😇Happy Monday! Are you enjoying the cool and crisp air!? Finally it feels like fall 🍁!
So, yesterday, I went to my dear friend and collegue, Clara Zhang’s studio in the UES to rehearse Libertango by Piazzolla and many other pieces for our upcoming musical events.
I feel we’ve made some progress and improvements since the last post (rehearsal)😌
🤨what do you think, guys!?🤓
🎁Music is such a gift (sorry for being so cliche). And it becomes more fun and meaningful with a great company—that’s why we practice and play the musical instrument. You can touch the screen of any digital devices and listen to the music any time you want, but there is NOTHING quite like performing the music you love whether it’s done by ear or through score. NO PERFECTION IS NECESSARY when you are having fun!
Curious about playing the piano on the spot whether by ear or sight-reading? What is your dream 🎹 piece to learn? 👇👇👇
I ❤️ helping students unlock what music means to them. I teach 🎹 to help them find joy in expressing themselves and making their own personal connection with 🎵.
#pianolesson #pianoplayer #pianoteacher #pianists #musicmatters #musiclessons #musicislife #musicisair #musicislifeismusic #pianostudio #virtualpianolesson #onlinepianolesson
Brrrrr…it was so chilly 🥶 yesterday!
Had not worn this coat for 19 months! Quickly caught up with friends in downtown Brooklyn.Downtown BK was as awesome as before. I ❤️Brooklyn!
📣to my friend, Clara, for giving me this cool mask! I feel so stylish 😎🆒
#Brooklyn #pianoteacher #pianist #pianolesson #pianolessons #pianoplayer
🎉 Happy 147th Birthday to Mr. Charles Ives!
An American 🇺🇸modernist composer, one of the first American composers of international renown.
Born in Danbury, Connecticut on 20 October 1874, Ives pursued what is perhaps one of the most extraordinary and paradoxical careers in American music history.
Businessman by day and composer by night, Ives’s vast output has gradually brought him recognition as the most original and significant American composer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Inspired by transcendentalist philosophy, Ives sought a highly personalized musical expression through the most innovative and radical technical means possible. A fascination with bi-tonal forms, polyrhythms, and quotation was nurtured by his father who Ives would later acknowledge as the primary creative influence on his musical style. Studies at Yale with Horatio Parker guided an expert control overlarge-scale forms.
His known compositions are:
🎶The Unanswered Question
🎶Symphony No.4
🎶Three Places in New England
🎶Piano Sonata No.2
🎶Central Park in the Dark, Op.34
🎶Psalm 90
Check out my spotify playlist for October to listen to some of the great works by Mr. Ives HERE!
#playlist #piano #pianomusic #classicalmusic #contemporaryclassicalmusic #charlesives #podcaster #pianoteacher #pianists #musicmatters #musicislifeismusic
🔥Libertango 💃🏻🕺! Almost ready 😅😎
So, yesterday, I went to Clara’s studio in the UES to rehearse our duo piece again and met Aggeliki, beautiful Jazz singer (who is not on the video), for our upcoming events for the holiday season!
I feel we’ve made some progress and improvements since the last post (rehearsal) with Libertango, don’t you think!? 🤨🤓
🎁Music is such a gift (sorry for being so cliche). And it becomes more fun and meaningful with a great company—that’s why we practice and play the musical instrument. You can touch the screen of any digital devices and listen to the music any time you want, but there is NOTHING quite like performing the music you love whether it’s done by ear or through score. NO PERFECTION IS NECESSARY when you are having fun!
Curious about playing the piano on the spot whether by ear or sight-reading? What is your dream 🎹 piece to learn?
I ❤️ helping students unlock what music means to them. I teach 🎹 to help them find joy in expressing themselves and making their own personal connection with 🎵.
#pianolesson #pianoplayer #pianoteacher #pianists #musicmatters #musiclessons #musicislife #musicisair #musicislifeismusic #pianostudio #virtualpianolesson #onlinepianolesson
🎂Happy Birthday, Franz Liszt! 👩🎤
He was the rock star (literally) of the Classical Music world — not only because he was really a prodigy but also because he revolutionalized the art of performance!
Before Franz Liszt, no one thought a solo pianist could hold anyone’s attention, let alone captivate an audience. Liszt set out across Europe in 1839 to prove the conventional wisdom wrong. As part of that mission, he made a radical decision to never bring his scores onstage.
For example, before Liszt, it was considered almost arrogant to play the piano by memory as if you were pretending that the piece you were playing was by you. On the contrary, Liszt saw that playing the piano was a theatrical event that needed not just musical things happening but physical things on the stage.
Liszt deliberately placed the piano in profile to the audience so they could see his face. He was the first performer to walk out from the sides of the concert hall to take his seat at the piano and perform. Everything we recognize about the modern piano recital, Liszt did first. Even the name “recital” was his invention.
But Liszt walked away from it all in his 30s. He once considered the priesthood in his teens, so he was never going to be satisfied just with pleasing the audience.
Liszt became interested in conducting, and he re-defined that role of conductors. He started to work with individual musicians to help them shape the sounds that he was after.
Liszt would go on to compose around 1,400 works. He died in 1886, but all through the 20th century and till this day, his influence could be heard through compositions and perforamances of the contemporary musicians.
In 2021, his art form and compositions performed by a plethora of musicians in the world can be heard on our devices with a touch of a screen at any time of the day–so we take a genius of Liszt for granted. BUT, Liszt was and still IS a sensational, innvative and sometimes controversial figure in the music world, and we all should respect, admire, and appreciate.
Art takes courage, hard work, consistency, and innovation. Mr. Liszt, I bow to you.
That’s it for this week’s blog. Playing the 🎹 is SO FUN! But getting to the point of being able to have fun takes commitment and practicing! Yes, YIKES 😬. Nothing in this world is easy. Well, listen to your heart–sit right next to yourself and listen what she/he really want to do. If she/he tells you they want to take a step forward, now you are gonna have to push away your comfort PJs, pillows, and couches and take an action!
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