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Category Archives: Piano News
Piano floats above London in spectacular crane delivery
via the Daily Mail
It may be an expensive way to move a piano, but it will certainly save you from a bad back.
A large black instrument was spotted dangling from a crane outside a Docklands apartment in east London because it was too large to fit up the stairs of the building.
Workmen were seen guiding the behemoth down on to the balcony of the flat it was being loaded into while what appeared to be fellow residents enjoyed the sight from the rooftops, taking videos for good measure.
This huge crane was spotted hoisting a piano high above buildings in Docklands, east London, pictured, for delivery to a flat.
Workmen can be seen on the balcony of the apartment helping to guide the instrument down while others take videos of the strange sight.
But the practice is actually quite common with several piano moving firms offering the use of everything from mini-cranes to 150-tonne machines depending on the size and weight of the instrument.
There are several factors movers have to consider when using a crane, including how close a vehicle can get to the delivery building, whether a piano has ton be lifted over a roof and whether there are any trees, cables or other obstacles in the way.
Firms are legally required to complete a pre-approved lifting plan and all jobs have to pass health and safety inspections.
Most firms also specialise in window removal in case the building does not have a balcony, with crews of workers on hand to fix everything after the delivery is complete.
Read more here
Or to see pianos that don’t need a crane for delivery, visit here…
Yamaha piano in Disneyland is one of world’s most played pianos
Strolling up Main Street U.S.A. at Disneyland, one can’t help but hear the sounds of ragtime music drifting from the Refreshment Corner where there sits a pianist tinkling the ivories on one of the most played pianos in the world.
The Yamaha model YUS1 upright the pianist plays has been faithfully making those melodic sounds since it was placed there more than five years ago, the latest in a long line of pianos at that spot for decades.
“These pianos will get played hours a day,” said David Durben, a piano service specialist with Yamaha Corporation of America.
Yamaha supplies all the musical instruments at the Disneyland Resort, and that includes pianos of all kinds, from grand pianos in settings like the Grand Califonian Hotel, to the one at the Refreshment Corner, where it sits, most days, outside — meaning the weather is a major factor in how the piano sounds.
“There’s a great deal of wool felt used in the piano’s moving parts, like its hammers. That wool felt swells and shrinks with the heat and especially with the humidity,” Durben said.
That humidity makes the felt heavier, and the piano harder to play, but the show must go on; the pianists know that on those days, they just have to play the keys harder.
While Disneyland specialists constantly maintain the piano, keeping it in tune, sometimes something, like the shank for a particular note’s hammer, will break. But that doesn’t put the piano out of action for very long.
“We provide Disney with spare parts. They can change out whole key sets in a matter of minutes,” Durben said.
Then the whole key set can go back to a shop for more extensive repairs while the pianist starts playing again.
The music they play ranges from ragtime, with the most requested song being “The Maple Leaf Rag,” according to “Ragtime” Robert Gillum, one of the regular pianists.
Besides ragtime, they also play many Disney songs, and when those are played, many visitors will start singing along and even make requests for specific Disney songs.
“‘Part of Your World’ from ‘The Little Mermaid’ is one of the most popular, and usually the girls who want to sing that, can sing, as they’re theater majors,” he said.
The ragtime pianists Disneyland employs are not the only ones to play the piano. Sometimes a guest will ask to play the piano, as 11-year-old Lacey Fuller of Plumas Lake, Ca., recently did when she stepped up to ask Gillum if she could try her hand at playing it.
He stepped out of the way as she sat down and started to play a ragtime tune. She did so well that she earned herself some applause from Gillum and the crowd around the piano. Gillum gave her a card with her name on it congratulating her on being an authentic ragtime pianist at Refreshment Corner.
Jordan Kitt’s supplies Bösendorfer to Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony
Jordan Kitt’s Music was the proud supplier of the Bösendorfer concert grand to the Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony for 1965 Voting Rights Marches Foot Soldiers. 2015 marked the 50th anniversary of the 1965 Civil Rights Selma marches that motivated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In commemoration of the protestors, or “foot soldiers,” the Office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives held a Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony to congratulate Civil Rights Activist Frederick D. Reese. The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest honor for civilians.
Skip to the 27 minute mark to see the performance.
Baby goes to sleep to Dad playing piano
I think we went to sleep while posting this. If you’d like to put your baby to sleep with the warmth of piano music, learn how to play today at Jordan Kitt’s Music School!
Teen plays piano without hands
Via the telegraph…
A Russian teenager who was born without hands has been recorded playing River Flows in You by South Korean pianist Yiruma.
In the video shot last month, Alexey Romanov plays the entire song despite having no fingers to press the keys.
Alexey, who is from Zelenodolsk, Russia, taught himself how to play the piano by simply listening to how the chords should sound.
Watch his remarkable piano playing in the video above.
Elton John performs to London commuters on a Yamaha piano
via CBS news
How would you feel about an impromptu piano performance to brighten up your dreary commute?
Not so enthused? What if that performance was by Elton John?
That’s exactly what happened to London commuters traveling through St. Pancras International station. John sat in front of a piano in the middle of the station and played a brand new Yamaha piano that he donated to the station.
He wrote on Instagram, “Surprise!! I popped into St Pancras International to christen the Yamaha piano which I donated to the station. Now everyone can have a play.”
He also wrote on top of the piano, “Enjoy this piano. It’s a gift. Love, Elton John.”
He captioned a photo of the piano on Instagram: “My gift is my song and this piano’s for you,” a reference to lyrics from “Your Song” that say, “My gift is my song and this one’s for you.”
A witness told the Guardian that John did not sing and only played for about five minutes before leaving. He was also seen greeting a British transport police employee, and giving the man a kiss on the cheek and an autograph.
John will appear on James Corden’s “Late Late Show” on Super Bowl Sunday for what’s sure to be a legendary edition of “Carpool Karaoke.”
It’s never too late to learn piano!
86-year-old piano student says passing grade one was a ‘pleasant surprise’
IT took him three attempts throughout his lifetime to start learning to play but a Ryfields Village resident once christened ‘The One Man Band’ has now passed his grade one piano exam aged 86.
Jack Skelland says he tried to learn to play in the 1940s before a second attempt in 1984 and now hopes it will be third time lucky after starting lessons with tutor Ralph Wheatley in March last year.
Jack added: “When you’re younger you get involved in other things and I had to cut my lessons short in 1984.
“I got the piano a year after moving into Ryfields five years ago and just thought if I don’t learn now I never will.
“I wanted to have a go at an exam but thought I had made a mess of it.
“I was rather jittery and nervous going it so I was pleasantly surprised when I found out I had done it.”
Jack, who puts his love of music down to his mum singing around the house, admits his first love was the drums playing in a jazz band at The Cherry Tree in Culcheth.
He says ‘domestic matters’ lead to him selling his drum kit before he played the trombone with the Warrington Silver Band in the 1960s, had lessons to play the clarinet, the tenor horn and joined the George Formby Society playing the ukulele.
Jack, who started out as as an apprentice compositor at James Wood on Sankey Street in the 1940s before a number of different jobs and eventually retired at Risley Atomic, said: “It feels great learning the piano but I just regret now I didn’t stick with it earlier.
“My heart wasn’t in it then but I wish I had gone for a career in music looking back over my life.
“I used to be a bit of a square peg in a round hole but I want to do as many grades as I can now as you never know how long you have got left.
“I’m looking forward to playing more when I feel more confident.”
Tutor Ralph, 53 and lives on Manchester Road, said it had been a ‘pleasure’ teaching Jack.
He added: “After the lesson, our roles reverse and Jack educates me in music and puts some of his big band records on.
“I’ve taught around eight other members of his family but in 35 years of teaching I’ve never had anyone of Jack’s age come to me.
“He got an easy pass scoring 115 with a 100 pass mark and there’s a strict marking regime so they wouldn’t treat Jack any different to the five-year-olds I have taught and who have taken the exam.”
One-handed pianist proves the critics wrong
NICHOLAS McCarthy was told as a teenager that he was wasting everyone’s time by trying to learn the piano with only one hand.
But the 26-year-old has proved the critics wrong, becoming the first one-handed pianist to complete their studies at the Royal College of Music and last month releasing his first album.
McCarthy, who was born without his right hand, achieved his ambition by playing music written specifically for the left hand, including works by the Austrian composer Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm in the First World War.
He says a combination of “clever writing by the composer and fast passage work and footwork on the pedal” combine to create the illusion that there are two hands playing.
A 90-minute recital is physically exhausting and McCarthy reveals he must work out physically and well as put in hours on daily practice to perform to the high standard required of the world classical concert circuit.
“The stamina is the difficult thing I find and I do a lot of running to keep that stamina as high as possible so I can cope on stage,” he says.
Remarkably, McCarthy, who’s from Tadworth, Surrey, didn’t start piano until he was 14. “I come from a very unmusical family; my family are just normal hard working people,” he says.
“Classical music never crossed my mind as I hadn’t been exposed to it.
“Then all of a sudden at 14 I heard a friend of mine, who was a very accomplished pianist, playing Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata.
“I found it amazing and decided there and then I wanted to become a concert musician.”
He has never let his disability hinder his ambition and even at a young age showed determination in becoming the first child on his neighbourhood to ride a bike without training wheels.
“People would expect me not to bother or not succeed and I was always determined to prove them wrong. That part of my personality obviously helped me succeed with the piano.”
His advice to other people with disabilities is to believe that “anything is possible”.
“With hard work and determination they can achieve their goals by focusing and keeping that momentum going in their head and not listening to others saying they can’t do it.”
An ambassador for several music education charities, McCarthy will be making his Irish premiere this weekend at the Belfast International Arts Festival and also giving a workshop to young people.
“I like exposing young people to classical music because many, like I did, automatically think they don’t like classical music,” he says.
And his advice on teaching children piano?
“The biggest problem is keeping students interested and intrigued until they are at a standard where they can play more difficult pieces. Rather than force them to play Bach, if you can hone their technique through a piece they recognise and enjoy you are going to get them to go to the piano on their own accord and practice.”
McCarthy’s album, entitled Solo, offers a snapshot of the repertoire that exists for the left hand as well as paint a portrait of him as a future composer, with three of his own arrangements. He is keen to further develop this side of his music.
“I won’t be composing a symphony, rather writing music that people can relate to and music which makes them happy,” he says.
While already in talks about about a new album, McCarthy is content with his gradual rise to fame.
After 300 Years Of Evolution, Has The Piano Reached Acoustic Perfection?
via Gizmodo
The modern piano evolved rapidly in the first 150 years after its invention, but it is now so good, acoustically, that it probably won’t change much more in the future.
That’s the conclusion of acoustician Nicholas Giordano, dean of Auburn University’s College of Sciences and Mathematics in Alabama. He described his work last month at a meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Jacksonville, Florida.
Giordano’s interest in the instrument dates back to first learning how to play piano as an adult, when his teacher introduced him to Baroque composers like Bach. Giordano decided to build his own harpsichord so he could play Bach on a period instrument, thereby experiencing what the music sounded like in the composer’s era. He enjoyed the project so much that he kept at it, acquiring early pianos and rebuilding them in his spare time. His collection now numbers 21 instruments, the oldest of which is a close relative to the harpsichord, the bentside spinet, dating back to 1703 (when Bach was just a teenager).
That experience has given him valuable insight into how the instrument has evolved from its earliest days.
Bartolomeo Cristofori, instrument maker to the Medici family in Florence, Italy, built the first piano 300 years ago. It was very similar to the harpsichord, except with a harpsichord the strings are plucked (like a guitar), and with the piano the strings are struck with a hammer. Christofori figured out how to control how hard the player could press the key, thereby varying the volume of each tone.
Instrument makers spent the next three centuries improving on this design. According to Giordano, the earliest pianos only had 49 notes, covering four octaves. It was good enough for Bach and his contemporaries, but Mozart might have found that range a bit too limiting; by his time, the range had expanded to five octaves.
By the time Beethoven rolled around in the early 1800s, he had a full six octaves (73 notes) to work with, and piano makers had also added the ability of vary the loudness of notes. The pianos of Beethoven’s era also had sturdier construction and higher string tension; Giordano told Gizmodo that these innovations “led to expressive possibilities not possible within the harpsichord to organ.” (You can listen to audio clips of a Mozart sonata being played on an old vs. modern piano here.)
Later composers like Brahms and Rachmaninoff composed for pianos “powerful enough to play with a full modern orchestra.” In addition, the modern piano design also has better “action” than those earliest instruments — that’s the mechanism that connects the key level to the hammer, which strikes the strings. It’s faster and more responsive today, which means the performer has much greater tonal control, further enhancing the expressive possibilities. Louder sounds meant more reverberation, and led to stronger cases: metal plates are now added to strengthen the case.
Modern pianos have seven octaves (plus a minor third, for a total of 88 notes), and that’s where it’s stayed for the last 150 years, even though the human ear is sensitive to a much wider range of frequencies than those covered by the piano’s keys. Giordano thinks this is because of how human beings perceive notes beyond the piano’s range. Below that range, most people hear the notes as decidedly un-musical clicks. Above the piano’s range, we can’t pick up combinations of two or more notes to form chords.