Piano Meditations Podcast

Once again enjoying the fresh tuning by master tuner and pianist Victor La Gamma. Whenever it's so perfect I automatically fall into playing lots of basic triads and simple harmonies because it just sounds so sweet. Enjoy.  No Piano Meditations next two weeks.

Just family in the audience tonight; my mother-in-law asked for some Scott Joplin and I happened to have a rag in the repertoire. I sort of kept with the "oompah" bass for a while, which turned into a version of the jazz tune "Black Orpheus", and in honor of Independence Day did a medley of "America" mixed with John Lennon's "Yesterday". Enjoy.

New guests tonight! Kind of went all over the place; tonal, twisted, waltzy. Sometimes I just felt like being a little random...

Just hanging with chord progressions. Enjoy!

Still really digging into the romantic; I'm having a good time exploring counterpoint with double melodies and inner voicings. Some kind of musical theater thing showed up, too. Enjoy.

Audience of one! But that's who's actually in my living room; seeing some nice statistics of the podcast! 677 listeners yesterday, 4577 just this week. Keeps me motivated. Tonight I made more "mistakes" but I was also more "into it"; following the energy and really feeling involved in the music. Enjoy.

Apologies if you tried to listen with a previous upload; something happened where it was shortened and/or was playing part of another night's music. This should be the whole evening. I'm going to listen all the way through to make sure! 

For the first time tonight I wasn't feeling a desire to play; I knew people would be watching on FB Live, so I didn't just blow it off. But then two people from the neighborhood came! Sure enough, it was great to just focus on making music for 45 minutes. Enjoy.  

Still in a "romantic" phase; channeling my inner Puccini or Verdi! :) It just feels so good to play these rich chords and linger on them; I can't help it! One piece I tried to have some percussive hand switching with repeated notes, but I could really feel my limitations rhythmically. Still kept going even though it felt awkward. I've learned that most of the time when I listen back it doesn't sou...

I seemed to tend towards "romantic" sounds tonight; it could just as accurately be described as schmaltz, sappy, sentimental, etc, but I think I'll stick with "romantic". At a few points I was imagining the melody being sung by an operatic tenor, so, there you go. Enjoy.

Interesting note to self; whenever we have newcomers I seem to go towards more bombastic playing. Not necessarily all louder or faster, but more insistent and driving. Maybe I don't want to put them to sleep. In any case, most of the music tonight felt very "traditional"; just going with chord changes and harmonies that supported simple melodies. Enjoy.

Most of the evening was devoted to standards. I'm teaching piano and music theory to someone who has been coming fairly regularly to Piano Meditations, and she was saying she planned to make requests, so I pre-empted her by playing the few standards I actually know! I finished with a few free improvs. Enjoy!

I'm finding a kind of sound and way of playing that is yielding new territory but is still comfortable to play; namely, giving my left hand less to do so I have more mental space to explore with the right hand. It's amazing how just a simple repeated note in the left hand can be enough of a foundation to give the melody plenty of support. 

Quiet night tonight with two new guests. I felt like I was playing it safe, staying in comfortable zones, playing phrases and chord progressions I've done before. And yet, even so, whenever I feel this way, it's always just "new enough" that I didn't feel like I was plagiarizing myself, which is a good thing. The one "cocktail piano" style piece I did really didn't feel like it went anywhere, but...

Update: yesterdays' post of this episode only included 18 minutes; here is the full evening. It's funny; after a two week hiatus because the house was being painted, it felt like I was going to have no clue how to dive in and improvise. But there is something about having an audience that changes the whole equation; knowing people are listening changes my own listening, and once again music appear...

Had a new visitor tonight; this is starting to happen more frequently! I am editing out conversation and applause so the podcast is just the music. Also, tonight I tried a cool idea; i took an app on my iPad and mirrored it to Apple TV which sent sound through our stereo speakers, and then played a cello sample on the iPad while using the other hand to play piano. Fun! Then I gave the iPad to a fr...

Nice crowd again tonight! We're going with a "hold applause till the end" format, so the recording includes whatever time is between the pieces. Tonight's music tended towards one particular feel; I didn't try to mix it up for variety's sake. 

Big audience tonight! We had new guests and others that had said they would come someday, and voilá! The piano is still purring with new tuning and voicing; really went for the impressionist sonorities tonight, as well as a crazy waltz. Enjoy.

Starting the second year of Piano Meditations with the Steinway just tuned and voiced by master tuner and pianist Victor LaGamma. On some pieces I just felt like listening to the sound of chords ringing in perfect tune! We had a new guest which is always fun. The first piece is a rendition of Simple Gifts in honor of Thanksgiving. Enjoy!

Okay, tonight marks a full year of episodes! I started in August 2017, but with vacation and other stuff it took more than a year to get to this point. My phone was on low power and didn't make it through the night recording to Facebook, but you podcasters get the whole thing. Enjoy!

I wanted to focus on "groove" tonight; to try and get into the rhythmic pulse of the music and follow it from there. It felt a little strange not "developing" a theme, and just improvising over a couple of chords or a steady beat, but it also felt free, which I guess is the point! 

50th episode! We had some new folks tonight. It's an interesting process just allowing the music to unfold the way it wants to without worrying whether I'm keeping listeners engaged. At some point it could become too self-indulgent, I guess, but so far people seem to stay with it. The last piece was very slow, then went into an atonal contrapuntal frenzy before returning to slow, simple chords. Wh...

Interesting evening; felt very distracted with everything else going on in life and I didn't feel particularly inspired with what I was improvising. So, I mixed it up and went with some very different approaches, and ultimately was able to get into a flow with the music. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes a struggle, but that's what makes it interesting for me, and hopefully anyone listening!