Category: piano

1. My Road to Romanticism

   Posted on 12:00pm Thursday 21st May 2020

   I am happy to say that I am an old romantic. I am a confirmed Lisztian, having spent the last 8 years researching and writing a book on the pianist. I am also currently streaming myself on weekday evenings learning Chopin nocturnes on my Twitch channel as part of #the100dayproject.

   Surprisingly, my road to Romanticism didn’t start in my piano lessons. Nor did it involve any personal Damascene moments. Instead, it went the way by Proust’s Swann, the local library and a friend’s record collection. In this blog post I’ll map out my own personal path that led me to Liszt.

2. 20 Days of Practice: #the100daysproject Update 1

   Posted on 11:00am Wednesday 29th Apr 2020

   I recently decided to take part in #the100dayproject. My project: to learn a piano piece on camera. I would stream 30 minutes of piano practice at 6pm every evening on my Twitch channel for 100 consecutive days.

   I’m now 20 days in to that project, so it’s a great time to take stock of my progress so far, and reflect on what I'm learning from the experience. 

3. #the100dayproject: Learning Chopin live on Twitch

   Posted on 12:00pm Sunday 5th Apr 2020

   This Tuesday 7^th April 2020 marks the beginning of another season of #the100dayproject. If you don’t know what this is let me bring you up to speed. It’s an opportunity for people to explore their creative sides. Those taking part work on something every day for 100 consecutive days and post their results online. Set up by Lindsay Jean Thomson, it’s a great excuse to get stuck into something creative or to learn something new.

   I’ve decided that I’m going to get involved this year and would love for you to follow my progress.

    

   The Project:

   I’m going to teach myself to play Chopin’s Nocturne no. 8 in D flat Major on the piano. What’s more, I’m going to do this live on my Twitch channel.

   I love this piece of music and have wanted to learn it for some time. However, I’ve always lacked the impetus. It’s a little beyond my current ability level so will take dedicated practice – which means dedicated time – to master. What better motivation than The 100 Day Project? 

4. A Beginner’s Guide to Listening to Liszt

   Posted on 12:00pm Thursday 31st Oct 2019

   Liszt’s piano music is often incredibly difficult to play. It can also be difficult to listen to. It's ambitious, complex and often very intense. It can also be discordant, disconcerting and ugly. There are other problems too. Liszt was as prolific as he was virtuosic, so there’s the question of how to approach such a large body of work. Liszt was also a compulsive rewriter, meaning we might ask which version of a piece it is we should even be listening to.

   Happily, these problems are not intractable. Just as Liszt composed challenging music so too did he write music of great simplicity. And whilst it's true that some pieces are not always melodically straightforward or pretty, others are sumptuously romantic with the most elegant and loving of melodies.

   I offer some pointers below on how to begin listening to Liszt and then provide a list of 10 works that can act as signposts for any beginner starting out on their own journey or pèlerinage into his work.