Piano Meditations Podcast

Once again I forgot to turn on the high quality digital recorder, so all I have is the audio from my phone. My mother-in-law requested some Dixieland music, so I began with a couple old-timey sounding things, then segued into some gentle ruminations, followed by some pretty far-out stuff. Not that I felt so avant-garde, but I kind of needed to almost sound bad on purpose so I could get into someth...

I had in mind some of my friends from dance camp tonight, so the direction was towards more movement. Enjoy!

Still enjoying the fresh tuning; it's just a treat to play notes on this beautiful instrument and listen to them vibrate together. Except for one up-tempo-groove-oriented piece, the music tonight leaned towards gentler, introspective moods. Enjoy.  

The Steinway was just tuned by master tuner Victor LaGamma. I knew it had been out but didn't realize by how much until I played it after his tuning. So tonight I found myself focusing on the pitch and tonality of the harmonies, and at one point did a "cocktail pianist goes crazy" kind of thing. Enjoy!

This is my kind of a Sunday afternoon; relaxing with friends and playing music. Meggan Berley and chef/cookbook author Peter Berley   came up for the weekend and Peter and I went through a few tunes. The first piece was a free improv and the rest were standards and a scottish reel. Enjoy!

I had the great pleasure of making music tonight with my friend Jennie Fong, flutist. We kept to the "no plan" approach and explored several different tonalities and feelings. I edited out the dialogue in between pieces, so you may hear the applause stop abruptly. Enjoy!  

We had a completely different evening for this week's episode! We hosted the Vera Quartet, a wonderful string ensemble that began at Indiana University and is poised for success. They shared more music with the audience, but it was not recorded due to copyright by the composer. It was an amazing experience to be so close to the musicians and be able to catch the tiniest nuances in the music. A big...

Had some new guests tonight; I felt the impulse to give them something satisfying, and as a consequence it felt like I was covering familiar territory so it didn't feel quite as spontaneous. I didn't make the mistake of stopping midway through a piece however, and tried to stay with what seemed to be happening with the music. 

Went a little "out there" tonight, had fun. Enjoy!

Tonight's music went to familiar and unfamiliar places; I fell into a rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow and played a Blues, but in other pieces there were some harmonies I found tonight that were surprising. I enjoy exploring melodic lines that are spread between the hands and each have their own direction; you never know what sounds will happen. In another piece I took the shape of Bach's P...

Tonight's episode begins with the sound of rain, says my friend Phil. Another piece is a free frolic over just a few chords, and another is a chorale that goes every which direction. There's a sort of Samuel Barber sounding piece, and I ended with a minor key honky-tonk thing reminiscent of "Turn Back, Oh Man" from Godspell. Enjoy!

Glad to be back to Wednesday night Piano Meditations! I took a break for three weeks to act in a show, "The Secret Garden" at Bedford Community Theater.  I used my phone to stream tonight's music live on Facebook, but forgot to record the piano using my high-quality digital recorder, so I had to download the video from Facebook, extract the audio and upload to the podcast, so tonight's episode may...

Tonight was a wide mix of modal ruminations, frenetic chromatic turbulence and introspective ballads. Feel free to fast-forward if a particular piece is not what you're in the mood for! All I can say is, it comes with the territory!

Went out on a limb a bit tonight with the first piece; I wanted to try a more contempory sonata-type structure, and then contrast it with two more movements. I was challenged technically in trying to reach for what I was hearing, but it was definitely fun to go for it! The rest of the evening was "wildly melodic" as our friend Lee put it. Enjoy.

The humidity is making several of the piano keys "lazy". so tonight I was more focused on watery, dreamy sounds. It's fun to get going with a certain feel, then just literally go with the flow. The last piece is cut short because the batteries ran out on the digital audio recorder! Most of it came through.

I had heard some groovin' Keith Jarett earlier today and had to start with a nod to my hero. Tried some atonal dancey stuff and definitely went for the shmaltz at one point. Enjoy.

It's nice to be playing at home again on the Steinway Model B. Tonight we had hints of Debussy, Pachelbel, a touch of Spain and maybe Dr. John! Enjoy.

This episode was recorded in CA at the community center on September 13th, where we had the memorial service for my father two days later. You can hear the pedal squeaking a bit, but I think it still came out very nicely. It was impossible to upload it to the podcast until we came home. You just can't move 45 minutes of audio through the free wifi at Super 8...

Tonight's music is dedicated to the memory of my dad who just passed away. The music had some intended feelings and/or memories, but also unconcious connections or associations. 

Tonight the energy was a little more subdued and tended toward the romantic; longer melodic lines and more traditional harmonies. Enjoy!

Thank you for listening. This week I was exploring the dynamic between structure and spontaneity, with the intention to be more towards the spontaneous and not worry about coming back to a theme or feeling the need to provide contrasting sections, etc.