Episode 107 - Hands Together

Welcome to show 107 of Piano, finally. This week's show title, Hands Together, has a double meaning: it refers to playing the piano properly and people collaborating to make music. I managed to get the show done before leaving for the St Vincent de Paul van on Sunday evening, following some weather-related plan changes. I successfully completed every scheduled practice this week, largely because putting the Montage in a really easy-to-sit-at place has made a difference. The repair place still hasn't called back about the keyboard. What's been playing: I caught up with a few YouTube creators this week. Pierre Piscitelli has a video on how to play Pink Floyd's The Great Gig In The Sky, breaking down the opening so you can build up gradually.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pK3Z-WtDus Piano with Melanie has a tutorial on Pachelbel's Canon in D, moving from root position chords to inversions and showing how to do simple improvisations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nBTVdgaZfs Sam Gutman has a video covering the demise of the keyboard company Roli and the problems that has caused for customers. https://www.youtube.com/@SamGutman Essay - Hands Together: I have been exploring the difficulty involved in playing hands together, comparing the traditional approach of learning hands separately to starting with both hands simultaneously. I initially thought my touch-typing speed would make playing simple, but the QWERTY layout was designed to slow typists down to one key at a time, which isn't what we want at the piano keyboard. I am currently working on Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, using Matthew Cawood's suggestion to classify each moment into left hand only, right hand only, or both hands together. Since multitasking is a myth, the key to playing hands together might just be getting better at chords, scales, and arpeggios independently to reduce cognitive load. Learning - What's new: Adlib Music had a 20% off sale on all AMEB books running until 27 October, so I purchased the Grade One and Two books for Musical Theatre and Singing. My piano practice this week focused heavily on getting both hands working together, particularly on Hallelujah. Devi gave me a trick for the tricky middle section of Wild Chase: pencilling in the chords so I just have to remember the order. Trumpet Tune is still proving tricky around the staccato/legato section. Closing: I won't be at the extra bass section rehearsal this Tuesday because I have a ticket to see Bryn Terfel's masterclass at the Opera House. I expect to have an episode out next weekend, but probably not the week after due to Year 9 camp and end-of-year exam marking. Email me at [email protected] or visit the website at www.pianofinally.show. This podcast is produced on the lands of the Dharug and Gundungarra peoples, land that always was and always will be traditional Aboriginal land. Progress This week features bars 9 to 16 of Wild Chase, all of Trumpet Tune (focusing on bars 3 and 4), and the first four bars of Hallelujah. I recorded all the music directly from the Yamaha Montage M8x via USB audio to an M4 Max MacBook Pro running Cubase 15. The contents of the podcast were entirely generated by David Reidy, but the 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.