Dublin is proving to have many little hidden gems at the moment. When I played the Saucy Sundays sessions in January, I was blown away by the venue upstairs in the Grand Social. Wonderful place to play, and the audience were fantastic. I had a similar experience with the very intimate Matchbox Theatre, which is downstairs in Le Café des Irlandais on Georges St (where Café Bar Deli used to be).
This beautifully intimate café theatre hosts the 50 Cent Sessions every Wednesday at the moment, and is the perfect venue for this kind of an evening. Last wednesday I was playing a wee set there, and it was wonderful to get to hear such a variety of other acts.
I had the odd experience of following another pianist (it’s not often you run into piano-based songwriters at nights like this, for some reason. Lots of guitars, not so much piano), so we decided to share the same set-up, to save time and hassle on the night. So, I was playing an unfamiliar digital piano, which just felt all kinds of wrong. And I was sitting down. I realised that I’ve never actually done a solo gig sitting down at the piano. I seem to play standing up when I’m performing pretty much always. It really is more constricting to be sitting, and I ended up contorting and piano-bench humping and understanding just why someone like Tori Amos ends up writing around on the piano bench while performing. It’s not in me to sit still while playing.
Watch me being all awkward with a strange piano. But it was the night before Paddy’s Day, so I sang one of my Irish language songs.
Nevertheless, it renewed my love for my own gear, as I really do love the digital Roland I’ve had for the last 8 years or so. It’s heavy as hell, and a pain in the ass to move between gigs sometimes, especially since my case has now lost all handles and broken both wheels, but I really noticed the difference it makes when I was without it last Wednesday. Needless to say, next time I’ll forgo using someone else’s, even if it is less hassle, as I’m just more comfortable with something that feels closer to a real piano.
I fell in love with the piano at an early age from listening to my sister practising in the front room. I have a memory of standing at the door looking at the piano while she was playing and deciding I wanted to do that too. I’m not sure how real the memory is, as my childhood memories are really random little fragments of things, but the emotion was definitely real. I remember walking up the hill to my first piano lesson alongside my sister. I remember the first piano book I learned from – it was A4 size, but bound horizontally with black spiral bind. I remember falling in love with the sound of the piano.
We changed teachers pretty soon after the first one, and found one who was just wonderful and is the person I would credit with my continuing love of piano as she was warm, friendly, and inviting and when I finished the classical grades, which is how you learn piano in these parts, I fell to the wayside a little bit regarding classical piano. There was no teacher in Galway at the time teaching Diplomas, and I couldn’t afford to go to Dublin every week. I had another teacher after that who I didn’t get along with, and then had no teacher until I went to university two years later when I had a different piano teacher each year of my degree. The last one being the one that I got on well with again properly, as well as musically, who pushed me to the highest classical level I’ve ever achieved. But I’m not a classical pianist.
My years without a teacher were some of the best years in terms of re-learning how to play piano, and learning to love the instrument again the way I did as a child. I played whatever I could get my hands on – sight-reading has never been a problem for me, and I’d play my siblings or cousins pieces from sight. But it was also around that time that I just started to sit at the piano and play whatever came into my head. I know a lot of it sounded rubbish, but it sparked the current relationship I have with piano. I previously described it to a friend as being like a conversation with myself through the language of music, and I guess that’s the best way I can describe it.
I don’t really aim to be able to play the most difficult classical pieces, and certainly my technique has dropped considerable since I finished studying classical piano with a teacher almost 9 years ago, but I’ve had the opportunity to play with jazz singers and musicians, rock bands, singer-songwriters, and stretch my knowledge of the instrument so much. I only fully rediscovered my love of classical piano music when I began to listen to what some contemporary composers are doing with the instrument – people like Ludovico Einuadi, Max Richter, Philip Glass – composing beautiful solo piano music that doesn’t show off, or revel in flair and flourishes, it’s often just simple gorgeous piano music. And it spoke to me in the way that I speak to myself when I sit at the piano alone.
I’ve always kept playing bits of the classical piano music that I love, but it was usually sidelined by the other music I was playing, or by my own songwriting. But lately, you’re as likely to see a book of Einuadi or Glass piano solos in my bag as you are a blank manuscript and whatever novel I’m currently reading.
I really wanted to dedicate this post to the piano music that drew me back to classical piano again. I’ve even had my old Mozart pieces out again recently. I can’t play any of it half as well as I used to be able to, from a technical point of view, but I certainly understand it more now and in my own way I feel I play the music better from a musical point of view. My left hand is still as lazy and weak as ever though.
And one more piece that I love. For once, someone in a youtube comment makes an excellent point:
Equilibrium484 11 months ago:
A lot of people dislike Mr. Glass for this reason, “That sounds so simple! Anyone could write that! How is he getting away with this?!?!?”
My view on that has always been, “So what?” It’s about the music, not about the composer. Music is for all of mankind, we don’t need to waste time focusing on complexity, or intellectuality.
The metamorphosis pieces are very contemplative, and can invoke a large range of emotions in many people. This is one is my personal favorite.
bachelorfox 1 month ago: many people imply there is a direct correlation between the value of a piece and how elaborate/intricate/fiendishly-difficult it is.
ironically, the only people that end up sounding simple are them.
Beautiful music is simply beautiful, even if it is relatively simple compared to other pieces.
I really love Thea Gilmore’s “Strange Communion” – it’s not only one of my favourite “holiday” albums, but it’s a really wonderful collection of songs, regardless of the winter/christmas themes.
I wanted to do some kind of little “seasons greetings” message of sorts, and the best way I know how is through music. This song has been in my head a lot this week, what with the solstice, full moon and lunar eclipse, and the snow and wintry weather here in Ireland for once. So, I decided to do a rough little cover of it on piano. This is Thea Gilmore’s “Midwinter Toast”:
Nollaig shona, agus athbhliain faoi mhaise daoibh go léir freisín.
(you can hear it on soundcloud too, and download it from there if you like too.)
I was going through all the stuff I’ve demo’d and seeing what needed improving, and did two re-demos of two songs last night. This is the first of them : “Galway Rain”, which I’ve written about before.
I have an awful habit of being really “free” in my approach to rhythm and keeping a steady tempo. It’s something that has always plagued my piano work even as a classical student. But the years of having to practice with a metronome filled me with an absolute distaste for them and click tracks. But it’s something I need to overcome as well as working on listening closer to my own internal sense of rhythm instead of abandoning my playing completely to emotional rubato.
That was one of the reasons I wanted to retake this demo – to get a tighter feel to the pulse, which I managed to mess up in the bridge again when I went to relisten to it. I guess I’ll have to take out my metronome again, or overcome my fear of click tracks.
Listening back to recordings of yourself is the most horrible, yet often essential learning.
Anyways, here’s the re-take of that demo, mistakes and all.
This song was written at the same time as Helen (don’t make a sound) back in 2007 sometime. Both songs were inspired by novels I’d read or recently read at the time. I’ve noted previously that I tend to work on songs in batches of two or three at the same time. Sometimes an idea splits in three, sometimes I’ve loads of little ideas that start to link together resulting in some different songs. With this one, I was working with a really basic straight-forward chord progression, and I was trying to write something that was musically quite simple and direct. Perhaps because the other song I was working on at the same time was the opposite of that.
I’ve never been so sure of this song, but I like some parts of it. I guess I’ve been playing it so long that I’m just used to it. One of my old housemates surprised me one day by saying it was her favourite of my songs. I think I have a music-snob idea that because it’s simple it’s not as good as some of the more musically complex songs. I’ve managed to completely over complicate the piano line as a result though, and I definitely fuck it up in this demo. I’d go fix it up before posting it, but my piano has been out on loan all weekend, and when it comes back I’m gonna finish off the new demo I start for “is this what they call romance?” instead.
