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My whole life I have enjoyed the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy so that is why I started on a toy piano(I can't afford a celeste). I am wanting to get a digital piano for my piano marvel lessons and SASR. My favorite piano song is this one:
awwww, my mom used to have a music box that played this. I listened to it over and over and over, but I never knew what it was. Thanks!
Stumbling onto piano covers of my favorite band Radiohead made me want to finally learn piano. The funny thing is after two years of lessons I have yet to learn any of their arrangements or any pop/rock really. I figure i'll get to it, but just starting lessons and discovering classical music pretty much sent me off on a massive tangent and I love exploring and learning classical pieces now. I knew little to nothing about Bach, Chopin etc etc and it's a whole new world I really enjoy exploring.
The music people call Jazz and R&B, Funk, modern Hip Hop i.e. Robert Glasper is what draws me in.
I regularly listen to Robert Glasper and enjoy the jazz/hip hop genre in general. Another jazz/hip hop pianist I enjoy and you may too is Kiefer Shackelford. All of his albums are good listens but Happysad and Kickinit Alone may be right up your alley.
To hop back on topic, the music that drew me wanting to learn are video game arrangements, specifically arrangements from the final fantasy series. I've spent quite a good deal of time playing these games and not only does the arrangements bring heavy nostalgia, they've made me appreciate solo piano works in general.
There are two or three people on YouTube that do analysis of video game music from a music theory point of view and the themes developed for the characters and situation. Very interesting discovering how involved and complex the game music is. One guy "8-bit Music Theory" focuses on Mario series both the themes and the orchestration being used and very interesting.
Pop music in the early 70s got me interested in music. I would tune in K C Cason (sp?) for the Top 40 run down.
But I only play classical. Maybe someday I'll do pop but since classical encompasses several centuries of masterpieces, it'll be awhile before I have time to play anything else.
"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
I was ready to quit as a high school freshman, when my father came home from the library with the Joshua Rifkin albums of Scott Joplin rags. We were both forever entranced. As an adult, I would play in fits and starts, playing every day for a couple hours, then not touching the piano for months. But when I did play, it was always ragtime. Now as a retiree with arthritic wrists and a bad back, I play often, but slowly and mainly just for my own pleasure. The one exception is my visits to my 92 year old dad in assisted living. He always wants to hear Solace.
The visualisation in that video really puts it into perspective.
When you see the the hundreds of notes dropping, who would imagine that the human body would be capable of catching them all?
Quite amazing.
Kassia is now my favorite Youtube pianist. I like her better than Rousseau. I think she plays better.
And when we see a Kassia video, we know it's definitely her playing. Until recently, with Rousseau, well not so much.
Rousseau also has a La Campanella where he(? 🙄) plays the piece. I think her playing (above) is much better.
Is it definitely not speeded up/tampered with?
It seems beyond what is humanly possible.
I have to say that I’ve not seen anything like it before.
I definitely don’t aspire to be able to play like that. It would probably kill me
Kassia is playing at a much slower tempo than Evgeniy Kissin here:
No one has ever accused him of being sped up.
However, Kassia gets this accusation a lot, unfairly in my opinion. I'm guessing people do this just because they can't themselves play so quickly so they think she shouldn't either. She has done various things like play with clocks visible or metronomes. You can do a search on Youtube and you'll see she's tried to provide evidence it is her, and no tech wizardry involved.
Kassia's tempo for La Campanella is far from extraordinary. Here, Yundi Li is playing it faster also:
Maybe if the camera had been focused on their (Kissin's & Li's) hands instead of on their bodies/faces, people might have been suspicious of their finger speed also.
Note that Kassia is at least a conservatory graduate in piano performance, and there is some speculation she might be one of a small handful of top graduates worldwide, going incognito on Youtube - for example, from Asia.
I've watched the Cassia video a few times now and have concluded that it's not tampered with. When the right hand is a blur, you can see that the left hand is moving at normal speed. The strobe effect of the dropping lights also creates a strange affect.
One of the people who posted in the comments section put it in perspective when they said "I can't even play the wrong notes that fast"
I also found a video of Lang Lang playing the same piece and when he plays the ridiculously fast bit where both hands are hitting the same keys, I'm surprised that the piano didn't catch fire.
I've watched the Cassia video a few times now and have concluded that it's not tampered with. When the right hand is a blur, you can see that the left hand is moving at normal speed. The strobe effect of the dropping lights also creates a strange affect.
One of the people who posted in the comments section put it in perspective when they said "I can't even play the wrong notes that fast"
I also found a video of Lang Lang playing the same piece and when he plays the ridiculously fast bit where both hands are hitting the same keys, I'm surprised that the piano didn't catch fire.
Kissin and Yuja Wang are considered among the most technical pianists. Both can play blazingly fast. Kissin's La Campanella that I posted above is actually much faster than Lang Lang's, but our view of the keys is mostly blocked so subjectively, we, the viewers, don't perceive it quite the same. I can't find any videos of Yuja playing La Campanella, but to get an idea of her speed, here is something from a decade ago. Definitely not tampered with since it is in front of an audience:
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
I've watched the Cassia video a few times now and have concluded that it's not tampered with. When the right hand is a blur, you can see that the left hand is moving at normal speed. The strobe effect of the dropping lights also creates a strange affect.
One of the people who posted in the comments section put it in perspective when they said "I can't even play the wrong notes that fast"
I also found a video of Lang Lang playing the same piece and when he plays the ridiculously fast bit where both hands are hitting the same keys, I'm surprised that the piano didn't catch fire.
Kissin and Yuja Wang are considered among the most technical pianists. Both can play blazingly fast. Kissin's La Campanella that I posted above is actually much faster than Lang Lang's, but our view of the keys is mostly blocked so subjectively, we, the viewers, don't perceive it quite the same. I can't find any videos of Yuja playing La Campanella, but to get an idea of her speed, here is something from a decade ago. Definitely not tampered with since it is in front of an audience:
Quite extraordinary. At one point she's playing both hands at the top of the piano and one of the keys at the bottom end is still coming back up.
I think that if God saw these videos he'd think 'I don't remember putting that in the design'.
I’m sorry, did something wrong, in the comment above, the initial part about how the genre picks you, should have been a quote from Whizbang’s post.
I’d be interested to know what type of music inspired you folk to take to what will be a long and arduous road until you're able to play it.
For me, it was a combination of both 'standard' classical repertoire piano pieces (Fur Elise, La Campanella, Nocturnes etc. etc.) and Indian Bollywood songs played on Pianos like:
When I started learning piano, I had known of Bach - but hardly knew any of his keyboard music. Now, that is my favorite piano music to play .
Osho
Mason & Hamlin BB Kawai Novus NV10 + VST + Genelec 8050B monitors. Current VST favorites (in the order of preference): Pianoteq 7/VSL Synchron Concert D//Garritan CFX/Embertone Walker D Full
I do like ‘some’ classical music but the pieces that I like are few and far between. There’s enough film music that I love to keep me going for the rest of my life.
Absolutely - there is nothing wrong with focusing on the music we love. One of the prerogatives of being adult piano students!! Enjoy!
Osho
Mason & Hamlin BB Kawai Novus NV10 + VST + Genelec 8050B monitors. Current VST favorites (in the order of preference): Pianoteq 7/VSL Synchron Concert D//Garritan CFX/Embertone Walker D Full
To hop back on topic, the music that drew me wanting to learn are video game arrangements, specifically arrangements from the final fantasy series. I've spent quite a good deal of time playing these games and not only does the arrangements bring heavy nostalgia, they've made me appreciate solo piano works in general.
Interesting. While Final Fantasy music did not make me start learning piano, it's probably the main reason that made me come back to it after a long break. Discovering new piano arrangements (most notably those from the Piano Opera albums) made me think 'Maaaaan I'd love to play THAT piece with THESE hands!" I believe there are quite a few FF music lovers around here, including the incredibly skilled and talented rach3master - check out her YouTube channel if you haven't yet.
Being able to play some of those catchy FF tunes that I used to keep humming as a teenager is pure bliss
Returning to piano in my late forties was inspired by the contemporary worship music our choir sang. Our choir books nearly always contained the complete music, i.e. vocals and piano accompaniment.
I really like it when we would get our Christmas or Easter music books weeks ahead of the holiday. I could spend more time hacking away at those beautiful melodies.
To hop back on topic, the music that drew me wanting to learn are video game arrangements, specifically arrangements from the final fantasy series. I've spent quite a good deal of time playing these games and not only does the arrangements bring heavy nostalgia, they've made me appreciate solo piano works in general.
Interesting. While Final Fantasy music did not make me start learning piano, it's probably the main reason that made me come back to it after a long break. Discovering new piano arrangements (most notably those from the Piano Opera albums) made me think 'Maaaaan I'd love to play THAT piece with THESE hands!" I believe there are quite a few FF music lovers around here, including the incredibly skilled and talented rach3master - check out her YouTube channel if you haven't yet.
Being able to play some of those catchy FF tunes that I used to keep humming as a teenager is pure bliss
Yeah, I hear you! I hope to one day place specific pieces from the series, this being one of em. https://youtu.be/ryz2e6Bxx8I It's interesting because the you can hear the piano arrangements get progressively more complicated with the later series, and that's because of the console's musical restrictions the game was released on (NES -> SNES -> PlayStation).
Another YouTuber that got me wanting to learn is Zohar002. He's done arrangements for the Chrono trigger series. https://youtu.be/kQ0ZZUXgswQ If you enjoy video game arrangements, definitely check out his other videos!
"Music, rich, full of feeling, not soulless, is like a crystal on which the sun falls and brings forth from it a whole rainbow" - F. Chopin "I never dreamt with my own two hands I could touch the sky" - Sappho
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