Welcome to the Piano World Piano Forums Over 3 million posts about pianos, digital pianos, and all types of keyboard instruments. Over 100,000 members from around the world.
Join the World's Largest Community of Piano Lovers
(it's free)
It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!
I hadn't heard of him either, before this thread. Then I looked him up on Wikipedia, and apparently he's very successful. Top selling albums, tours, Grammy nominations...
But unlike with Richard Clayderman, I don't know any music by Yanni.
My grand piano is a Yamaha C2 SG. My other Yamaha is an XMAX 300.
I saw Yanni on PBS ages ago (Yanni Live Acropolis, Greece). It was a fantastic show I thought and became an instant fan. However, that was before my first piano lessons. After almost a decade of classical piano lessons under a very traditional classically trained teacher, my views have changed, but I would listen to Yanni on occasion still. His album Reflection of Passion is good. I have learned, though, to not bring up Yanni in conversation with my teacher, unless I felt I needed a tongue lashing.
Had I been introduced to Yanni today, I would probably be less enthusiastic. Classical piano music training has its consequences. Same could be said about my opinions of many self-taught composers and performers. However, Yanni is perhaps unique that he is among few composers known to have written music that produces the Mozart Effect, self-trained or not, other than Mozart. Supposedly, Yanni pulled off the Mozart Effect with this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xw7HeJ781Do. There is something about his music that is not all just madison avenue sugar coated fast food music, but I know better to tell anyone I actually like Yanni these day. Oh boy, I brought that up with another piano friend (jazz player), and his comment to me was, "I think my opinion of you just dropped a few notches."
Among the self-taught composer performer, Yanni is actually among the better players. Some self-taught composers are just outright bad like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pea9beGkz5o. The music is not horrible, but does the playing have to be that bad? All right, all right. I try to keep an open mind at all times. I feel that a lot of the self-taught composers for piano music, Yanni included, are unfairly put into the lame category simply because they are not Glass or at least Richter, no Rachmaninoff. It's really unfair to put the un-trained prodigies in the same bucket as the trained prodigies. A good hot dog is not great cuisine, but there are moments when great cuisine is not appropriate, where a great hot dog is better.
Among the self-taught composer performer, Yanni is actually among the better players. Some self-taught composers are just outright bad like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pea9beGkz5o. The music is not horrible, but does the playing have to be that bad? All right, all right. I try to keep an open mind at all times.
I watched that Michele McLaughlin video, and I have to say, I think she is pretty good. I watched the whole 3 minutes, and, she's so smooth, you couldn't even detect her hand movements. Ah, one day.....
I watched that Michele McLaughlin video, and I have to say, I think she is pretty good. I watched the whole 3 minutes, and, she's so smooth, you couldn't even detect her hand movements. Ah, one day.....
I was only listening before, but now looking at the video, you're right. She's got really steady hands.
I like him, he's a great songwriter and arranger and a pretty good pianist, I've tried playing End of August and it's a written well. It's all mood creating stuff and his concerts are a relaxing experience. He was my influence for learning the piano and I was already a bassist at that point.
Aww man...I have always liked Yanni. I didn’t realize I needed to be a ‘closet fan,’ LOL. I bought the sheet music for “In My Time†when I was a teenager, and I still hope to be able to play much of it one of these days. Just for myself though, apparently.
New Age. Yeah, that's the term I was looking for. I'm not big into new age either ::)
A lot of the things I have done in my life would be considered new age, and when I feel like coming into a new age state of mind , I listen to Deuter. For me, Yanni is not new age!
But Yanni... I had never heard of him and I only listened to one video for one minute, but for me, it is too easy on the ear. But I remember that as a teenager I heard a full album of the Moody Blues for the first time in my life. I cried. I didn't know such music even existed. And if I would have heard Yanni instead of the Moody Blues, I am sure I would have cried as well, and would have loved Yanni's music.
Here comes Deuter:
PS Yes, I have worn these type of clothes and danced to this music.
Playing the piano is learning to create, playfully and deeply seriously, our own music in the world. * ... feeling like the pianist on the Titanic ...
Thank you cmb13! Quite correct, especially Blind Faith. I would have liked Van Morrison better if it weren't for his voice. However, my Moody Blues days are Days of future passed. It seems there was a special music window in me that was wide open when I was a teenager, and that slowly closed itself more and more as I grew older. Playing the piano has reverted that process though.
Playing the piano is learning to create, playfully and deeply seriously, our own music in the world. * ... feeling like the pianist on the Titanic ...
![[Linked Image]](https://forum.pianoworld.com//gallery/42/full/15849.png)
