by including hundreds of instrumental sounds and rhythm options alongside the tick tock metronome.  If you are a student that needs to record your practice session, the HPI7F does that.  If you are a composer that writes music and records using multi track sequencing, the HPI7F will write your music and give you 16 tracks to score your masterpiece!   There is a USB thumb drive to save your work and print your music on any printer, or download new songs from the internet.  You can even burn a CD right on the piano and play your performance right in your car or home CD player.

If you love to sing or have a career aspiration as a professional or karaoke superstar, then hook up a microphone and enjoy!!  The HPI7F’s Karaoke feature has a way of bringing the

family together and creating some incredible memories.  When entertaining guests, just put on the automatic music and enjoy hours of uninterrupted splendor.

The Roland HPI7F is a unique piano that every piano player and music lover must have.  It’s incredible!!!

Yamaha Disklavier E3 Piano Review

To call the Yamaha Disklavier E3 just a piano is like calling the “Mona Lisa” by Leonard da Vinci just another painting. This magnificent and sophisticated instrument is more than a high quality acoustic grand piano; it’s an elegant, refined and technologically advanced entertainment system. Unlike previous “player piano” incarnations, this is a true acoustic piano (rather than reproduced “live” acoustic piano sounds) with digital-age capabilities that offer ease of enjoyment with its’ listen-play-record system. What this means is that you have a concert worthy piano that you can play on or record with.

Can you imagine having Nat King Cole singing in your home? With Yamaha’s library of thousands of PianoSoft™ software titles, the Disklavier E3 brings the magnificent performances of legendary artists to you. All you do is insert the CD and to corresponding Yamaha disk and instantly the onboard sound system plays the vocals and fully orchestrated accompaniment while the piano performs its part in perfect time and tone. All of this is possible with Yamaha’s newest technology break-through PianoSmart™ that provides a seamless audio synchronization with any standard CD that has a corresponding PianoSoft™ title. You can also use this ability to do the same with videotaped performances by using the Disklavier E3 and any standard TV monitor.

The major element to the success of the Yalaha Disklavier E3 is the piano itself. It is from the highly developed Mark IV Series which incorporates a high-capacity onboard hard drive and pocket sized remote control with a world-class Yamaha grand piano creating the ultimate in home entertainment or for business establishments and educational environments. You can even download the “Disklavier Controller” application to your iPhone, iPad or iPod thus allowing even more control of your home entertainment system.

Looking for a singer or song you don’t have on CD? With the Yamaha Disklavier E3 Internet Direct Connection (IDC) you can connect your piano directly to a variety of web services including Disklavier Radio. You can stream musical broadcast direct from the web service to your piano and it will play along with your musical selections and there are about 11 different stations to choose from and with the built-in amplified speaker system, you know your Yamaha Disklavier E3 will deliver the highest quality home entertainment with the best in sound and technology.

The Yamaha Disklavier E3 comes in 11 models – 2 that are upright and 9 that are grand pianos.

Testing the Waters with Group Music Lessons

Have you wondered whether group lessons are right for your child? Will he or she like the class or be able to pay attention in a group?

I always try to reassure parents that young beginners, those aged 3 to 7 years old, actually thrive on a group learning environment. If you consider their world at this age, it is typically very social: learning through play and social interaction in preschool and kindergarten, play dates with friends or perhaps beginning to try out team sports. Why should music lessons be any different?

Piano LessonsHowever, if you still need convincing, summer provides the ideal opportunity to try group lessons with our certified Yamaha instructors for a short time at very low cost: the perfect opportunity to “test the waters” with your child!

Rhythm and Rhyme (4 and 5 year olds) provides a four week introduction to singing, rhythm, the solfege and keyboard skills. Parents and students will also get a “sneak peak” into some activities offered in Yamaha Junior Music Course in September.

45 minute class
4-6 students per class
Parent participation required

Young Musician Primer (6-8 years): A four week introduction to the keyboard and rudiments of music in fun group atmosphere. Students may continue in Yamaha Young Musicians Course in the fall.

45 minute class
4-6 students per class
Parent participation optional

All classes are bargain priced at $99 for 4 weeks. Offered in Fairfax, Rockville and Sterling. Register online at http://www.keyboardcenter.com or call 1-800-968-4807

Pat Keithly,
Teaching Specialist
Yamaha Instructor
Studio Manager

Review of Yamaha T118 Upright Piano

Yamaha T118 Review

If you are currently a piano student, thinking of becoming one, or just looking for a quality upright piano for your home, the Yamaha T118 may just be a good fit.

Yamaha’s T118 Piano is a piano student’s dream. A quality Yamaha upright piano that doesn’t break the bank. Meticulously crafted from natural woods, the Yamaha T118 is an instrument of alluring beauty, excellent tone, and responsive touch.

As one of our top sellers, this piano provides a price to performance ratio that is unmatched by other entry-level pianos in the market today. The T118 arrives to your door seasoned specifically for the U.S. market, with a sound and tone that should last a lifetime. Yamaha uses construction techniques on this piano most brands reserve for their high-end uprights. For one, Yamaha creates a permanent crown within the solid spruce soundboard that minimizes soundboard cracking. They also reinforce the crown in its soundboards by using ribs, each of which continue to the edge of the soundboard and are glued into the notched liner. These techniques allow the T118’s sound to hold true for very long periods of time.

Sound is very important even to new piano students, and the use of solid, quarter sawn spruce wood in the Yamaha T118 makes for the best amplification of sound, tone, and sustain. Keys are balanced individually to ensure uniform down weight pressure, giving this piano impressive touch and control that is consistent across the keyboard.

And as with all Yamaha acoustic pianos, the T118 comes with their 10 year limited warranty, covering defects in both materials or workmanship for up to 10 years from your date of purchase.

Finish options include: Polished Ebony, Polished Mahogany, and Polished Dark American Walnut.

For more information or for pricing, click here.

Our Yamaha makes it to the White House

Early last week we had the privilege of delivering a brand new Yamaha Grand Piano to the White House for the State Dinner. Yamaha artist John Legend was in attendance and played the beautiful piano to a crowd of A-listers, including the President and his family, the British Prime Minister, and many others.

You can see the piano in pictures from the event here.

My First Time on a Yamaha AvantGrand N3

A few weeks ago I learned that I was scheduled for a service to fix a pedal noise on a Yamaha AvantGrand N3. I learned that our electronic tech had been out and had determined it was an “acoustic” related problem. What that means is that although the AvantGrand is a digital piano, it has acoustic piano parts and functions. Yamaha calls it a hybrid piano, and I have learned that is a very accurate name for it. The piano has a grand piano action with wooden keys and the same moving parts as a concert grand. Digital sensors translate the movement of the keys and action parts to create a simulated digital piano sound.

In preparation for the service call, I decided to disassemble an AvantGrand N3 in our store to familiarise myself with this unique piano. Yamaha had e-mailed us an instruction manual which proved very useful in getting all the case parts off. Once I removed the circuit boards and sensors, I found myself looking at something that was very familiar to me, an acoustic grand action. I noticed that it was the very same mechanism that Yamaha uses in their concert grand pianos with just a few exceptions. There are no felt hammers since there are no strings that actually get struck. There are hammer shanks with steel weights on the ends of them with heavier weight in the bass gradually getting lighter towards the treble.

This very accurately replicates the way an acoustic action would feel. All other aspects of the action are exactly the same as those in acoustic pianos. I have been a concert tuner for twenty years working at venues like the Kennedy Center and Strathmore Music Center, since I had gone to the trouble of taking everything apart I couldn’t help but want to give the piano what we call a complete concert level “regulation”. This means getting the keys to respond with the optimum level of response and evenness of touch. When I was done I discovered I was at a piano that had the same feeling of a nine-foot concert grand. A concert grand that takes up less space and allows you to play anytime if you put on the headphones so you don’t bother your neighbors or sleeping family members.

The end of the story is that when I went out on the service call , I found the pedal problem was a simple matter of tightening and adjusting the pedal lyre braces. When I was finished I asked the client how she liked the piano? She was pleased with it overall, but said she wished I could change the way the action felt. After further discussion and evaluation I determined there were things I could do to adjust the touch so she would find the piano more to her liking . So just as I have done for world renowned concert artists on nine-foot grands, I was able to customize the touch of the AvantGrand to the needs of it’s owner. There is no other digital piano on the market that could be adjusted with such precision. The AvantGrand N3 truly is a Hybrid grand piano. You get the advantage of advanced digital technology like Midi as well as the touch and response of a full concert grand, the best of both worlds ! I recommend players of all levels should come into one of our stores and check out these remarkable new instruments, you really need to feel it and hear it for yourself.

Robin B.Olson RPT