musicproduction — Pianos

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?

Hugh SungApril 28, 2020ensemble, virtualensemble, pianotech, musictech, musicproduction, classicalmusic, moviemusicComment

Best iPhone/iPad Audio Settings for Musicians using Zoom

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.

Hugh SungApril 13, 2020musictech, musiceducation, musicproduction, remotelessonComment

How To Teach Online Piano Lessons

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.

Hugh SungMarch 15, 2020pianotech, musictech, musiceducation, musicproduction, app, equipment, remotelesson Comments

Making My Own YouTube Background Music Tracks with a Yamaha Clavinova

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.

Hugh SungJanuary 23, 2020musicproduction, recording, clavinova, yamaha, digitalpianoComment