00:00:01

Welcome everyone to today's episode. This episode is dedicated to those of us who play an instrument.

00:00:13

If you do play an instrument, you probably spend effort, energy and concentration into playing the music that you like. Or at least that's what I would hope you do.

00:00:30

And the music that we like very often doesn't come as piano music. So what should one do? I have spent a significant amount of time, I would say, struggling with this fact that I would be listening and.

00:00:48

Enjoying a great variety of styles of music, but not everything had to do with the piano. And so I remember the frustration, the actual struggle in trying to replicate the.

00:01:04

The music that I was hearing music from different instruments, voice guitars, drums, strings, woodwinds, and so forth.

00:01:16

I would say that probably.

00:01:19

The piano might be an instrument for which it is all considered reasonably possible to replicate, to imitate all sort of music, and this is to do with the fact that the piano has.

00:01:39

Uh.

00:01:41

One of the greatest range in terms of notes, the lowest and the highest. This is probably, if I recall, it's probably the largest pitch that the largest range that that, that we find in the musical instrument, but also in terms of.

00:02:01

The loudness you can get the softness you can get in terms of dynamic.

00:02:06

Then and then also you can play multiple notes at once, not just just one note at a time like clarinet or flute, or a voice. So this is a polyphonic instrument.

00:02:26

Meaning we we can if we if we want, if we know how we could transform the music that we hear played maybe by multiple instruments like a rock band or a jazz band into piano music to hand solo piano.

00:02:44

Music. This is also possible to a certain extent with any instrument. The piano certainly offers a vast amount of technical instrumental opportunities. I remind often to my students that the.

00:03:04

Piano is an orchestra under your fingers, so.

00:03:09

The possibilities the the timber, the sound, the acoustic, the effects possibility that the the piano is an instrument has come today to to, to offer to the to the player are incredible and one should really take advantage.

00:03:30

Also in class I recall.

00:03:36

Offering some food for thought when a student doesn't really feel a bit, probably a bit uninspired on how to play a particular passage. I would encourage them to imagine how would.

00:03:55

An orchestra instrument or a band instrument play this passage to imagine it in their mind, in their inner ears, and so to try to transform that sensation that feel into what they are doing at the instrument.

00:04:14

At the same time, we could do the opposite.

00:04:18

Operation the opposite experiment. How would the piano render something that we hear in music that doesn't have piano? And if you're not a pianist, I will encourage you to be open to the idea that wherever your instrument is, you can probably use it.

00:04:38

To play music that is not originally conceived for the instrument.

00:04:47

Coming back to the piano though, I have, as you probably know, I have a bias towards the piano. Seems to be the the piano now is particularly is. So let's say so spread around the world so loved. And it's the go to.

00:05:07

For the vast majority of people, young, young people, who tends to, who wants to get their music education going? Who wants to learn an instrument? Piano seems to be the most.

00:05:25

The you know targeted instrument to start with, it makes sense because of the all the reason I was saying earlier, but also it offers quite a quite approachable and clear way with regard to.

00:05:44

All the theoretic side or the technical side of it, we can see scales and chords popping out from the keyboard. This is something that other instrument don't benefit as much or as well as the piano does.

00:06:04

Having said that, the sound itself of the instrument piano, I always found there is something a bit neutral about it. Neutral meaning.

00:06:17

There is a sort of clearness transparency. I would say whiteness, absolutely non specific character about the piano that the piano sound. I mean that allows it to be used in.

00:06:37

All sorts of say, stylistic musical environments and.

00:06:41

And allows to be treated in ways that are not necessarily related to classical music. Remember, classical music is the tradition into which the piano developed, but we see the piano perfectly used, beautifully used in style, that have nothing to do with it.

00:07:02

Folk. Blues, rock.

00:07:05

And and all sorts. So on top of that, given this instrumental potential that it offers, it is somehow possible to see to to hear a a variety of styles in.

00:07:25

In the sound of piano, while for example.

00:07:32

Arrangements of rock for, say, orchestra or the other way around. Arrangements of classical music for a rock band Don't necessarily work as well. There are limits imposed by the.

00:07:52

Instrumental the choice of instruments that affect the expressiveness of of the music. But that of course it's it's subjective and it depends on the case to case by case basis. So as I was saying, there is a neutrality about it that.

00:08:12

I've always found fascinating. In a sense. It's another.

00:08:18

Is another evidence of an evidence towards a a point, which is what we enjoy in music is not the sound itself, but the intention behind it. And when an instrument or the sound of an instrument such as the.

00:08:38

Piano stays neutral allows therefore for the player and his or her intention to be louder and clearer.

00:08:50

So.

00:08:53

I use the piano to experience all jars of music. All styles of music and as a result I will say I learned many styles of music. Certainly the idea of transcribing what I was hearing.

00:09:13

Into the piano allowed me to dive deeper into the details. The practical technical details of each style, and maybe not always, while not always, have been successful in rendering those properly, but I would become familiar with the with the.

00:09:33

General features of that styles and also.

00:09:39

I slowly entered. I suspect this artistic dimension where where one comes to understand, adopt A view by which music doesn't really exist in sound, but.

00:10:00

Is somewhere else. Music is somewhere in between the notes and the acoustic effects coming out of the instrument. I don't want to get too philosophic today, but.

00:10:11

The the music that we appreciate, the beauty and the meaning and any idea that music might inspire us might not directly come from the specific sound that your instrument creates. I would say more by the intention and the design of the music.

00:10:32

So this is also this thought is encouraging if you have.

00:10:40

Instruments that are not maybe top notch, perfectly tuned new like for example the my the piano that I'm using these days might need a bit of tuning. I will tune it soon but I hope that the.

00:10:59

Musical intentions will be clear enough for you, the listener. So before going to into examples, I wanted to point out briefly that I recently just opened sub stack page.

00:11:16

It's called, of course it's called where is the music and I just started. There are a couple of articles there related to previous episodes. The articles that I will post on substance are going to be.

00:11:35

Let's say rational investigation of the beauty of music. So you will find a link to it in the description of this episode.

00:11:50

So, but let's go into some examples. I meant I meant earlier.

00:11:56

I said earlier that I've done some transcribing from music that is not strictly piano music and good work that I did some years ago was on a tune jazz tune by the trumpet player Clifford Brown, famous.

00:12:18

Bebop historic leader.

00:12:22

Of leading figure of bebop jazz in the 50s, who sadly died really young, but it was an incredible talent and in this recording he plays with a quintet and particularly the Max Roach Quintet.

00:12:43

Quintet to quartet. Actually. So it's a quintet Mark quartet plus one equals quintet.

00:12:51

Max Roach is the drummer, another historic name, another legend of of Jazz, and the tune is Joy Spring. We will hear the.

00:13:02

The beginning and then we'll see what the piano can do with it.

00:14:07

OK, so this was a.

00:14:10

The opening of the original tune Joy Spring by Clifford Brown. Let's see. Let's see if I can play the tune. Piano solo and maybe you. You'll hear some resemblance.

00:15:33

I think this is really cool, huh? Particularly the one thing I remember being extremely difficult, challenging, but also very inspiring, is how listening to the to the trumpet version of it, it doesn't sound neither.

00:15:54

Fast nor agitated, nor technically particularly difficult sounds very kind of joy spring, relax and cool. Let's.

00:16:04

But then when we hear the piano version, we start realising this is quite fast and believe me, learning it it it felt impossibly fast. Let's hear at the beginning again, and maybe maybe you agree with me.

00:16:44

Right. It doesn't seem to complicated.

00:17:20

Et cetera, et cetera. You see the point of what I'm what I'm.

00:17:25

Doing today what I'm saying, somehow the word the work of transfer, transposing, transcribing, transforming music that is not for piano into piano just puts the spotlight on this tile. This is bebop from the 50s, couldn't.

00:17:46

Mind.

00:17:47

There couldn't be a better example of that style. Let's go in a completely different direction. Let's go to another tunnel loft. When I, since I was a child. This is Roxanne by the police.

00:18:26

OK, so I believe you all know this.

00:18:31

So let's see if I remember.

00:18:53

It's cool, huh? I'm going to see if I can play with them as well.

00:20:03

Etcetera. You get, you get the idea again. It's really, really fun to learn directly from the from the recordings. There is no mediator, the only probably.

00:20:21

The only mediator, if there is one, is your ear. You are going to choose the notes that sound more accurate, more appropriate and.

00:20:33

I keep reminding my students that your that their teacher cannot, cannot tell them always exactly what is right and wrong is their ear then needs to needs to do that for for themselves. After all, what is to be?

00:20:53

Musician, if not to be led by your ear to have the ear, making choices and the ear, deciding what what sounds good, what doesn't what you prefer.

00:21:07

Here, let's go with another quick example. This one is.

00:21:15

From Pink Floyd.

00:21:25

This is the time from the dark side of.

00:21:27

The moon.

00:22:05

OK, this is the piano version.

00:23:19

Etcetera. I don't need to say how much fun this is. Notice a couple of things that of course the the the first thing one would.

00:23:34

Try to to transcribe at the piano would be the the vocal part and they the singer here seems quiet in the quite in a low voice being a.

00:23:46

Male.

00:23:51

But at the same time.

00:23:53

And the.

00:23:53

The musical moment here the the tension is high. It's very energetic. So I decided to give it octaves.

00:24:03

Actually a full court.

00:24:08

And there is.

00:24:09

Notice that the top note is higher.

00:24:17

And so in a sense, I am just making up the chords that the voice doesn't sing, but the chords that are played by the guitar, which is probably in a lower to centre register probably like here.

00:24:34

But I don't have an extra an extra hand my my.

00:24:38

Is here.

00:24:40

This is right in the middle of the piano, and I don't have.

00:24:43

A third hand, so I will just.

00:24:45

Put it all together in my right hand. There we go.

00:24:47

Go.

00:24:51

And then.

00:24:52

The probably the most challenging part is the for pianist is to start considering your left hand as the drummer, I would say drummer and bass at once. There is a slow beat here.

00:25:10

That you could hear clearly.

00:25:13

The relationship between the bass drums, the one that goes boom, and the snare, the one that goes Cha Cha too toom, Toom Cha, right. And so I make.

00:25:25

Room, cha cha.

00:25:29

Low and high pitch note and this can be of course embellished a bit.

00:25:48

And of course this comes better the the more sophisticated is your your accompaniment, the more you try to refine it to.

00:26:04

Represent accurately what you hear.

00:26:08

OK, we're going to go with another example in the rock area, this time is a tune that is slightly less known than these ones, but since I heard it the first time, all this stayed in my heart so much that I actually made.

00:26:28

Piano arrangement.

00:26:29

In one of my earlier albums, this is called long Nights from the movie into the Wild. This is by Eddie Vedder.

00:28:01

Very sorry to interrupt it like that. Isn't this beautiful? It's very powerful. This is my version from north of the River Piano solo.

00:29:43

OK, so you will find the link and the description to it if you if you want to listen to the whole thing you you probably have noticed right away how different it is. There are the same notes, the same codes, generally the same thing for the same melody, etc. But.

00:30:02

Hi.

00:30:02

Now the difference is not restrained to the sound. We had voice guitar and percussions in the first version, and now we have solo piano. It is not just a let's say, a complete.

00:30:23

Change in texture but also given.

00:30:29

The piano is to a degree more limited to the.

00:30:35

Notes that what you will hear in the band version, a choice needs to be made. What do I want to?

00:30:43

Point out what do I want to? What do I want to select? What I'm going to choose to play and what I'm going to choose to not play to sacrifice.

00:30:56

Although this in the beginning might be annoying because I really wanted to render everything that I hear in the tune, but it is on the on the path of the choice in the process of the choice that one gets to shape and refine.

00:31:15

His own idea of of a piece of music of eventually a piece of art.

00:31:22

The choice that I made was to play the melody in the right hand, but in the lower, lower register.

00:31:35

And therefore sacrifice the base.

00:31:42

But then I I prefer to do that to have more freedom and more expressivity in the melody, rather than trying to get that note as well. But this is once again allowed me to this is one of the choices that allowed me to be more precise and more.

00:32:02

Create what I really wanted to say with this tune less notes allowed, perhaps more creativity and more.

00:32:12

Interpretation. After all the transposition, the transformation transcription, I don't know how to call it from band into piano, it's.

00:32:32

It's, I would say, pointless without your signature on it without.

00:32:39

You're making your own choices on how to do it. Copy and paste. It's less interesting and less meaningful than doing interpretation of it.

00:32:54

OK. Finally we're going to.

00:32:58

An example from rock metal and you will think oh, Alberto please you tell me that one can transform rock metal into piano music well.

00:33:13

You would know that until you try, this is Aerosmith living on the edge.

00:33:33

Oh.

00:33:34

With the world today, I don't know what it is. Something's wrong with our eyes.

00:33:47

God.

00:33:50

It's showing no surprise.

00:34:19

The world today.

00:34:22

OK, I suspect many of you know this tune. It is not one of the most famous buyer Aerosmith, but.

00:34:29

It meant a lot when I was a teenager. It's a very powerful as you can tell, like most of good rock metal is, but there is there are a few things that I did not really suspect until I tried to to play at the piano. So.

00:34:50

Here's just the just the.

00:34:52

I mean.

00:35:05

OK, yes, the the notes, the temple, the chords are the same. But what I didn't hear about it was the percussion, the, the, the, the, the, the soft sound of tambourine underneath there is a.

00:35:26

There is a way in which the same music, the same notes played in the exactly the same way, but if they were played by by let's say an acoustic guitar or a banjo, they will stop sounding metal and they will start sounding folk fundamentally.

00:35:46

This thing.

00:35:52

It's folk, it's dance. There is a little bit of country Blues in it and we don't really notice it because the sound of the little guitar, that abrasive, fascinating yet electric and.

00:36:09

And metallic and loud, kind of. It's a signature of of this type of music, certainly, and those who like it among them, certainly me, I love it. But at the same time it's it's a it's a such a strong signature. It's like a it's such.

00:36:28

Such as.

00:36:30

Such a powerful message getting there from the very beginning and one doesn't notice how there is fundamentally just country folk underneath.

00:36:41

So.

00:37:33

OK, I'm going to going to stop here because the song is somewhere like 6 or 7 minutes long and I do have to say I've learned the whole thing recently. It's extremely fun and exciting to play, but I will spare you that experience. Please do listen to.

00:37:54

Ironsmith version. If you're interested, there will be a playlist with all the tunes that I am playing today. The original version and my recorded version and maybe I don't know, maybe in the future I will.

00:38:10

Record this cover. OK, so I hope I've given you an, let's say an an inspiring, perhaps view panoramic view of what one can do with the piano. Many of you.

00:38:30

You know, cause some cause many of you are actually students of me or the school. I know you are interested in working in this direction and I'll encourage you to never give up even.

00:38:45

Though every new tune that you pick is is always in some way more difficult, more challenging than the previous one. Welcome to my club. Finally, I wanted to say before before we conclude this episode, I wanted to say that.

00:39:06

I am.

00:39:08

My new course on counterpoint is available. Some have already enrolled in it and there will be link in the description and there is a coupon code. So look it up. I'm going to also make an actual ad at the end of this.

00:39:29

At the end of this episode, if you want more information of what this is as a final piece for.

00:39:36

Today, we're going to listen to The Beatles. This is a tune that you all know.

00:39:42

Very well. It's called. I saw her standing there. We're going to just listen to it. Let's say the first minute or maybe even less because I just want you to.

00:39:55

Wandered order to ask yourself how.

00:40:00

Would it be possible to transform what I'm hearing into?

00:40:04

Now.

00:40:06

OK, let's let's ask ourselves this.

00:40:46

Don't you think you would be rather outrageous if someone were able to play everything like this on the piano? Well, some of you might know exactly where I'm going to this is.

00:41:01

I saw her standing there in the recent version of it by Brad Mehldau.

00:42:38

OK, going to cut it there. Apparently Brett Mehldau was also able to sneak in a little Bach in there however, however possible one would have even thought conceived. It's unbelievable anyway, so you will have.

00:43:00

The the playlist with all this.

00:43:03

With all these songs, if you wish to listen to the whole things and thank you for following me into this bit of crazy journey, I hope this was a fun. And if you feel inspired by it, please let me know.

00:43:23

If you also have some comments on it, please do add it to your favourite platform and look forward to our next time. Have a lovely rest of your day.