Friday, October 31. 2008
… a plurality of methodologies for performing taxidermy on a feline - in this case, disposing of the gas bubble in my eye. You can wait for it to slowly disappear, as I did some months back, or else you can take more drastic and somewhat faster measures, like having another operation on the same eye …
… which is what happened to me last Saturday. The eye had been feeling a bit ‘tight’ on Friday night but that may have just been due to tiredness. When I woke up the next morning I knew instinctively that I needed some urgent treatment on the eye and so I booked myself into the Sydney Eye Hospital again. It turned out that the scar tissue in my eye had tightened and I had two small tears in the retina which in fact had pulled quite a bit of the retina away from the eye. Nothing of course that my trusty eye surgeon couldn’t fix, which he did in the afternoon (people of his quality don’t get weekends off – emergencies don’t happen 9-5 on weekdays) but this time to ensure that the retina stays on I have silicone oil in my eye rather than the gas bubble.
Of course, the oil has a completely different refractive index to the fluid that was previously in there and in fact I can see much more clearly through the left eye than I could before, even allowing for the normal distortion and fluid effects. I’ll get a new lens for my glasses next week, because the one I got a few weeks ago is now so far out that looking through it all I can see is a blur, no kidding.
Where does this leave the piano? In the same place, mentally as well as physically. Although I really shouldn’t do it yet, I have played the piano since the operation and am pleasantly surprised by how well it is coming out from my fingers. I have a suspicion that once my settles down I will be doing some recording so I will go back over my plans and programme and see what I think needs changing, if anything.
The next couple of months could be quite productive musically.
Tuesday, October 21. 2008
I started off this blog in March with the intention of trying to put into words my reasons for getting and my experiences in playing a Stuart piano. This was not so much a egotistical and self-congratulatory exercise (although obviously as I stated I have been able to achieve much of what I set out to do, eye problems notwithstanding) but to try to counteract much misinformation and misunderstanding about the why's and wherefor's of the piano.
As I went along it became clear that much of that misunderstanding was due to the inability of people to make the quantum leap necessary to move from a traditional 19th century-inspired instrument to one which quite deliberately set out to be different and to break the shackles as it were to allow pianists to totally reinvent the way they interpreted the music they played – from the 15th to the 21st century.
By now, I’m familiar enough with the instrument to be able to see why many pianists can’t handle this and I’m certainly of the view that whilst not many people can afford to buy a Stuart piano, there are some people who could afford to buy one, but most certainly shouldn’t buy one in a month of Sundays.
Take this question from the Pianoworld fora.
“As an attorney, I ‘occasionally’ find myself amidst a snob or two (or thirty). One highly overcompensated member of a hyper-endowed gathering this past Saturday night is in the market for a grand piano, and was wondering what to purchase. His ‘decorator’ said to keep it under 7 feet (preferable around 6), and he wants to make a splash. He doesn't want something ‘as banal as a Steinway’.
Fyi -- he currently owns and drives a Bugatti Veyron and a Lamborghini Murcielago (among his several other "vehicles"), he lives in Greenwich, he (of course) is a hedge fund manager that seems to have avoided catastrophe in recent weeks, owns several Patek wristwatches, etc. etc. etc. He's really quite insufferable, come to think of it.
In any event, he wants to add a sub-7 foot grand to his ‘collection’. I suggested that he ‘needs a F212 Fazioli with a custom made artcase with his portrait inlaid.’ Did I do my friend justice? Oh, and he admonished me that he ‘isn't Liberace or Elton John, so nothing bejeweled’ would be acceptable."
There were a number of replies, advising various high quality pianos – for example “I would suggest he either looks to purchase something highly unusual such as a Stuart and Sons”.
Good suggestion, or is it?
I had a god think about it in terms of my own experience and then realised that this whole thing was really just an exercise in cynicism of the Oscar Wilde variety, so I added my bit to the conversation as follows:
"My advice is simple and perhaps somewhat irreverant - but tell him not to buy one. The reason? Simple ... pianos are meant to be played, not looked at.
As an owner of a Stuart piano, there's no doubt in my (and many others) mind that Stuart pianos match and indeed exceed the criteria you have mentioned. But each Stuart piano is hand-crafted from top to bottom, and takes on the average twelve months until completion. Each piano is unique - no two are alike, and great care is taken to set up and voice the piano properly before it leaves the factory. Making top quality pianos is a labour of love for those who do it. Now would you like to spend twelve months of very patient and delicate work only to have the instrument sit in some admittedly splendid surroundings and never get played to anywhere near its potential? Sure, your hip pocket may be happy but that would be the only part of your body that is.
Tell him to buy a cheap Asian clone with a pretty veneer and I guarantee very few would notice the difference - because I doubt that the thing would ever get played."
Imagine someone buying a Stradivarius or Guarneri violin and putting it in a display case. I imagine it does happen, unfortunately. I have no gripe with art collectors doing similar things as long as they display their acquisitions appropriately. But to buy an expensive hand-crafted piano simply for show would be an absolute anathema to me.
If I were a salesman of such pianos (and maybe its fortunate that I am not) said people would be straight out the door.
Good quality instruments are built to be played, not looked at. I must admit, however, that the Stuart piano I am fortunate enough to have can be played and looked at at the same time …
Monday, October 20. 2008
… give or take a few days, and so it’s a good time to take stock of what’s been happening since my last post.
Nothing much, really …
My eye is progressing well and got a clean bill of health (again!) from my surgeon last week. My musical instruments are sounding good, my playing is improving and I like playing with my iPhone. I’ve tried making VoIP calls through the iPhone via Fring and Skype, but the voice quality is not good at this stage. I’m on a cheap unlimited Australian call plan through Skype, the major benefit of which is I get to talk to Wayne more often without having to pay someone exorbitant costs for it. I can also do conference calls with up to twenty four people. Neat. I spent fifty minutes last night talking to my sister and her daughter. I got the occasional word in edgeways. They always were good at talking – my niece is an extraordinarily good marketing manager – and you need to be able to talk in that line of business.
I’ve been experimenting a bit with various touch techniques on the piano, whether that be by bouncing or stroking the keys, and how much force to use with whichever pedal combination I’m using at the time. Some of the sounds I’m getting from the Tan Dun Watercolours are quite intriguing and having had the opportunity recently to play a couple of other pianos (no names, no court martials) I can’t get anywhere near the sound I can get on the Stuart. One pf the pieces I’m doing with my son at the moment is, of all things, the theme from St Elmo’s Fire by David Foster. I’ve known the piece for a long time of course, and it’s noticeable for a neat use of an electric piano as emphasis in the high registers and also a tenor saxophone solo, once again in the high registers of the instrument giving it a less nasal quality than say playing the same notes on a alto or soprano saxophone. What I found is that those notes meant for the electric piano positively ring out on the Stuart, played in a rather bouncy way that only the Stuart can produce. I’ve tried the same thing on my (now) venerable Ensoniq KS32 keyboard and the results (as may be expected) fall very flat. How I’m going to do it in performance I have no idea – I can’t take the Stuart with me, so I suspect I’m stuck.
Another reason why you can’t beat an acoustic piano.
Another practice session coming up…
Wednesday, October 1. 2008
I just tuned my Martin D18 guitar because I suspect my son will use it tonight because he has some friends over. So what, you might say? Haven’t you tuned guitars before?
Of course I have, many, many times. But this is the first time I’ve done it using an iPhone.
I’m using an iPhone application called Cleartune. You play a note and the tuning appears on both a note-wheel interface and a fine tuning meter. You don’t need to set for a particular note – this application finds it for you. You can even sing into it (don’t worry, I was home alone when I tried that – but it worked). So the guitar sounds good, even though it’s apparent that I need new strings on it. Tomorrow, I get to tune the 12-string guitar. Wow…
I couldn’t resist the temptation and took the iPhone and plonked it on the Stuart piano. According to the iPhone, the tuning is still pretty much spot on – a few notes have dropped about 2 cents but that’s hardly noticeable for someone with my eyesight. Even better, most of the high and low notes were picked up pretty quickly. The high notes are sharp according to the iPhone – I suspect this is deliberate on Wayne’s part to try to make the notes cut through a bit more, and the bass notes are really spot on still. With some of the low notes, the iPhone picked up a harmonic rather than the fundamental, but the harmonic was in pitch.
Not bad at all considering the piano hasn’t been tuned for four months. This thing really does hold its tune well.
The good thing about this application is that it handles different temperaments, including various mean tone, Pythagorean and well-tempered tunings. Even better, the next version will allow me to define my own temperament.
The iPhone really does redefine what you can do with a handheld computer – mp3 player, video player, games, tuning, web browsing etc. The ability to make phone calls is purely a bonus, but a necessary one at that.
|