Episode 103 - Background Music

G'day, everyone. Welcome to show number one hundred and three of Piano, finally. I'm on holidays! Term 3 is over, and I'm planning to use the break to get the secondary music spot better organised for some short practice sessions. My new Yamaha Montage M8x keyboard has arrived, though it has a slightly broken knob that I'm getting sorted. I also picked up a hard case for it, which is quite a bit heavier than the case for the MODX M6! Just a quick reminder that early bird tickets for the 30th Blue Mountains Music Festival are now available. You can grab yours here: https://www.bmff.org.au/ What's been playing Last week, ABC Radio's The Music Show covered a fascinating family singing continuously for 400 years, alongside Brian Dessner's new cello concerto, The Trembling Earth. I also had a fantastic workshop with the Luminescence Chamber Singers who travelled up from Canberra to help us with phrasing and timing for our upcoming choir concert. Check out their October concerts and a video of them performing All is Well here: https://www.luminescence.org.au/ On YouTube, I found two great videos. Pierre Piscitelli has a wonderful tutorial on Candle in the Wind, which is definitely on my list to learn. You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKFhbSLn-Vs. Also, check out Every Piano Player's Worst Nightmare... (Here's what to play) by Piano with Melanie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfNZ4rvYTsA. I might give her suggested piece a try next time I'm early to choir practice! Background Music This week, I've been pondering a question: is music always meant to be listened to? At a recent school building opening, two brilliant Year 10 students played live background music. They were fantastic, yet mostly ignored as people mingled. It got me thinking about how background music is everywhere—from supermarkets to weddings—and whether having live musicians fade into the background is a good thing for them financially, or just frustrating when their hard work is overlooked. Let me know how you balance live music and paying musicians proper respect! What's New I've started working on the opening bars of Candle in the Wind and slowly navigating the hundred-plus controls on my new Yamaha Montage keyboard. My long-term goal is to learn the process of picking up a lead sheet and producing something decent, rather than just playing the right notes from a full score. Closing I went to see some of my students in a local, cut-down production of Beauty and the Beast by Fantasia Showstoppers, and I was pleasantly surprised by the exceptional singing! Find out more about them here: https://www.fantasiashowstoppers.com.au/ If you'd like to reach out, email me at [email protected] or visit www.pianofinally.show. Let me know where you are in your musical journey! The contents of the podcast were entirely generated by David Reidy, but that these show notes were created by Gemini. Send me a text message. You can contact me: via email at [email protected]; this is probably the best option the show website, www.pianofinally.show Instagram and Threads @pianofinally and on YouTube  all the podcast directories - list here's the RSS feed Some of the links to books and other items mentioned in the podcast may affiliate links for Amazon or other providers. If you use one of these links, a commission may be paid to me at no additional cost to you. Thank you if you use a link.  All reviews of products, websites and services are unpaid, and no sponsorship has been received for any content on this podcast.