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Re: Nonfiction Piano Books
[Re: cmb13]
#2804065
01/19/19 03:40 PM
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Joined: Dec 2014
Posts: 283
Medved1
Full Member
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Full Member
Joined: Dec 2014
Posts: 283 |
My favorites are already on the list, but I did want to say that "The Piano Shop on the Left Bank" was the book that brought me back to piano after 35 years of sort of fussing about, but not really committing. Even though the author had been more advanced (far more advanced) than I was before quitting as a teenager, his description of why and how he came back to music pretty much said it all for me. "If he can do it, maybe I can too."
Mason & Hamlin A ('97)
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Re: Nonfiction Piano Books
[Re: Medved1]
#2804081
01/19/19 04:18 PM
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Joined: Jan 2018
Posts: 3,245
NobleHouse
3000 Post Club Member
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3000 Post Club Member
Joined: Jan 2018
Posts: 3,245 |
My favorites are already on the list, but I did want to say that "The Piano Shop on the Left Bank" was the book that brought me back to piano after 35 years of sort of fussing about, but not really committing. Even though the author had been more advanced (far more advanced) than I was before quitting as a teenager, his description of why and how he came back to music pretty much said it all for me. "If he can do it, maybe I can too."
That was an interesting book for sure.
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Re: Nonfiction Piano Books
[Re: cmb13]
#2804127
01/19/19 06:01 PM
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Joined: Feb 2015
Posts: 1,151
ebonykawai
1000 Post Club Member
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1000 Post Club Member
Joined: Feb 2015
Posts: 1,151 |
Oh, I loved that book, great story!
Lisa
Currently working on RCM 7 repertoire Kawai UST-9, Yamaha CLP565GP, Kawai KDP110
"Sometimes I can only groan, and suffer, and pour out my despair at the piano!" - Frederic Chopin
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Re: Nonfiction Piano Books
[Re: Medved1]
#2804511
01/20/19 07:52 PM
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Joined: Jun 2014
Posts: 773
Lakeviewsteve
500 Post Club Member
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500 Post Club Member
Joined: Jun 2014
Posts: 773 |
MedVed: Thank you so much. I just bought the iBook for my iPad after reading it's excellent free 37 page preview.....
Steve
Bösendorfer 170
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Re: Nonfiction Piano Books
[Re: cmb13]
#2835498
04/04/19 11:55 PM
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Joined: Apr 2018
Posts: 8,335
Tyrone Slothrop
8000 Post Club Member
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8000 Post Club Member
Joined: Apr 2018
Posts: 8,335 |
New book that will release in October: Girls at the Piano. Amazon.com blurb: Virginia Lloyd spent much of her childhood and adolescence learning and playing the piano and thought she would make a career as a pianist. When that didn't happen, she spent a long time wondering about those years of study: had they been wasted? What was their purpose? This intriguing memoir explores those questions and investigates the mystery of the author's very musical and deeply unhappy grandmother Alice, and how their lives—both at and away from the piano—intersected and diverged. Girls at the Piano also explores the changing relationship between women and the piano over the course of the instrument's history, taking us from the salons of 18th-century Europe to an amateur jazz workshop in Manhattan in the early 21st century. Funny, tender, and fascinating, Girls at the Piano is an elegant and multi-layered meditation on identity, ambition and doubt, and on how learning the piano had a profound effect on two women worlds and generations apart. It is essential reading for music lovers everywhere, and for anyone who has undertaken their own voyage around a piano. New book already out: Play piano as if you perform brain surgery: 2nd edition. Amazon.com blurb: "Play piano as if you perform brain surgery" is dedicated to ambitious students, teachers and masters seeking to further advance their artistic skills towards perfection either in regards to piano playing or brain surgery. The author is a Duke Professor of neurosurgery and advanced pianist, who is presenting a new analysis of piano playing from a neuro-anatomical and physiological perspective. The many parallels between playing piano and neurosurgery are what inspired the creation of this book. The ideas presented aim to help eager students of neurosurgery and the piano, piano teachers and concert pianists alike to become aware of their own physical "play apparatus". The author Erik Hauck is taking the reader on a journey through his/her own body. Through heightened awareness, pianists as well as surgeons will be able to identify and overcome physical and mental blocks, possibly so far limiting their full potential, even if they are already far advanced in their careers. So what is the secret to the ideal or virtuous piano technique? Is it in the wrist, or is it that you need to have practiced more than 10.000 hours early in life? Is it the elbow? Is it imagination of sound and music, or just finger play? Is it speed? Is it in your well-trained ear? Naturally, the secret to a perfect piano technique lies in the mindful orchestration, rhythmical coordination and skilled balance of all the moving parts in us, to create an effortless and pearling play, the kind of play that everybody recognizes as ideal. This ideal piano playing feels like meditating deeply to where nothing can shake your inner calm and focus. Ideal playing just happens as you imagine it. You are one with it in the very moment. All obstacles between you and the music down to it is physical creation through the keys have been eliminated. No tight or rigid spots hinder, tether or slow you down. Identifying and removing those obstacles to literally set you free, is what this book is about – to make you a much better pianist, or neurosurgeon if you happen to be in that profession, or person in general.Instead of struggling, you will enjoy challenges, which become simply play. That is why it is called “piano playing†after all. Naturally, this experience is truly “transcendentalâ€, to borrow the term from List’s infamous etudes – the musical inspiration to write this book. Together with the author, you develop a detailed checklist that holds all key elements to the ideal piano play. Mastering the "self-check" in a fraction of a second, even while performing, you will be able to ensure that your play or surgical technique flows freely, unrestrained by any physical or mental blocks. So what are you waiting for? Let’s get to it, enjoy, experiment and find out for yourself!
across the stone, deathless piano performances
"Discipline is more reliable than motivation." -by a contributor on Reddit r/piano "Success is 10% inspiration, and 90% perspiration." -by some other wise person "Pianoteq manages to keep it all together yet simultaneously also go in all directions; like a quantum particle entangled with an unknown and spooky parallel universe simply waiting to be discovered." -by Pete14
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Re: Nonfiction Piano Books
[Re: cmb13]
#2835511
04/05/19 03:06 AM
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Joined: Feb 2019
Posts: 1,497
LarryK
1000 Post Club Member
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1000 Post Club Member
Joined: Feb 2019
Posts: 1,497 |
If you can read books on difficult subjects, I recommend:
Instrumental: A Memoir of Madness, Medication, and Music by James Rhodes
As a child, James sufferered horrible sexual abuse. The after effects of this abuse, physical and mental, are described in the book. Each chapter is titled with one of James’s favorite piano pieces. It is fair to say that music helped save James from suicide. This book showed me the incredible power that music has to provide solace. Against all odds, James now tours as a concert pianist, where he works to break down the stereotypical way classical concerts are presented.
Last edited by LarryK; 04/05/19 03:10 AM.
Yamaha U1 Silent Piano
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Re: Nonfiction Piano Books
[Re: cmb13]
#2836413
04/07/19 10:32 AM
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Joined: May 2013
Posts: 3,368
cmb13
OP
3000 Post Club Member
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OP
3000 Post Club Member
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 3,368 |
I recently finished The Piano Shop on The Left Bank, and enjoyed it quite a lot. It was a nice story, intertwined with details of life in Paris and a spattering of information on piano construction, formulated in an interesting way. The quote in my sig if the last line of that novel! Highly recommend.
Chopin In Paris, so far, is slower.
Steinway A3 Boston 118 PE YouTubeWorking OnChopin Nocturne E min Bach Inventions "You Can Never Have Too Many Dream Pianos" -Thad Carhart
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Re: Nonfiction Piano Books
[Re: cmb13]
#2836493
04/07/19 02:20 PM
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Joined: Jan 2018
Posts: 3,245
NobleHouse
3000 Post Club Member
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3000 Post Club Member
Joined: Jan 2018
Posts: 3,245 |
I recently finished The Piano Shop on The Left Bank, and enjoyed it quite a lot. It was a nice story, intertwined with details of life in Paris and a spattering of information on piano construction, formulated in an interesting way. The quote in my sig if the last line of that novel! Highly recommend.
Chopin In Paris, so far, is slower. I really enjoyed reading The Piano Shop on The Left Bank. It was a fun, interesting read!
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Re: Nonfiction Piano Books
[Re: cmb13]
#2836500
04/07/19 02:52 PM
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Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 287
agraffe
Full Member
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Full Member
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 287 |
I love The Piano Shop on the Left Bank; I've read it seven times, and it inspired a trip to Paris in 2001 to look for, though I did not find, Luc, Mathilde and Thad. I know of course that I would not have recognized them, nor they me, but who can fault me for the search based on a beloved book?
When life gives you a lemonwood Gaveau, find a place to put it!
"When life gives you a lemonwood Gaveau [piano], make a place for it (or, what is the same thing, find a wealthy foreign collector/enthusiast to sell it to)." --adapted from and inspired by _The Piano Shop on the Left Bank_ by Thad Carhart
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Re: Nonfiction Piano Books
[Re: cmb13]
#2841716
04/23/19 02:27 PM
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Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 287
agraffe
Full Member
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Full Member
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 287 |
I also enjoy children's literature; two exceptional piano-themed nonfiction books for children are Strange Mr. Satie by M.T. Anderson and Petra Mathews, and The Music of Life: Bartolomeo Christofori & the Invention of the Piano by Elizabeth Rusch and Marjorie Priceman. They are very short, scholarly yet accessible, and thoroughly delighful. They would make great gifts for young relatives and friends who may have a budding piano passion, themselves.
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Re: Nonfiction Piano Books
[Re: cmb13]
#2842071
04/24/19 08:12 PM
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Joined: Jul 2016
Posts: 542
Pianoperformance
500 Post Club Member
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500 Post Club Member
Joined: Jul 2016
Posts: 542 |
Reading the recommended The Piano shop on the left bank...LOVE IT. thanks for a great recommendation.
Dream came true : playing the piano Kawai CS11/Yamaha Arius 161 lessons: 150 hours + counting
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Re: Nonfiction Piano Books
[Re: cmb13]
#2842107
04/24/19 10:10 PM
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Joined: Nov 2008
Posts: 335
Terry Michael
Full Member
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Full Member
Joined: Nov 2008
Posts: 335 |
Has anyone else read Jonathan Biss’ “A Pianist Under the Influence�
It’s about a Concert Pianists obsession with Robert Schumann. It’s, a bit odd but I LOVED it.
TH
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Re: Nonfiction Piano Books
[Re: cmb13]
#2842185
04/25/19 04:18 AM
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Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 1,249
WiseBuff
1000 Post Club Member
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1000 Post Club Member
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 1,249 |
Agraffe, I also imagined the Piano Shop on the Left Bank when I was in Paris last August. I felt a bit like I'd been there before after reading the book. Would love to find another good read like that one.
![[Linked Image]](http://forum.pianoworld.com//gallery/42/medium/10973.png) Wise as in learner Buff as in Colorado Buffalo
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Re: Nonfiction Piano Books
[Re: cmb13]
#2842194
04/25/19 05:06 AM
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Joined: May 2013
Posts: 3,368
cmb13
OP
3000 Post Club Member
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OP
3000 Post Club Member
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 3,368 |
I wonder in which Arrondissement the book took place? (Grammar lol)
Steinway A3 Boston 118 PE YouTubeWorking OnChopin Nocturne E min Bach Inventions "You Can Never Have Too Many Dream Pianos" -Thad Carhart
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Re: Nonfiction Piano Books
[Re: cmb13]
#2842286
04/25/19 09:48 AM
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Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 287
agraffe
Full Member
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Full Member
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 287 |
WiseBuff, I have not, in the 19 years since it was first published, found another book quite like The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, so I find myself rereading it, thankful that I forget so much of it in between readings. It is like stepping into that world every time! cmb13, there may be clues in the text as to the identity of the Arrondissement where the action takes place, though I have not been able to deduce it. You might write to Carhart through the publisher; some authors enjoy hearing from readers, and some do not.
"When life gives you a lemonwood Gaveau [piano], make a place for it (or, what is the same thing, find a wealthy foreign collector/enthusiast to sell it to)." --adapted from and inspired by _The Piano Shop on the Left Bank_ by Thad Carhart
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Re: Nonfiction Piano Books
[Re: agraffe]
#2842287
04/25/19 09:51 AM
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Joined: Apr 2018
Posts: 8,335
Tyrone Slothrop
8000 Post Club Member
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8000 Post Club Member
Joined: Apr 2018
Posts: 8,335 |
WiseBuff, I have not, in the 19 years since it was first published, found another book quite like The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, so I find myself rereading it, thankful that I forget so much of it in between readings. It is like stepping into that world every time! cmb13, there may be clues in the text as to the identity of the Arrondissement where the action takes place, though I have not been able to deduce it. You might write to Carhart through the publisher; some authors enjoy hearing from readers, and some do not. I've read that this is based on real life and Carhart just changed the names. So it may very well be the arrondissement that Carhart himself has been living in for a long time since in the book, the shop was in the quartier he lives in.
across the stone, deathless piano performances
"Discipline is more reliable than motivation." -by a contributor on Reddit r/piano "Success is 10% inspiration, and 90% perspiration." -by some other wise person "Pianoteq manages to keep it all together yet simultaneously also go in all directions; like a quantum particle entangled with an unknown and spooky parallel universe simply waiting to be discovered." -by Pete14
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Re: Nonfiction Piano Books
[Re: cmb13]
#2842563
04/26/19 06:24 AM
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Joined: Apr 2018
Posts: 8,335
Tyrone Slothrop
8000 Post Club Member
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8000 Post Club Member
Joined: Apr 2018
Posts: 8,335 |
Just adding a non-fiction book discussed in another PW thread, for future reference: Pianists at Play.
across the stone, deathless piano performances
"Discipline is more reliable than motivation." -by a contributor on Reddit r/piano "Success is 10% inspiration, and 90% perspiration." -by some other wise person "Pianoteq manages to keep it all together yet simultaneously also go in all directions; like a quantum particle entangled with an unknown and spooky parallel universe simply waiting to be discovered." -by Pete14
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Re: Nonfiction Piano Books
[Re: cmb13]
#2842775
04/26/19 09:06 PM
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Joined: Feb 2018
Posts: 83
spartan928
Full Member
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Full Member
Joined: Feb 2018
Posts: 83 |
This was a fascinating read;
Piano: The Making of a Steinway Concert Grand James Barron
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Re: Nonfiction Piano Books
[Re: spartan928]
#2842780
04/26/19 09:19 PM
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Joined: Feb 2018
Posts: 83
spartan928
Full Member
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Full Member
Joined: Feb 2018
Posts: 83 |
And I just started this;
Practicing Perfection: Memory and Piano Performance Chaffin, Imreh & Crawford
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Re: Nonfiction Piano Books
[Re: cmb13]
#2843060
04/27/19 06:07 PM
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Joined: May 2013
Posts: 3,368
cmb13
OP
3000 Post Club Member
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OP
3000 Post Club Member
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 3,368 |
Will add these when I have a few minutes!
Chopin In Paris is rather slow. Interesting topic (could have been at least) but way to detailed, I’m not sure I’m going to finish it. It’s a little boring.
Steinway A3 Boston 118 PE YouTubeWorking OnChopin Nocturne E min Bach Inventions "You Can Never Have Too Many Dream Pianos" -Thad Carhart
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