Quick Tip: Try a new voice and stir up your keyboard playing

I’ve got a Yamaha P140S digital piano at home, and for the most part I use the three main piano voices, depending upon what mood I’m in, but I tend not to use the other voices much.

Then the other day I decided to play around with the three electric piano voices, and in fact found that I loved them.

Not only did I love them, but it forced me to play in a different style.

Things that sound great on an acoustic piano don’t always work on an electric piano.

Similarly, things that a normal piano sound can’t give you (ringing echoes or shiny vibrato, for example) are natural on some electric piano sounds.

Of course, if you’ve got a synth you can choose pretty much any sound imaginable, but the beauty of picking other keyboard sounds is that the method of playing them is still natural.

That being said, there’s a big technique and performance difference between playing a piano, an EP, a harpsichord, or any other keyed instrument.

That’s not to say you can’t extend the concept and play a whole range of different sounds, but if you’ve got a digital piano with a few additional sounds, why not crack them open a bit more often than you usually do?

This is an especially good technique if you improvise a lot but have got stuck in a rut. Even if you end up playing the same chord structures, I bet you’ll find new ways of playing to suit the sound.

Experiment and have fun!

Popularity: 3% [?]

Steinway White House Pianos Pay Tribute to America

In a continuing celebration of its 156-year history, Steinway & Sons commemorates the Steinway piano as a cornerstone of American music and culture. Since 1853, Steinway pianos have captured hearts and inspired generations of Americans, from New York’s Tin Pan Alley, to the stages of legendary jazz clubs and renowned concert halls to Hollywood studios and countless family living rooms in between. Two instruments in particular are notable for their place in American history — the White House grand pianos of 1903 and 1938.

“We’ve always known that Steinway & Sons is a great American original,” said Todd Sanders, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Steinway & Sons. “By producing the finest handcrafted instruments available, our factory in Queens has contributed to a significant part of American culture for more than 156 years. Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers and Billy Joel, among many other legendary composers and performers, have all drawn their inspiration from the Steinway piano. We’re proud to take a moment to consider how important our company has been in our nation’s history. The White House pianos are also a great reminder of this.”

In 1903, to celebrate the creation of the company’s 100,000th piano – and the 50th anniversary of the firm’s founding – Steinway & Sons offered to transform its standard concert grand piano into an artwork suitable for use in the East Room of the White House. The “Gold Grand” was presented to the White House, and President Theodore Roosevelt accepted the $18,000 Steinway “on behalf of the nation.” The piano served through the administrations of Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, and Franklin Roosevelt; it was then donated to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History.

The second White House piano was built and presented to President Franklin Roosevelt in 1938 to commemorate the production of Steinway’s 300,000th piano. The new piano, designed by New York architect Eric Gugler, was more than nine feet long, with a case of Honduran mahogany and gold leaf by artist Dunbar Beck. Last renovated in 1992 during the administration of George H. W. Bush, the piano remains today in the East Room of the White House.

“Steinway & Sons pianos have always had a significant place in American popular culture,” said Dr. Richard K. Lieberman, Director of the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives, which houses the Steinway collection. “From references to Steinway in the lyrics of Irving Berlin to the enormous celebration of Steinway’s centennial put on by Ed Sullivan in 1953, the company and the pianos it produces have captured the American spirit. The White House pianos are just one example of how important these pianos have been to America.”

Popularity: 6% [?]

10 books to help your child learn to play piano and keyboard

Here are my recommendations for books that will help your child learn how to play the piano and keyboard, including identifying and playing notes and reading sheet music, plus some simple collections of children’s songs that you or your child can learn to play.

1. Usborne’s First Book of the Piano (with CD)

Featuring cute cartoons, large easy to use pages and diagrams, and plenty of well-known pieces of music to learn with, the Usborne First Book of the Piano is a great introduction to the piano for youngsters.

Buy The First Book of the Piano with CD

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2. Usborne’s First Book of the Keyboard

Has similarities to the “First Book of the Piano” but is great if you’ve just bought a child’s first electronic keyboard because it also covers the basic features found on most music keyboards.

Buy First Book of the Keyboard

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3. The Fantastic Big Book of Childrens Songs

A huge collection (67) of songs including some modern favourites: The Addams Family Theme, Blue’s Clues Theme, Bob the Builder, Linus and Lucy, SpongeBob SquarePants theme song, Thomas the Tank Engine and Welcome to the Blue House.

Buy The Fantastic Big Book of Childrens Songs

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4. Really Big Book of Children’s Songs

Another “big book” from the same publisher as above.

Buy the Really Big Book of Children’s Songs

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5. Very Easy Piano Tunes

A lovely book in the same style as Usborne’s First Book of the Piano, featuring a lot of easy to play traditional songs including Merrily We Roll Along, The Grand Old Duke of York, London Bridge is Falling Down, Home on the Range, Lavender’s Blue, Scarborough Fair and Auld Lang Syne.

Buy Very Easy Piano Tunes

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6. Disney’s My First Songbook for Easy Piano: 1

The first in a series of books that will help you to play Disney favourites, including Cruella De Vil, A Whole New World, The Bear Necessities, Under the Sea, Beauty and the Beast and more.

Very simple arrangements and delightfully presented.

Buy Disney’s My First Song Book for Piano

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7. The Big Book of Nursery Rhymes & Children’s Songs: 169 Classic Songs Arranged for Piano, Voice and Guitar

Also useful for those wanting to play the guitar, this is a huge collection of more traditional songs for you and your child to play and sing together.

Buy The Big Book of Nursery Rhymes & Children’s Songs

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8. Kid Songs: Easy Play for All Keyboards

Book can be used with piano and keyboard instruments and comes complete with coloured stickers for labelling the notes. It’s also well illustrated.

Buy Kid Songs: Easy Play for All Keyboards

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9. Progressive Electronic Keyboard for Young Beginners: Book 1 / CD Pack

The first in another series of electronic keyboard learning books. This one comes with an audio CD and features graded lessons using 20 well-known children’s songs as examples.

Buy Progressive Electronic Keyboard for Young Beginners: Book 1

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10. The Music People

Quite an old book (1980) and one that I grew up with. Cute cartoon notes and rests explain basic musical theory and example using the piano among other instruments.

The Music People

Popularity: 8% [?]

31 Brilliant Piano Photographs

Here are thirty-one really cool photos of upright and grand pianos, their innards and their surroundings, arty and close-ups.

Click on any of the photos to go to the original Flickr photostream and to view them in larger sizes — many benefit from being seen in much greater detail, particularly those of the insides of pianos.

Enjoy.

1. Grand Piano by Spojení

I love the perspective and colours on this grand piano. Spojení describes it as a “lousy picture” but I really like it.

2. Grand Piano by Kentfield

Yes, really is made out of LEGO. Ironic that this Grand Piano is in fact a tiny model.

3. Grand Piano by crabchick

Another grand piano’s inside here, again with lovely colouring. I love the patterns formed by the strings and how plush everything looks.

4. Grand Piano by unforth

A lovely ornate 19th grand piano, so decorative.

5. Miro Grand Piano by codepo8

Just love the colours and sense of fun of this Schimmel grand piano. Definitely one for the kids… of all ages.

6. Grand Piano by pajp

OK, it’s a really blurry and grainy shot but I still see something artistic in this piano.

7. Under the Hood by warrenski

Yes, another grand piano’s innards. More subtle colours to the previous photos.

8. The Piano by Arjun01

The interior of a baby grand piano, in black and white. Definitely click through to the full size image as the lines of the hammers and strings is pretty special.

9. Ivories by Jono Rotten

Photo of a weathered piano, dirtied keys, fading and bronzing of the ebony.

10. The Piano’s Been Drinking by Hryck.

A close up of damaged keys, this piano’s not in a happy state at all but it’s definitely artistic even if it would be uncomfortable to play.

11. Torley on Piano – awesomelicious art by Wynter Bracken

Just love the colouring on this art composition.

12. Piano Tombstone by NatalieMaynor

Definitely an original gravestone, this.

13. Piano Keys by mararie

These types of shots are very common, but I love the light falling on these keys and the texturing that comes out from them.

14. Piano by MaltaGirl

Lovely black and white shot of an upright piano.

15. Fats Domino’s Piano, Post Katrina by delgaudm

“In the Cabildo in Jackson SQuare, there is a small room with artifacts that will be included in a Katrina Exhibit. One of the items on display is Fats Domino’s piano. This was a practice piano of his, and is pictured on one of his album covers.”

16. Piano Keys by Gog Llundain

Another close-up of piano keys — F, F# and G — with texturing.

17. Dirty Piano Keys by eflon

Shouldn’t let a piano get into this state, but it’s a great shot nonetheless.

18. Piano Strings by easement

More lovely colours and geometry.

19. Chickering piano by ktylerconk

Close-up of the logo of this Chickering piano.

20. Hammer of Piano by Hoder Slanger

Close-up of a piano hammer mechanism.

21. 2 Remaining Pianos by Luiza

Graffiti on these pianos which have been placed outside. Very interesting shot.

22. Moo Piano by Frostey

Definitely decorated as a cow, this upright piano in the meeting house of Friends Camp, South China, Maine.

23. Piano by t.spang

Another piano in house surroundings, with great reflections coming from the polished body and lovely shadow effects.

24. Piano Keys by isaac bowen

A really clean shot of this keys close-up.

25. 2.16.09: ivory by Team Dalog

I really love the colouring, out of focus photo. “A set of keys that haven’t been tickled in a while, I must say. You can see middle C is a little lower than the rest of ‘em, and the reason for this is that it gets stuck all the damn time.”

26. My Love Affair With the Piano by cristina.m

Piano keys trailing into the distance. Lovely perspective and colouring here. The structure of the foreground keys is great.

27. Abandoned by eflon

This is probably the piano that yielded its dirty piano keys. Definitely abandoned. Great shot though.

28. A better class of busker? (mono) by Mrs Logic

This amazing photo definitely needs a closer look. Wonderful composition, bizarre setting.

29. Hammers and Brass by chelseagirl

Another really cool piano innards shot, golds and oranges.

30. The Pink Octave by active metabolite

Just love how this photo has been composed. Great colour.

31. Chords by sanbeiji

Superb close up of the piano strings.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Piano Craft: Miniature Piano Pendant Necklace

For the piano lover who wants to wear their passion as jewellery, how about this Miniature Piano Pendant Necklace.

Made from silver metal and hanging on a silver chain, It’s only $6.90 and definitely makes a slightly different statement.

Link

Popularity: 6% [?]

Jazz legend Chick Corea endorses the Yamaha AvantGrand hybrid piano

Legendary jazz pianist Chick Corea recently took Yamaha’s newly launched AvantGrand N3 hybrid piano for a “test drive.” Initially skeptical about the world’s first stringless piano to feature the sound, touch and action of a concert grand, the 67-year-old jazz superstar was quickly won over.

“My standard of comparison is the Yamaha CFIIIS concert grand piano with a gorgeous, beautiful sound, so I was a little apprehensive when I first saw the AvantGrand,” says the Yamaha Artist, who was recently named JazzTimes’ 2008 Artist of the Year.

“I thought, ‘look at this little thing, what’s it going to do?’ It blew me away,” recalls Corea. “I sat down and adjusted the volume to make it sound like a big piano and immediately went into reverence at the R&D department and how they pulled it off, because it’s quite an accomplishment.”

Priced at a fraction of the cost of a concert grand, the N3 features the exquisite sound of the acclaimed Yamaha CFIIIS concert grand piano in a stunning grand piano style cabinet.

Currently on tour as a member of the Five Peace Band, also featuring John McLaughlin, Corea will be making select solo appearances, including the Nice Jazz Festival in Nice, France and the Detroit Jazz Festival in Detroit, Michigan. He will also perform with Stanley Clarke and Lenny White for several dates in September.

“Once I started playing the AvantGrand and getting into the musical flow of it, I could lose myself in the music just like I like to do. I could certainly envision using this instrument in my louder bands, my electric bands.”

Fusing 21st century music technology with Yamaha’s century-long heritage of piano craftsmanship, the N3 features highly advanced sound reproduction and sampling technology, without the tuning, cost or footprint of a comparable stringed instrument.

One of the greatest challenges in creating a true acoustic piano experience electronically is to accurately re-create the vibrations integral to the playing experience. The AvantGrand Series are the first pianos to actualise the physical connection with their instrument that pianists could only experience – until now – with an acoustic grand.

Its innovative Tactile Response System transmits “string” vibrations through the keys to player’s hands. Even the foot pedal action became subject to Yamaha’s demanding criteria. In traditional pianos, resistance is created in proportion to how deep the pedal is depressed. To replicate this, Yamaha created a new, specialized grand piano pedal for AvantGrand that reproduces the finesse of acoustic pedals, duplicating the spring, friction and inertia of traditional pedals.

The placement of the four-channel, three-way Spatial Acoustic Speaker System mimics the points where the original grand piano samples were taken, while the Soundboard Resonator create a non-directional sound dispersion directly in front of the player, duplicating the subtle reproduction of the buildup of sound felt by concert pianists. These technologies combine to authentically re-create the depth of tone of the Yamaha nine-foot CFIIIS grand piano, the choice instrument of many of the world’s top musicians and performance venues.

In addition to the remarkable grand piano sound sample, the N3 also features electronic piano and harpsichord voices.

The AvantGrand N3 is slated to ship in July 2009. The AvantGrand N2 upright model will be available in September 2009. Both include a matching padded bench.

Popularity: 7% [?]

How to label and write notes on the piano keyboard: a basic guide

Introduction

I created this “How to label notes on the piano keyboard” article based on a reader’s question.

Karen writes:

My 10 year old daughter has a 54 key keyboard and is teaching herself to play it. She is already mastering the songs from Mary Poppins along with some current chart music using her own ear.

My problem is that she wants me to be able to label the keys for her with the letters and numbers, but I know nothing about this and from what I have found on the internet it just confuses me further. I have spent a long time reading stuff on the notes and octaves but got no further.

This guide will hopefully make it easy to create a system that not only works now but can be used as a stepping stone to reading and writing standard musical notation.

Basic Keyboard Layout

Before embarking on labelling the notes of the keyboard, it’s important to understand how the keyboard is laid out — its structure.

If you look at any keyboard you will see that it is made up of a repeating series of 12 keys. How many times that series repeats depends on how many keys the keyboard has overall.

Here’s one section of a keyboard, starting with the white key immediately to the left of the pair of black keys, and finishing with the white key immediately to the right of the group of three black keys.

This set of 11 keys – seven white notes and five black notes – repeats across the whole keyboard. The pattern may well be cut off at the left and right ends of the keyboard, but this is the pattern of keys you’ll see repeated on any keyboard instrument.

Basic Labelling Techniques

The highlighted key in the diagram above is often called C (as in the third letter of the alphabet). It’s also known as “do” (from the do-re-mi scale that you’ve no doubt heard of from The Sound of Music).

The next white note to the right is labelled D (or “re”) followed by E (“mi”), F (“fa”), G (“sol”), A (“la”) and B (“ti”), before returning to C (“do”).

Only seven letters or sounds are used to describe the white notes on a keyboard, and they form a run of notes known as a scale.

The black notes are labelled in relation to the white notes they sit in between.

Each black key immediately to the right of a white note are said to be “sharp” and each black key immediately to the left of a white note are said to be “flat”.

You can probably see that, when using letters of the alphabet to name the notes, each black note can have two names.

To the immediate right of C is C sharp (C#), though it is also known as D flat (Db) because it’s also to the immediate left of D.

The complete run of notes in the diagram above — both black and white notes — is:

C – C#/Db – D – D#/Eb – E – F – F#/Gb – G – G#/Ab – A – A#/Bb – B

Twelve distinct notes.

If using the “do-re-mi” scale then each black note only has one name. The complete run of notes is:

do – di – re – ri – mi – fa – fi – sol – si – la – li – ti

But if this set of eleven notes repeats across the keyboard, how can you tell one “C” from another “C”, or an “A” from another “A”, or an “F#” from another “F#”?

This is where I’m going to recommend working only with the alphabetic names of notes. I personally find it easier, and shorter, to write down notes this way.

Firstly, it’s important to find out where “Middle C” is. On a full-sized piano, that’s generally the “C” closest to the middle of the instrument, but on a smaller keyboard with less notes, that might not be the case.

To help you find it, play all the “C” notes on your keyboard until you find the one that sounds the closest to the following note:

Middle C [MIDI file. Most modern PCs should play this automatically when you click on it]

It’s worth starting to learn what that particular C – Middle C – sounds like so that you can find it easily on any other keyboard or piano you might want to play.

We’re now going to introduce some numbers so that it’s possible to identify all the different notes on the keyboard.

“Middle C” will be known as “C4″. Why C4? Well, on a large piano it’s likely to be the fourth “C” counting up from the left hand side of the keyboard.

This is a fairly standard naming convention. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have that many notes on your keyboard.

This means that the first C to the left of “Middle C” will be “C3″, and the one to the left of that is “C2″, and the one to the left of that is “C1″. And so on (you’ll probably have run out of notes by now).

And, unsurprisingly, the first C to the right of “Middle C” will be “C5″, followed by “C6″, then “C7″.

Finally, all the other notes slot into place just as before, but with the correct number after them. Always ensure you have a complete run from A through to G using the same number before starting with a new number.

What about the black notes? Well, for now you can either call them “sharp” or “flat”, or if you really want to you can label them as both.

Here’s a fully labelled diagram that you can use to help you label your keyboard. Click on it to see the full sized version.

Practically, it’s probably worth using lightly coloured sticky labels that you can write the name of each note on and then stick either directly on each key, or above it on the casing of the instrument.

Writing Down Notes

Now that you’ve labelled the keyboard, how do you go about writing down the notes that you’ve played so that you can go back in the future and play them again?

It could be as simple as writing down the letter and number combination for every note that you play, but this doesn’t take into account the length of each note, or if there are any gaps/pauses in the music (often known as “rests”).

If you play mainly “by ear” and are writing the notes down mainly to jog your memory, this might not matter.

The first two lines of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” might simply look like this:

C4 C4 G4 G4 A5 A5 G4 F4 F4 E4 E4 D4 D4 C4

And if you know the tune well, you’ll automatically play each note with the correct length.

If you are interested in recording the length of each note, you could put the names of each note into a grid. To do this, you’ll need to count each “beat” in the music. The beat is a steady rhythm.

For “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” it’s easiest to count in groups of four. Here’s how the first two lines would look.

1	2	3	4	1	2	3	4	1	2	3	4	1	2	3	4
C4	C4	G4	G4	A5	A5	G4	—	F4	F4	E4	E4	D4	D4	C4	—

You’ll see that I’ve used a dash where a note needs to be held on for more than one beat.

If there are any sections of music where nothing should be played, you could simply write an “X” or a “/” to indicate that nothing should be played (not even a held on note).

You might find in more complicated music that sometimes there’s more than one note in a beat. Then you’ll have to squeeze more notes into each space on the grid.

For example, here’s the first two lines of “Castle on a Cloud” from Les Miserables:

1	2	3	4	1	2	3	4	1	2	3	4	1	2	3	4
A4	B4 C4	B4	A4	A4	G#3	A4	—	A4	B4 C4	B4	A4	G3	F3	E3	—

Do you get the idea?

That’s just one method for writing down music in a fairly simple way.

It would start to get more complicated if you wanted to write down music where more than one note is played at the same time.

You could create a taller grid and write down groups of notes, but you’d have to remember which fingers on each hand you’d used to play them.

If you want to read other people’s music, you’ll probably find that it’s been written using standard modern musical symbols. It’s also very useful for writing down more complicated music.

That’s a bit much to handle in this article, though we’ll come back to it in future articles.

For now, if you’re feeling brave, you can read this Wikipedia article on modern musical symbols.

I hope this guide helped you. If you have any questions do feel free to leave a comment below and I’ll help you out as much as I can.

Popularity: 35% [?]

Steinway announces Q1 2009 results

Finances are pretty boring (to me, at least) so I’ll keep this brief.

Piano manufacturer Steinway has announced its 2009 first quarter financial results.

Sales dropped 26% to $70m, gross margin decreased to 26.6% from 29.1%, and the company had a net income of $1 million, down 49%.

Steinway’s CEO, Dana Messina, noted, “In the second quarter, we anticipate continued softness in band instrument sales. We expect our back-to-school season in the third quarter to be better and are building inventories to meet the expected customer demand. Our new products are gaining traction in the marketplace; we are excited about their prospects and expect them to do well for us beginning in 2010.”

“Piano sales have been dismal as dealers struggle with low traffic, a general lack of affordable financing and excess inventories,” said Messina. “We expect continued soft sales during the next few quarters until dealers gain more confidence that consumer demand is improving. Given the conditions, we have further reduced factory headcount, lowered production rates and reduced production days at both of our piano plants. We have aggressively reduced staff headcount and salaries to keep our expenses in line with sales. Looking forward, we believe that we can adapt to this new expense structure and increase profitability as demand recovers.”

Popularity: 4% [?]

$1.2m jewel-encrusted Kuhn-Bösendorfer grand piano: world’s most expensive?

An amazing fusion between glass art and masterful grand piano construction has created the first limited edition Kuhn-Bösendorfer worth an estimated $1.2 million.

The seven-foot-four-inch black grand piano is inset with over 100,000 hand cut, lead crystal jewels arranged in a glittering array of diamond patterns on the case, lid, legs and fallboard.

It took a year-and-a-half to make and is a “grand collaboration” between L. Bösendorfer Klavierfabrik GmbH of Vienna, Austria and Jon Kuhn, the world’s foremost cold glass sculptor.

“This piano is beyond words,” Kuhn said during the launch event. “It’s breathtaking. We knew it would turn out great, but nothing like this. It’s vibrant. Alive. It’s the first time – ever,” he noted, “that another artist has participated in the creation process, and I most emphatically consider Bösendorfer craftspeople to be artists, true artists. And what a privilege it has been to collaborate with them.”

“Bösendorfer has worked with top artists and designers since the nineteenth century to create uniquely designed, hand-built pianos of unusual visual as well as musical quality,” noted Eric Johnson, the maker’s US operations manager and Eastern regional sales manager. “We’re very pleased with the initial Kuhn-Bösendorfer. And now that we’ve had the pleasure of working so closely with Jon, we’re looking forward with great anticipation to the next one – and the one after that.”

Each instrument will have the owner’s name written on in it gold leaf, embedded deep within the Kuhn-Bösendorfer’s striking crystal fallboard logo.

Kuhn-Bösendorfers are available from $1.2 to $3.5 million, including the flagship 9′6″ Imperial concert grand. Each design will be different.

Check out this video of the grand piano being played by Valentina Lisitsa.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Roland launches BNC-31-BK piano bench [NAMM09]

A piano bench isn’t the most exciting piece of kit going, as is evident from the two-line press release sent out by Roland, but there’s no doubt that when you sit on the right piece of furniture your piano playing can dramatically improve.

The BNC-31-BK is a comfortable and high quality piano bench that matches satin black pianos. It can be adjusted in height between 460mm and 540mm by turning a side handle. It features a comfortable top cushion and sturdy, fixed legs.

Availability and pricing to be confirmed.

Roland

Popularity: 3% [?]

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