Pianists, without a doubt, have the world's greatest solo literature. We have no end of things that we can play by ourselves. When we do collaborate, it's usually with one other person to play duets. We can have two people playing on piano or two people playing on two pianos. It's actually quite common. Beyond that, it's pretty rare to have more than two, three, four people playing at the same time. The only other exceptions would be when we play with other instrumentalists, when we play with string players, orchestra players, choirs and the like. But I wanted to try to do what we did with our online chorus and orchestra project about a month ago, mainly having a piece where everybody could participate, people of all different levels from absolute beginners too advanced.
What kind of a piece could we come up with that could accommodate everybody's differing ability levels, but not only that, also due to the fact that acoustic pianos go out of tune, what kind of a piece could we put together that could take that into account in and still sound okay?
Read More
For musicians who need to have the best sound quality while using the Zoom app for online music lessons, they've been restricted to using laptops and desktop computer until now. Zoom just updated their mobile apps for iPad and iPhone (not yet for Android - hopefully soon!!), giving them the option to turn on "original sound" to eliminate automatic mic level adjustments that can cut off music and ruin the overall quality of music performance through the video conferencing app.
Read More
A few weeks ago, I posted a video showing 3 ways that piano teachers could teach their lessons online, from the most basic setup using just a laptop or a tablet, to an advanced multi-camera/multi-microphone studio with the ability to switch easily between hi-definition cameras and even a view of an iPad showing digital sheet music with annotations. While several folks have commented on how helpful the video was, others noted that the top level studio was way out of their budget. To address this, I wanted to share some ways that teachers could replicate the functionality of a top online studio without spending too much money on extra equipment.
Read More
In this video, we’re going to explore how to teach piano lessons online. I’ve been teaching piano lessons online since 2009 when I created my YouTube series, Clair de Lune From Scratch, and since 2014 I’ve been teaching students all around the world through my Online Popular Piano School at Artist Works. We’re going to explore three basic ways for piano teachers to teach live one-on-one lessons over the internet. They’re going to vary in terms of the quality of the video and of the sound, as well as some of the capabilities of what you can teach and show through these streaming lessons. We’ll also touch a little bit on what’s going to be needed in terms of equipment for the students to receive those lessons.
Read More
Recently, two Yamaha sales representatives were selected from across the USA to visit Yamaha’s main piano factory and headquarters in Japan for an exclusive piano training workshop. One of those representatives was Dwayne Hilton, President of Lacefield Music in St. Louis, Missouri. The other was yours truly (I serve as the Director of Institutional Solutions at Cunningham Piano). After 4 intense days of training, I sat down with Dwayne to share our thoughts on this rare behind-the-scenes look at Yamaha’s piano manufacturing methods and philosophies.
Read More
For decades, Yamaha’s Conservatory Series of grand pianos were legendary. They dominated music programs, concert halls, and even recording studios all around the world. As a Testament to Yamaha’s never ending quest for perfection and improvement, Yamaha developed the CX line of premium pianos. Now with that introduction of the CX series, Yamaha had an opportunity to revisit the Conservatory Series and look for ways to offer the DNA, as it were, of their Conservatory Series but in a form factor that was both improved and also more economically feasible for the home, for private studios and even for conservatories around the world. And with that, the Conservatory Series was reborn in the GC series.
Now we’ve got a really interesting opportunity to compare between two pianos of the same family, but different sizes. The GC1 is a 5’3″ grand piano, and the GC2 is 5’8″ from the keyboard to the tail. So let’s have a little bit of fun and let’s compare to see what five inches of size difference can do between these two pianos.
Read More
If you’ve always dreamed of playing your favorite song on the piano, you probably do what most folks do these days and go to YouTube. YouTube is an incredible resource for free piano lessons. In fact, I provide a pretty extensive series on how to play Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy on YouTube myself. YouTube is really great for providing free information. However, it’s not so good at giving you direct feedback. How do you know if you’re playing the notes the right way, the right time? It’s really up to you, right? And if you don’t know how to play the piano in the beginning, you can really waste a lot of time trying to figure out if you’re doing it right or wrong. Well, what if there was a way of combining the best of YouTube in terms of the video instruction and an instrument that could actually give you feedback and let you know if you’re doing it the right way?
I want to introduce you to an amazing app called flowkey. flowkey connected to an instrument like the Yamaha Clavinova can provide exactly what I’m describing, real video lessons that can dynamically tell you if you’re doing it right or wrong with feedback connected to a Yamaha digital piano like the Clavinova CLP-695 that I’m sitting in front of right now. So in this video I’m going to give a quick overview of the flowkey app and how to connect it to your Yamaha Clavinova, both wirelessly and with a wired cable, as well as how to set it up on an iPad and an Android smartphone. So let’s get started with flowkey.
Read More
During this year’s NAMM show, Tim Oliver, one of the co-owners of Cunningham Piano, received a phone call from his partner, Rich Galassini, with a very surprising announcement: we just won Yamaha’s Dealer of the Year for the entire United States market! Pretty amazing! To better understand how a company like Yamaha decides on these types of awards, and what this ultimately means for our customers, I sat down with Tim to get his thoughts and feedback.
Read More
One of the most interesting things I'm finding as I am doing more and more activities as a YouTuber, is the fact that I need music. I need a lot of music, especially with the traveling videos and with the other personal stories that I like to share. It's always great to have background music. Interestingly, the more videos I make, the more I realize how challenging it can be to find just the right music, just the right track to go along with a particular scene or a mood for a video clip. I've actually been thinking about how useful the Yamaha CVP line of Clavinovas could be for YouTubers in particular.
Read More
What goes into building the world’s finest – and most expensive – pianos? I was recently invited to record an album with international flute superstar Jasmine Choi at the famed Bösendorfer piano factory. We recorded in the factory showroom for three days on a magnificent 9′ Bösendorfer Model 280 VC! After the recording sessions were done, I had an opportunity to tour the actual factory itself to see how these amazing pianos are crafted.
Read More
Many folks think that playing the piano is like using a typewriter: press a key, you get a note. But on a typewriter, there are two main limitations: 1. You can't change what each "note" looks like, and 2. You can't repeat that "note" very quickly. What makes the piano action truly remarkable is its ability to provide a nearly infinite range of volume and texture for each note, as well as its ability to enable incredibly fast repetitions, all with a minimum of physical effort. Despite less than half an inch of motion from the top of the key to the bottom of its stroke, the piano action can provide an incredible amount of power from the finger to the hammer that strikes the piano string. I like to call this, "bio-mechanical amplification"! In this video, we explore the inner workings of how the piano action works, and how that translates to provide the piano player with true 3D control of the piano sound.
Read More
