Does anyone fancy a piano chat thread?

[LemonViolet]

I’m awaiting delivery of a new piano, squeee!!! I haven’t played regularly for 20 years. I got to grade 6 as a teen, failed grade 7, carried on tinkering for a bit but have not really lived anywhere with a piano since age 18 so am well out of practice.

Whilst I hope/plan to put a baby grand in our front room, once it is done up - which may be some time - at the weekend I just realised, what am I waiting for, I want a digital anyways for playing at less sociable hours, so went ahead and ordered myself a nice Kawai digital and it arrives on Friday!!!

There’s a music chat thread on the extracurricular board but that’s more parents discussing their offsprings’ exploits, I have seen on the music board it’s quite pianissimo but there clearly are other grown up women around here playing/learning/relearning piano for our own pleasure, entertainment, therapy etc! So thought I’d post to see if anyone else is interested in hanging out on a piano thread to chat about our piano journeys, successes and failures, pieces we like, what we’re practicing etc?

It could be called the piano bar or the pianist beaker, seeing as this is MN

If there is one I’ve just failed to find, please point me in that direction.

Hey mc!
Ah I love the third movement but bloody hell it is hard. I can’t imagine ever playing it properly at the right speed again - I was fairly confident on it back in the day (like you I was at grade 8 level but then had a long gap).

I like Nyman, do you have a book? I don’t really know what I’m looking for with his stuff, but would like to try! I have sheet music of the promise (AKA Lloyds bank 🤣) somewhere i think.

No playing today, snowed under with other tasks - maybe once little one is asleep. I tried a Clementi sonata yesterday but not super keen really, might try a different one

I’d love to be able to do jazz too. After a piano tuner was round and doing lots of bluesy improv I was sooo taken with it - I got a book on how to do it, he recommended it. But it’s just sat sadly on my shelf since 😳 I’m just not an improv person - I struggle with anything like that, imaginative play, drawing from imagination rather than observation, I’m filled with dread when 3yo asks me for a “made up story” at bedtime.

I have a couple of Mike Cornick books though, which I like for a simple jazzy fix.

Hi all, joining this thread too in the hope that I can motivate myself to do some practice! I'm a music and piano teacher but don't get a huge amount of time to practice, plus I'm almost 9 months pregnant so it's a bit uncomfortable at the moment 🤣 trying to relearn Chopin's Ballade No 3 which I absolutely love and learn a Mozart sonata (I think it's A minor...)

@SingToTheSky: jazz is a lot more formulaic than you may have been led to believe. As for blues, there's usually a pattern of harmony and chord progressions which also apply to boogie woogie and rock n roll.

Is there any particular kind of jazz you like?

Sing I am playing through The Piano (film music) from Nyman at the moment. Haven't seen the film though, it's supposed to be good.

My issue with Boogie Woogie is that I struggle to dissociate two hands. Blooming heck, I find that difficult. I know I just need to do few minutes a day of those exercises..

@Mc3209 I also have "The Piano" film soundtrack book- it's amazing. The main theme tune is difficult (grade 8) but there are easier ones in there with the same sound/ the whole film runs on a similar theme which is beautiful. Definitely Italy watch the film if you have the chance.

I'm planning to visit the London store of Musicroom next week- they were really helpful by email (trying to source the Chopin waltz in A minor) and I prefer to see the music in real life. Will report back....

TBH I don’t really know @Buggerthebotox 😳 I’m basically clueless I just like the bits I have played

@LilaGrace that would explain why I am struggling with that main theme piece! It's very beautiful, and I am slowly getting there, it is starting to sound as it should.

Good luck in London!

If it’s the op. posth. one then I have it in the Chopin an Introductory Album from the ABRSM Easier Piano Pieces series
Chopin: An Introductory Album (Easier Piano Pieces Series No. 39) www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1854723049/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_i_YVCSZN2XCQ9K1E523N7A?tag=mumsnetforu03-21
ABRSM grades all the pieces in that book as 5-7 so figured it’s a good selection of more accessible/shorter Chopin

Maybe someone can answer this. . Apparently there's a site out there where you can sing or play part of a tune and and it searches the music for you.

Anyone know it please?

You can do it on Google (works well, I've tried with playing a song, but not humming), alternatively this one is supposed to do it too: www.midomi.com/

Thanks @Mc3209

@LemonViolet yep, that's the book Musicroom have told me it's in! I'm going to collect it tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing what else they have there-it's meant to be a great shop.

I really like that series of books, and ABRSM publications in general, I find the style of printing/layout etc really nice to read.

That Waltz is also in the ABRSM More Romantic Pieces Book 4, which has a nice selection of other composers shop.abrsm.org/shop/prod/ABRSM-More-Romantic-Pieces-for-Piano-Book-IV/598690

Thanks @LemonViolet - might have a look for that while I'm there tomorrow too. Love this thread!

I might have ordered both from Amazon 😬

I find I have lots of pieces on the go at the moment. I should really finish them off, to widen my actual repertoire. At the moment it's full of 'work in progress' bits.

Same with the lots of pieces. I think especially at beginner/intermediate level, when none of our pieces are especially long timewise, it’s easy to do that. Which obviously is fine when it’s just for our own pleasure anyway. But I do want to work on this concept of ‘active repertoire’ where you maintain 3 pieces at any one time that are performance ready, that you can sit down and just play.

I have an old family piano, in great condition for its age, but my horrible neighbours complain every time me or my son play - I'm grade 7, he's beyond that so we're not making a tuneless racket!

I'd like to get a digital one so I can play as much as I like with headphones but DS assures me I won't even be able to give my old one away.

I'd like to play but don't want to give the lovely one away for nothing or have to scrap it

Yeah you can pick old uprights up for pennies on eBay, they can be difficult to sell. Do you have space for both? The digitals aren’t massive.

I hope to have both one day. Digi for 24/7 and vintage baby grand for showing off

I don't have room for both sadly. Oh I'd love a baby grand. That can be on my wish list to go in my thatched cottage in the Cotswolds when I win the lottery

There’s a poster upthread who said she had her old upright converted to digital - I don’t know the details - sounds like they gutted it inside and replaced the gubbins with a digital but the outside and perhaps keyboard was kept original? Not sure how that works or the cost.

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER are you around to say more?

@LemonViolet, it was done by Vale Pianos, in Worcestershire. Like a pp, I was very reluctant to junk the beautiful wood of the old cabinet. We are in SW London, they fetched the old one and left me a Kawai digital in the meantime.

We did visit their showroom first - they were very helpful and obviously I could try the type they would use.

New innards and keyboard came from a top range Kawai, but can’t remember which. Total cost was a bit over £3k IIRC, but this was 4 or 5 years ago now. I appreciate the anti-digital feeling by many on here, but TBH I doubt I’m ever going to progress much beyond my current level of G5 ish. 3 Gdcs have arrived since I started again, and I’m somewhat over my three score and ten….

The tone is honestly so much better - the old one did sound very tinny. (Bought blind by dh as a surprise, bless him, but he had no idea.). Though I’d been using a very ancient keyboard before, nowhere as good as modern ones, so it was better than that.

You would never be able to tell from the outside that it’s been converted. A visiting late-teens niece who used to play, couldn’t understand why it wasn’t working! You just lift the lid to switch it on. It turns itself off after 15 mins if not used.

If anyone wants more info, pls feel free to PM me.

I’d like to join too! Contemplating learning again after 30 years!