Assaff Weisman wins Iowa Piano Competition

28-year-old Iranian Assaff Weisman won the 2006 Iowa Piano Competition this month, and wins $7,500 and a glass plaque.

When speaking of the finalists, Doug Gerhart, Sioux City Symphony Orchestra executive director, told of their professionalism

“They’re tremendous artists but also fine human beings,” Gerhart said.

Contest finalist Dmitri Shelest, a Ukraine native, said, “it’s always nice to be in a good, friendly environment.”

Prior to the winners being announced the trio of Weisman, Sean Kennard of Philadelphia, and Shelest of Highland Heights, Ky., hung out backstage as a close-knit group.

When it was announced that Shelest took third place the crowd gave a rousing applause.

Kennard then stepped forward to take second place, receiving a pat on the back from Weisman, who told him, “I’ll see you out there.”

It is unknown when the three musicians will meet again. But when they do, Weisman said, “the results will be different. I was surprised that I won.”

Link

Writing opportunities at Piano and Synth blog

Are you passionate about pianos? Simply ecstatic about synths?

Would you like to write about keyboard instruments and music technology to a growing audience, and maybe earn some cash for doing it?

If so, then a position here at the Piano & Synth blog may be waiting for you!

Here’s the deal:

• Write as often or as little as you like, on any subject related to pianos, keyboard instruments, computer-based music, synthesizers, pianists and synth musicians, composers, music theory and technique.
• Get your writing on a site currently with a Google PageRank of 5, part of the growing Blue Fish Network of independent niche sites, and visited by around 100-150 unique visitors per day, plus feed subscribers, and growing.
• Earn 100% AdSense revenue on your own article pages*.
• Link to websites you own.
• Add your own affiliate links**.
• Help shape the ongoing direction of the Piano & Synth site.

*AdSense account required, unless by prior arrangement in which case a channel on our account will be created to track your earnings.
**Subject to approval and within appropriate content.

If you are interested, please contact Andy Merrett with your name and at least two examples of articles on a relevant subject (min 200 words each).

I’ll make no promises that you’ll be accepted, but if you’re good and you’re passionate, then I look forward to hearing from you and possibly working with you in the future.

Update: Particularly after people who can share their experience with synths (inner workings, new, vintage, etc.) - my lack of expertise shows here and it would be cool to partner with one or more technical people.

Advice: Don’t dance on pianos

Just don’t.

Yamaha P140S: Up close and personal

Here are a few photographs of my lovely new Yamaha P140S digital piano. Click any thumbnail for a larger picture.

Angled front view of the digital piano. Note that it currently sits on a single Quicklok stand, which happily handles its distributed weight. I will be getting the accompanying stand, but it wasn’t in stock when I bought the piano. See that it happily takes 3 A4-size sheets of music.

Side view: You can see all 88 glorious keys laid out, complete with red felt backing, the two front speakers, and attractive curving of the corner pieces. You can also see the (including) piano-style damper (sustain) pedal.

Close-up of middle section of keys, control buttons and LED display, and wood effect backing.

Front right speaker close up: Speaker grille, keys, silver, and wood.

Slightly raised close-up view of central LED, buttons, keys, and silver and wood.

Looking closely at the buttons: Right-hand set of buttons controlling effects and selecting sounds.

Shiny, transparent music rest. The Yamaha symbol is translucent in natural light. Plenty of good grip for books and individual sheets of music.

Closer side-view of Yamaha P140S, dwindling daylight reflecting off the realistic keys.

Owners Manual (European edition).

Pet Shop Boys synthesizer history

Gareth Edwards has written a good article on the Pet Shop Boys synthesizer history, charting the many pieces of musical equipment they have used over the years to get their distinctive sounds.

It includes the Fairlight CMI, EMU Emulator, Akai samplers, PPG Wave, various Yamaha’s (including the TG500 module which I have used extensively), Roland TR808, and many more (not surprisingly) They’ve also recently adopted soft-synths to a large degree.

I thought it was interesting that the PSB programmer Pete Gleadall seemed almost embarrassed to admit that he’d used a Yamaha TG33, as this module was considered to be a ‘home’ device. Hey, if the sound works, use it!

Interesting journey if you’re interested in the Pet Shop Boys music and synths from the 1980s and 1990s.

Vintage Roland synth controller

Cox Electronics have produced ‘The Interpreter’ - “a small box which can be connected between any MIDI controller and a Roland JX-8P, alpha Juno1, alpha Juno2, HS-10, HS-80, MKS-50, MKS-70 or MKS-80 synthesizer.”

It effectively turns MIDI control change messages into System Exclusive (SysEx) messages, the only type that these older Roland synths understood.

Found via Gear Junkies

Yamaha CS80 detailed info website

A really useful site covering the Yamaha CS80 synthesizer, with information on panel controls, presets, and performance controls.

Found via DVDBorn

Extended techniques for piano?

I must admit that this post by Chris Foley at Collaborative Piano got me thinking and worrying about what ‘new music’ is doing to the beloved acoustic piano.

Here’s some things that some modern composers are calling for, as well as some of the workarounds required to achieve this:

• strings to be plucked with a plectrum
• it is necessary to put stickies inside the keyboard on the edge of the string
• Next, the piano part in Rose Bolton’s Netsuke calls for a dulcimer-like effect on the strings. I originally tried the ends of a pair of pencils, but couldn’t get the right sound. Next I stripped the erasers off the pencils to get more of a metallic sound, but Rose’s fine score called for a higher grade of metal. Finally I tried a pair of spoons from our Oneida everyday flatware set held on the spoon-end and played on the handle-end. Perfection, but again demanding a high level of accuracy
• one work that called for a metal chisel to be slid across one string in order to bend the pitch
• once where I was called to pluck strings with my finger, I used a Palm stylus to even better effect
• standing up and sitting down with one’s foot on the damper pedal

And I am sure these are tame.

Am I a purist (or maybe I’m not a purist in these enlightened days) ?

This strikes me as odd, and almost sacrilegious. Why do we have to do things to the piano that it wasn’t intended for?

I shiver to think of running chisels across piano strings.

Interesting thoughts, as I am sure is the music. At least it will never happen on my digital piano.

Yves Usson’s Synth DIY pages

I just found this cool site by Yves Usson called My Synth DIY pages which contains information about many years of synth-making, collecting, and an ongoing modular synth project.

Yves’ introduction begins:

When I was a teenager, back in the seventies I became fascinated by those weird sounding machines with those huge panels full of blinking light bulbs and knobs. My first encounter with music produced by Moog synthesizers where two radically different pieces: Popcorn (by Gershon Kinsley) and the original soundtrack of Clockwork Orange (by Wendy Carlos). This was really weird at this time but I sure knew that I liked that very much! The music I was listening to was that of bands like ELP, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Yes and so on… Then the Germans came ! Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream, Popol Vuh, Kraftwerk, Ash Ra Tempel : fascinating, hypnotic and repetitive. In parallel, some other really interesting musicians extended the realm of synth creativity : Tim Blake, Brian Eno, Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis and others.

Take a look.

Alesis Fusion: Carbon111’s first impressions

Carbon111 has posted first impressions on using the Alesis Fusion, generally favourably. Some interesting notes on programming the synth.

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