Learning piano

Someone asked me the other day about when I began learning the piano. It's so long since I began - something like 63 years - that I have no memory of learning how to move around the keyboard, or of learning to read the notes. Somewhere along the line I found I was able to sightread more readily than some musicians, and that led me into a career (professional for a short time, but mostly amateur) as an accompanist and repetiteur. Not everyone goes this way: there are just as many, if not more, musicians who learn to play more by ear than by reading. It has its advantages and disadvantages: once you've got the notes under your belt you can sit down and play most popular music with relative ease, but it also means that you never quite learn to read as comfortably as you might.

I don't envy anyone beginning piano. Though children are more natural at learning than many adults, learning the piano is still a major undertaking. Instrumentalists who play only a single note at a time, look on with wonder at pianists (or organists, or anyone who plays a keyboard instrument) because there are so many notes going on all the time. Pianists probably often wish they had only one note to play at a time: by comparison with what they have to do, this would be a piece of cake!

Accompanying and pianos

Due to a fellow-accompanist having a serious problem with one of his eyes, and needing to rest for a few weeks, I've inherited a bunch of accompaniments for the upcoming Cleveland Awards on Sunday week, and the junior singing competitions a couple of weeks later.  On top of that I'm going to be rehearsing with a clarinettist (not the same one as last year) whose usual accompanist is away for several weeks.

Suddenly having to learn a bunch of pieces, some of which are actually making me work.  It's very good for me, but it's a serious intrusion into my otherwise quiet and moderately-paced life as a retired person.

One thing about accompanying singers in these situations is that it's all acoustic: we don't have any of the difficulties of dealing with amplifiers (one of our major bugbears at church) or M-Audio microphones or the like.  Acoustic is good.  You come to appreciate it more and more when you have to deal with a battery of techno gear, much of which refuses to work as it should because it's been plugged in where it doesn't want to be.  And so on.

On the other hand, in favour of something technical: during the winter I tend to practice on the electronic piano we bought for the musical last year.  I can do that in a warmer part of the house: the baby grand is on the cold side of the house, in a room that only gets sun in the later part of the afternoon (which means, in winter, not a long patch of sun at all).  The only tricky thing about this is that I've felt for some time that there was perhaps a slight difference in width of the keys on the electronic piano as compared to the baby grand.  It turns out to be fractional, but I'm sure it makes a difference!  As a pianist I should be used to pianos in all shapes and sizes, and I've certainly played some doozies in my time: ones with missing notes, or notes that stick, or ivory broken or gone completely; ones that are plainly out of tune, or haven't been tuned in many moons, ones that have no 'give', or no depth, or no volume, or no guts.

And then of course there have been some beauties.  While in New Plymouth for the Brass Band solo competitions last week, I played on three very nice pianos.  One was the grand in the hall where the Slow Melody contest was held.  It was a delight. and unfortunately I didn't get another opportunity to use it.  The other two pianos, both uprights, one that we practised on and one that was the performance piano, were both good quality with no flaws.  It makes a huge difference when you're playing for a competition; nothing is more off-putting than having to deal with a piano's 'issues' while trying to do your best for a soloist!

Hectic weekend

Spent the bulk of last Saturday at the Brass Band provincial contests.  I'd mentioned in a previous post how I was supposed to be playing Variations on a Welsh Theme, and how the soloist had had to pull out.   What was the first piece I heard on arriving at the competition?  Variations on a Welsh Theme, being played (and very nicely too) by someone else.

As has been the case with most days recently, it was beautiful and hot on Saturday, and many of the brass banders would have been happy to have sat outside relaxing, I think, instead of having to perform before audiences.  Still most of them survived, and we had some good placings amongst the folk I played for, including two or three firsts.

In the evening my wife and I went to a 6 pm showing of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel which has a cast that most directors would die for: director John Madden somehow managed to corral them all together for this relatively slight piece that's made enjoyable because of the people in it.  It concerns a disparate group of oldies who independently decide to take up the offer of a particular Indian hotel to accommodate them in what is effectively an old people's home without the use of that phrase.

Judi Dench takes a leading role, along with Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith, Celia Imrie, Penelope Wilton and Ronald Pickup.  Dev Patel, from Slumdog Millionaire, is the hotel's young proprietor, a man with more ambition and ideas than commonsense.   Of course all works out well in the end - for him, anyway.  One or two or the oldies come a bit unstuck in the process.  Penelope Wilton, unfortunately, is saddled with the role of a whining woman who just never shifts from that position.  It's not far from her rather petulant mother in Downton Abbey, and it would have been nice to see her in a different kind of role.

Sunday, after church in the morning, I went to the rehearsal for Grimhilda!  Things are a long way from perfection, but we're getting there.  I've been acting as répétiteur (the common name for rehearsal pianist, but used less now than it used to be) for the rehearsals, and it's interesting to find that even though I wrote the music there are times when I don't seem to be hitting the notes too well.  Of course, when the music was being written, I was playing it all the time.  Now that the writing is some months behind me, it's becoming like any piece of music does when you don't practice it regularly: a bit slapdash.  Still, répétiteurs commonly don't play all the notes, so I'm not doing anything unusual!


At the rehearsal last night I took a photo of the Parrot in his (still to be slightly amended) costume: you've no doubt already noticed the photo.  It's not the best picture, and we'll get some better ones done in due course - this is just to give you a taste of the colour of this particular costume...


On Sunday evening, I had to play for a local singer, Sarah Oliver, in a concert put on by the NZ Foundation Youth Pipe Band.   The band was doing a very quick tour of NZ (four rather scattered centres) and then heading off to Sydney for an Australian contest.  Sarah was a guest artist, as had been other singers in other centres.   The rest of the concert consisted of performances by the NZFYPB - a group of young pipers and drummers from around the country, some dancers and a local pipe band from John McGlashan College. 


Sarah and I ensconced ourselves in a small dressing room, with the door shut, because the noise of the pipes in a theatre that size was pretty loud and made its way through all parts of the building.  The pipers were a talented bunch, there's no doubt, as were the drummers.  Very sharp and accurate and in general a credit to New Zealand.  I hope they're doing well in Oz. 


I got home about 10.30 feeling as though I'd done my dash for the week....

Variations on a Welsh Theme

Years ago, when I first began to accompany brass band soloists at their competitions, I was given a piece called Variations on a Welsh Theme to play.  The theme for the variations is the beautiful melody, Watching the Wheat.  The soloist at that time was a youngish Eb cornet player - this is the instrument with the highest range in the brass band - and the soloist was superb.  (Unfortunately, family and work commitments have gradually forced him to put aside his work with the band.)

I really loved playing this piece.  At the time, most of the band accompanying I was doing was with hackneyed pieces that everyone had heard for a hundred years, or old-style variations with accompaniments that were tedious to play, to say the least.

However, these Variations seem to have been written for a soloist and piano, rather than the latter being a transcription of the full brass band accompaniment.  Which meant it lay under the fingers well, and could be played to full effect.  Apparently the composer, Peter Kneale, was an accomplished pianist, as well as having been a brass band conductor for a number of years.  He developed tinnitus and gave up conducting but carried on as a teacher until his retirement.

He grew up in the banding world, coming from an Isle of Man family with a great enthusiasm for brass bands.  He also had an interest in jazz, and some of his compositions reflect this.   He has published songs, but seems to best known for his pieces for brass.  Jazzamatazz, which started out life with a different and less striking name, is one such, and Blue John is a piece for trombone.

Anyway, all this is an introduction to the fact that tomorrow I'm accompanying several soloists at the Otago Provincial Brass Band competitions, which are in Dunedin this year.  (They were in Roxburgh last year.)  One of the soloists was going to play the Variations, and we practised it, and then she texted me a few days later to say that it clashed with a test (presumably a University test) and she'd had to pull out.  Very disappointing.  There aren't many pieces in the competitions that are written with a piano in mind, though some of them are still quite satisfying to play.  The piece I played in Sydney last month, Rustiques, by Eugène Bozza (photo at left), was also written for a brass instrument and piano, which made a big difference to the level of skill I could bring to playing it.  When the accompaniment is a transcription, you're often forced to leave out various notes because the human hands just can't manage them all, and often the sound the piano produces isn't ideal for playing the particular piece.  


So sadly, I won't be getting another go at the Variations at the moment.  Pity, it would have made my day!  

Concerts & Grimhilda

Must be the season for concerts. This Saturday I'm playing for a couple of singers at Claire Barton's Farewell Concert in the Town Hall. Probably the last time I played on that stage would have been when Claire was in Opera Alive, the young singers' group that I accompanied for about seven years.

The last time I sang there, on the other hand, was about a fortnight ago, when Sunny Side Up performed some numbers at the RSA choir concert. And a few days after that we had the Heavenly Choirs concert in Knox Church.

The weekend after this one, I'm playing for a bunch of singers at St Peter's Church in Hillside Rd; this time it's a fundraiser for a little girl called Daryl Ann. And then beyond that there are several more concerts, major and minor, over the period leading up to Christmas. Anyone would think I was retired and had nothing else to do.

But talking of other things to do, this afternoon, I got together with the person who collaborated on the script of Grimhilda! to nut out things like finding funding and thinking about auditions and rehearsal rooms and contacting a variety of people about this, that and the next, and looking at a budget and...well, suffice to say that after three hours we were both exhausted with it all.

It would help if people would ring you back straight away when you miss them on the first call, instead of having to ring them again...and again...or email them and still not get an answer to something that is probably quite straightforward. But becomes a thing you have to remember to do again when you miss them the first time around.

Incidentally, in the concert I'm playing at on the 27th, I'm presenting a selection of music from Grimhilda! - her first public airing. Should be interesting...(so be there!)

Debut

Last night, at the RSA Choir concert (that's the Returned Services Association Choir) I made my debut as a singer with the acapella group, Sunny Side Up. I wrote about them back in May after going to a concert in which they were one of several singing groups. At the time I said to my wife, if I was going to join any singing group, it would be them. At a meal with several people a couple of weeks later, three of whom were members of SSU, the subject of me thinking about joining them came up, and a week later I'd started going to their Sunday afternoon rehearsals. And then a couple of weeks later my wife started to come too.

I've always enjoyed singing, and though New Zealand society on the surface seems to imply that it's not a thing for males to do, plenty of them around the country do it. In fact the two soloists at the concert last night were young men, and the 50-plus RSA choir is (still) all male. (There's another all-male choir here in Dunedin too: the Royal Male Choir, and plenty of secondary schools have male choirs.)

I grew up in a Catholic family, so we always sang at church - admittedly it was the same half dozen songs, year in and year out, taken off a cardboard sheet that had been printed before I was born, I suspect; it was still in use when I left my home town in the 60s. And as a young pianist I used to sing my way through complete musical comedy scores. No one ever commented that it didn't sound that hot, but I suspect it didn't always.

And then I was continually involved with singers from my teenage years, as an accompanist - that's continued to this day. After my wife and I came back from overseas we joined a Pentecostal Church, where the singing could go on for half an hour or more before the preacher got up to speak. So singing's 'in the blood' as it were.

The only time I've ever sung solo in a concert, that I can remember, was maybe 15 years ago when a group I was involved in presented a night of George Gershwin songs. The director had found one called 'Blah blah blah blah blah' (yup!) and as a bit of a joke, I sang it and accompanied myself. I think it put that particular director off my singing for good: he's never encouraged me to sing since...

Anyway, as a member of the thirty-plus-strong SSU, my singing blends, (read: doesn't stand out). I wondered once or twice last night if a note I was singing wasn't quite what the rest of the basses were singing, but the notes still seemed to harmonise!

SSU music is often lively, and in the slower songs, full of striking harmonies. My wife and I have heard the group on a number of occasions over the years, and have always been attracted to their particular sound. Last night we sang a couple of African-based songs (easy for the basses: we provide an ongoing rhythmic line underneath), a fabulous arrangement of Total Praise, the powerful Up Above My Head and a joyful spiritual. And we sing again on Sunday, at Knox Church, along with several other choirs. Different songs, mostly, so it's quite a full-on week for the group.

The RSA itself was in good form, though we missed the first part of the first half of the show, being backstage getting ready. I particularly liked Shenadoah and Cwm Rhondda (which was sung in its English version: Guide me, O thou great Jehovah). Some of the faster songs suffer a bit from so many voices trying to get their tongues around lots of words in a way that's tidy, but there seemed to be plenty of energy in the choir, which is great - the oldest singer is ninety (!)

The two soloists were Ben Madden and Alex Wilson, and, from what I heard of them, these are splendid pair of voices, with promising careers ahead of them.

How do you say No?

In years past I used to accompany soloists from the Saints, one of the local brass bands. That came to a sudden end due to economic reasons, I think, and since then I’ve only spasmodically had anything to do with them. However, one of the trombonists is a buddy of mine from church, I see a 'retired' member of the band waiting at the same bus stop most nights, and their principal cornet player, John Lewis, seems to like my accompanying and has asked me to play for him on several occasions, so I’m still in infrequent contact with them.
It's slightly surprising that he still asks me to play, as on one of the more important occasions when I last played for him, I played the introduction with a sharp or flat extra. Not a good start, but we recovered, as old pros do.
John has just rung me tonight, and asked if I’d be interested in playing for him and a few others in the Invercargill Regional Comps, to be held in April. It’s a chance to do some playing for something particular, rather than just sitting at home practicing my scales (!), but I’ll also be rehearsing for the play by that time, which means I’ll have a bit on my plate.
I don’t want to join the wine club (sorry, whine club) but I have to think about how much time commitment is involved.
The play isn’t too involved, as far as I’m concerned – and I do need to keep my fingers in motion, so…
So I’m sitting debating whether I should be saying No, or whether I just do what I do in other years and go for it. Hmmm.

Scoring for the orchestra

People who’ve been reading this blog for a while may have noticed that I have a bit of an anti-thing about Douglas Lilburn, who’s currently classed as a Great New Zealand Deceased Composer. In fact, he may even be The GNZDC.
As I’ve said on a number of occasions I find most of his music lacking in something. Not all of it – his earlier pieces have some energy about them, but as he got older things seemed to get less and less lively (I hesitate to call them lifeless), and then, of course, he went down the dead end of electronic music.
Anyway, all this is by way of mentioning that at the Regent Non-Book Sale last Saturday, I actually found a Lilburn score. A full score, in fact. I would have picked up more full scores (mostly in miniature form) if the woman in front of me hadn’t been hunting desperately for them. So desperately that she was tossing anything that wasn’t a miniature score to one side in a heap. I can never understand why people do that to books or music in a sale. It damages what are often already fragile items, and shows a complete lack of concern for other buyers.
However, I managed to snaffle the Lilburn. It’s a conductor’s score, rather than a miniature, and getting it for $3 was quite a bargain, I guess. Even though it was Lilburn (!). I did pick up one miniature score as well, Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.
I was interested in getting the scores, because it’s good to see what composers actually write when they’re producing full orchestral scores. Often the details are quite different to what you hear, and often you wonder why is there so much detail. Is it just to give the musicians something to do? Or to fill in the gaps? Or to add volume? It’s hard to know.
My one and only recent foray into the orchestral world – in terms of playing in the orchestra rather than composing for them – was when I played the piano part in Vaughan Williams’ Sinfonia Antarctica. The piano does quite a bit of work at times in this symphony, but to be honest, 60 to 70% of it goes unheard in terms of detail. It’s filler stuff, added to give depth to the orchestral sound. This was just as well, as not being the world’s best orchestral player, I often found it hard to keep to the conductor’s beat, and consequently was playing to a rather different drummer than the rest of the orchestra on more than one occasion.
There’s an advantage in being hidden under dozens of other orchestral sounds, of course. You note it most particularly when you’re suddenly not hidden. That’s really scary.
After that I was determined to stick to solo playing, or accompanying. That I know how to do.