Saturday, November 20. 2010
Perhaps a longer term perspective on ... Posted by Dr Christopher Moore
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11:30
Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Perhaps a longer term perspective on the Stuart piano
Considering as I said before that it is now almost five years since I acquired my piano I have been thinking about the changes in my playing and attitudes over that time and in particular how I now tackle various pieces of music and, importantly, the music that I play.
I’ve always been interested in unusual and rare classical music and have quite an extensive collection now of quite esoteric but nonetheless extraordinary music courtesy, in particular, to sites like www.pianophilia.com. What this has done has sharpened my awareness of sounds and feel on the piano, and the unique characteristics of the Stuart piano have really become much clearer and much, much more logical as I have progressed. So much so, that I am finding it very difficult to consider how I would play other pianos, even though I still do, and appreciate their qualities. I have also started going back to some of the more ‘standard’ classical repertoire, and found that for some strange reason I seem to be playing these better, in the sense that my fingers seem to be much more fluent than they’ve been for many a year, and the sounds that are coming back to my ears are much clearer and more precise than I can remember for quite some time. However, Stuart & Sons were existence for some years before I arrived on the scene, and indeed the development of the Stuart piano has been a very long term project not only from Wayne Stuart’s perspective (piano design has been his life for more years than I suspect he cares to remember) but also for many other organisations who have helped along the way. I don’t intend to go into great detail here, but a couple of thoughts may be relevant. Stuart pianos #1 and #2 are still housed (and played) at the Newcastle Conservatorium, which was the first organisation to commit to the Stuart ethos and paradigm, and #3 is at the University of NSW. Indeed, without organisational support of this type it is doubtful whether commercial production of Stuart pianos would have been possible, since the amount of capital and developmental work required would have prohibitive for any profit-minded enterprise to consider. Stuart pianos are now housed at many of the major musical establishments in Australia, and their use has contributed enormously to the status of these pianos as now exists. Stuart piano #4, which was built around 1999, is now housed at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, where it is used quite frequently for recitals of many kinds, and this blog entry was triggered in the main by the fact that I have been asked to give an introductory talk on Stuart pianos at a function there next week which, amongst other things, features a recital by the well known jazz musician Kevin Hunt, who is the current recipient of a Piano Australia scholarship at the Sydney Conservatorium focussing on performance characteristics of Stuart pianos. I’m not sure exactly what I will be saying, but it has been suggested that I look at the links between public support of human endeavour through our institutions, its long term and far reaching implications for the development of Australian society and its cultural mores, with particular reference of course to the Stuart piano. It’s not an area that I have really thought much about, to be truthful I’m just a (very) simple scientist with a modicum of musical ability (or maybe vice versa), but there is no doubt that a small operation such as Stuart & Sons does not exist in isolation to the society in which we live, and it is critical that that society is an integral part of and must understand and accept any cultural development of the type which Stuart has triggered. There are many boutique piano manufacturers in the world, each which their own particular claim to fame. But Stuart & Sons is unique in being a start-up concern which has designed and built pianos from scratch – for example, major components such as the case and the frame are not imported from other established manufacturers but made here. I think the only other critical parts which are not made here are the piano action and the piano string wire. I’ve heard it said that all pianos are variations on the same theme. A piano is a piano, obviously, but whilst all other grand pianos built today are variations on the same ~120 or so year old Steinway theme, the Stuart is a completely new theme and has to be treated as such. The old ways are no more. The piano is dead. Long live the piano. Saturday, November 13. 2010Yesterday was the day...
…when I forsook my classical roots as a pianist and joined David and some of his friends in our annual event helping to raise a (hopefully) considerable amount of money for homeless and orphan children in Vietnam.
$20,000 is quite a considerable amount of money in anyone’s language, and from what I’ve seen will make quite a difference to some people’s lives in Vietnam. The evening was very successful, and despite any misgivings I may have had our music went off very well, and I was (somewhat fatherly, I must admit) very pleased with the way David (and his friends, of course) played. Of particular note were the two brothers of two of my piano students, one who is a superb classical and jazz acoustic guitarist, and the other (only 12 years old) a very good percussionist already. Great stuff all round and unusually for a ‘background band’ (we were playing as the guests arrived) we got good rounds of applause after each number. I think David may want to do this again, next year… Now I have a bit more time on my hands to do my ‘normal’ music, the Stuart and ancillary instruments will take centre stage again. I did have a chance to record a piano track for a colleague who wanted to sing this hymn at a memorial mass next week, and I have to admit the recording sound came out very well, with the bass and treble notes very clear and resonant. It does seem that I have the optimum conditions for recording now in my little music room and like all aficionados of Ockham’s razor it turns out, as I have commented before, that the simplest arrangement is the best. I am now using a pair of Rode NT-3 microphones and these are quite brilliant, very sensitive (I use them as choir microphones) and with a great dynamic range. I wish I could take the piano with me wherever I play, but of course such things are not possible in a practical sense. Last night, the Kurzweil was really good, and I was able to switch between acoustic and electric piano where required with good effect, something I must admit I couldn’t have done with the Stuart. You can’t have everything, I suppose. Now I wonder if I can get a MIDI interface onto the Stuart. I think Wayne would disown me if I asked him for that… Friday, November 12. 2010Today is the day...
…when I forsake my classical roots as a pianist and join David and some of his friends in our annual event helping to raise a (hopefully) considerable amount of money for homeless and orphan children in Vietnam. David has upped the ante this year by deciding to do some ‘smoooooooth’ jazz, and I must admit that such things are not my forte and it has taken me a while to get to the stage where I can give a reasonably good imitation of being cool in the jazz sense.
This of course will not be on the Stuart, but on my Kurzweil keyboard which I have now had for two years and has been very useful in a myriad of ways during that time. Whilst I have mentioned before that it does not, of course, match the Stuart (it was never bought for that purpose) that is not intended to be a negative comment in any way. I can adjust to the different feel of the keyboard which is quite good for the music I will be playing (although it is certainly not suitable for things classical) and the sound in the context of a band and a function such as this is absolutely fine. And I can turn up the volume when I need to… We will be playing at the beginning for about an hour or so and that will stretch David’s stamina on the saxophone, but by and large he is sounding good and has learnt to pace himself well so that he doesn’t run out of the proverbial puff at critical times. I know this can be a problem because I run into it with the cor anglais, probably attributable to my lack of fitness and advancing age, plus any other excuse I can think of at the time. So I will need to pack the car with assorted instruments, amplifiers, microphones, leads, music stands and much other paraphernalia so beloved of a practising (and portable) musician. We’re expecting about 700 people to attend, and hope to raise more than the $20,000 raised last year. Quite a commendable achievement by a group of very dedicated Vietnamese ladies. Friday, November 5. 2010
The Ultimate Piano ™ in Performance Posted by Dr Christopher Moore
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14:32
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The Dutch born Australian pianist Gerard Willems has just recorded Beethoven’s Thirty Three Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli on the 102-key Stuart piano, and has also recently performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no.1 in C major with the Sydney University Symphony Orchestra in the Great Hall at Sydney University, a venue I know very well having been a student there all those years ago.
Radio and Television coverage of these was actually very good, and may be found here in audio form (please ignore the obvious and somewhat annoying name mispronunciations) and a report from the ABC’s 7.30 Report here. All very positive, and Willems makes a number of very salient points regarding the sound of the piano and why he plays the way he does. He uses the term ‘spring clean’ in the context of the renewal of the music and this is something that I have been very vocal about since I first acquired the piano – any attempt to play music in the same way as would be played on a ‘standard’ piano just will not work. You have to reinvent the way you play, and if you do that successfully the music too is reinvented and renewed. The main problem is, as always, the innate conservatism of the piano listening public, and the majority of pianists who are stuck in a groove of their own experiences and refuse to admit that the pianistic world has passed them by and they are now floundering in a sea of memories – looking for comfort in a world which in many other spheres is no longer anything like it was. Many people will never understand the why’s and wherefore’s, the principles and the ethos of these pianos. They don’t realise that things can change, and for the better. Music can be reinvented in ways that previous generations and indeed the composers themselves never imagined – because the tools just weren’t there. Many more people have now seen and heard the Ultimate Piano ™ thanks to the above broadcasts. It remains to be seen whether this will herald a new appreciation of how music and the piano can and should develop, or whether the Steinways of this world will simply allow piano music to stagnate much as it has for many years now. Conservatism is not part of my musical vocabulary. Thursday, November 4. 2010Five Year Report Card
Next month marks the fifth anniversary of my acquisition of a 97-key 2.2 metre Stuart & Sons grand piano. So it seemed appropriate that I write something of a report card on the current status of the piano, my playing and other relevant bits and pieces.
The piano is still in absolutely pristine condition as though it had just come out of the factory. The huon pine veneer has matured beautifully, and is now a somewhat richer golden colour than when I first acquired it. The interior of the piano looks and feels exactly like it did when I first played it at the factory five years ago. The sound if anything is better now than at any stage of my ownership. The piano has settled down well as one would expect, and the action, dampers, hammers etc are virtually as new. In fact, this piano could be sold as a new piano and no-one would be able to tell the difference. The action is still very precise and even over the entire keyboard, and there is, as always, no discernable tonal breaks or differences throughout the range. The tuning stability is still outstanding, and in reality the piano needs tuning only once per year at this stage. Even then, the tonal drop is only a matter of one or two cents at the most, and some slight adjustment in some unisons is all that required to bring it back to scratch again. Even the extra bass and treble notes are stable over long periods of time. From a personal point of view, I still get a buzz simply by sitting down at the piano. My enthusiasm to play a piano has for most of my life exceeded my ability to play it, but I’m finding that my fingers are in better shape now at my advanced age than at any time I can remember. My eyesight is still a problem, but then again it always has been and always will be – I simply have had to get used to it. The extra notes as I have said many times are no problem to me at all, and I am finding more and more that selective use of them can add immeasurably to all kinds of music, from classical through to modern. I fully understand the piano now – I know what it is capable of doing and I’m much better at getting that out of the piano than I used to be. My trips to the factory to play the latest Stuart pianos have added to that understanding, and I’m able to translate all of that into the sound coming out of my piano. The piano has been everything I expected of it when I first acquired it, and more, much more. It has opened up myriad new sensations, interpretations and performance possibilities that I have not been able to reproduce on any other make of piano – and I’ve played quite a few now. Each time, whilst I appreciated the qualities of all high quality pianos I have played, I found myself coming back to the Stuart simply to prove time and time again that I can do things with this piano that I just can’t do with the others. Music has, as I get older, become much more important to me and there is no doubt that my acquisition of the Stuart, mad and emotional though it seemed at the time, has been the cornerstone of my music for the last five years, and there is no doubt that it will continue to be so until the day when I can play no more. Monday, November 1. 2010The Stuart Sound
… is very difficult to reproduce in recordings for a number of reasons, in my experience including;
• The huge dynamic range of the instrument • The tendency of recording (and mixing) engineers to equalise out the bass and treble, as well as limiting the dynamic range • The quality and positioning of the microphones I have, as has been detailed in this blog, on a number of occasions now recorded both my (at home) and other (at the factory) Stuart pianos and given my limited technical knowledge and recording gear, not to mention my limitations as a pianist, the sound has come out very well overall and people can clearly hear the qualities of the instrument as measured against what I might call the ‘status quo’ piano technology. I am not an audiophile by any means, but I appreciate there are people with much more sensitive ears than mine who are capable of analysing the subtleties and nuances of recording and playback in a more sophisticated way, and those of such skill who have recorded the Stuart piano have produced sounds which quite frankly amaze me in terms of their clarity and quality. The latest effort I’ve heard is no exception. This is the latest demonstration CD from Stuart & Sons, recorded on the 2.2m and 2.9m 102-note pianos by Bill Risby and Kevin Hunt, both very well known jazz and improvisatory pianists, each of whom has a very good appreciation of the capability of the pianos, and also, of course, the ability to put this into practice. I have to say, despite my obvious biases, that the sound is quite incredible. I would seriously advise anyone with an interest in pianos to contact Stuart & Sons via their website, and ask them to send out a copy of the CD. Play it on a good set of speakers, and turn the sound up. Some of it will send shivers down your spine in a way that you haven’t experienced before. |
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