The US National Chopin Foundation has announced it has raised the top prize for the 2015 National Chopin Competition to $75,000, in a bid to encourage the best American pianists to apply. The winner of the National Chopin Competition will advance to the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, Poland, […]
Monthly Archives: August 2013
20 posts
We’ve seen our fair share of expensively decorated grand pianos, including the world’s most expensive jewel-encrusted Kuhn-Bosendorfer and Baldwin’s Exotic Collection of acoustic pianos. Now, a one-of-a-kind 24-carat gold leaf Fazioli grand piano is being displayed at Aberdeen Centre’s Showcase Pianos, and was last week played by visiting pianist Evgenia […]
Here’s our pick of the best places online to find free (and hopefully legal) printable piano music manuscripts. MusOpen Musopen is a non-profit organisation focused on improving access and exposure to music by creating free resources and educational materials. This includes copyright-free sheet music. Musopen features a database of over […]
Keyboard instruments come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and while the basic layout of the keys remains the same, their size, weight and feel varies significantly between instruments. This guide will help you pick the best keys for your playing needs. 1. Keyboard Options The three main factors […]
A baby grand piano with every one of the 52 white keys containing the signature of a well-known musician is due to be auctioned at this year’s Musicfest. Whoever places the winning bid on this Young Chang piano will take it away, but they’ll be hard pressed to play it. […]
Amidio, maker of noise.io, Star Guitar and JR Hexaton Pro, has just released its latest iOS app — a virtual acoustic steel guitar for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Simulating a six-string acoustic steel guitar based on the legendary vintage 1979 Martin & Co dreadnought, the app contains 76MB of […]
Steinway has announced its financial results for the second quarter of 2013, and it shows a healthy overall balance sheet for sales of its wholesale pianos, with Europe and America being particularly strong markets. Second quarter revenue increased to $56.8 million, or 12.7%, over the prior-year quarter due to strong […]
Pianos For Peace is an initiative which sees eleven street locations in the City of Rochester, NY, outfitted with pianos painted with peace-themed art by local youth, artists and community members. From Monday 5th August and for the duration of the month, residents and visitors will be able to see […]
Jurors selecting finalists for this year’s Cleveland International Piano Competition have selected the four semi-finalists who will advance to the final round and perform a piano concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall. They are: Francois Dumont, of France; Arseny Tarasevich-Nikolaev, of Russia; Jiayan Sun, of China; Stanislav Khristenko, […]
Do you remember the jewel-encrusted Kuhn-Bosendorfer grand piano we featured four years ago, with the speculation that it was the world’s most expensive? This exclusive limited edition grand piano has now concluded a round of limited concerts and showings and is being put on the open market. That is, the […]
Akai Professional has just launched its iMPC app for iOS devices, offering them a virtual music production environment based on Akai’s hardware controllers. It comes with over 600 samples, 47 editable programs and 80 editable sequences, and features an exclusive iMPC sound set plus classic Akai Professional sound library. Users […]
With horror stories like this £45,000 piano falling off a lorry, it’s not surprising that people are wary about entrusting their beloved piano to a removals company. Even if you can find a regular company who’ll take on the challenge (many will refuse anyway due to the risks involved) you […]
Native Instruments has announced an updated TRAKTOR KONTROL X1 is now available, offering a compact decks/effects controller and an ideal partner for the TRAKTOR PRO. The unit offers direct control over playback, browse, cue, sync and loop functionality, and now introduces a button for dedicated Flux mode access. 7-segment displays, […]
Sad to announce that we’ve read confirmation that jazz/R&B/fusion/funk keyboardist legend George Duke has passed away, aged 67. Duke was being treated for chronic lymphocytic leukaemia but lost the battle yesterday (5th August), his record label Concord-Telarc confirmed. It follows a difficult year in which his wife Corine died. His […]
Casio has announced that the UK market will gain a new limited edition model in its Celviano line of digital pianos, arriving in the Autumn and so available for the busy Christmas period. The Celviano AP-245 will feature much of the same technology as found in Casio’s other Celvianos, including […]
Italian footballer, Mario Balotelli, has supposedly been captured playing the Italian National Anthem (Il Canto degli Italiani) on a grand piano, while national team-mate Andrea Pirlo looks on. It’s a pretty ruse, but take a look at the video below and you’ll quickly see that it’s fake. While the guy […]
Structure A one octave E Major scale is made up from the eight notes E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, D# and E. This can be extended across the keyboard as required for two, three or four octave scales. Here are the notes of one octave depicted on a piano […]
Structure A one octave D Major scale is made up from the eight notes D, E, F#, G, A, B, C# and D. This can be extended across the keyboard as required for two, three or four octave scales. Here are the notes of one octave depicted on a piano […]
Apart from winning the prize for the longest titled app we’ve seen in a while, we’re wondering whether the Sound Effect+Music+Ringtone: Player, Downloader, and Recorder! from MobileVideo.TV is a decent iOS app. It claims to include over 200 high-quality sound effects, music snippets and ringtones, which are updated regularly. Categories […]
EarWizard is an app designed to train your ear into recognising and recalling musical chords. It’s modelled on the “Simon” game, in that you have to repeat back an increasingly long sequence of music chords. The app has been developed by Jordan Rudess and Felipe Peña. Features include: Three levels […]
