Actually...this fine toddler and her somewhat pedantic dad, describe exactly why I'm in piano work and piano design. For me, its all about the immediate, sensual experience of sound and of the sympathetic effects of that sound on my bod'. When that sound happens, and I experience it, layers of stress simply drop away.
The actual experience of tuning is about this sensual experience, the playing is about this sensual experience, the choices in piano design are about this experience...the voicing is about this experience. There were many years when this present experience of sympathetic sound was removed from the present and experienced only in distant memory...that sucked...and for a while I stopped playing altogether, as the visceral joy was gone. But once I figured out what that sound was, where it was coming from in a piano (or other instrument), and how I could create the conditions that allowed that sound to happen, the gloves were off, and remain off...never to return to sound experienced only as a memory...it is either immediately present or not.
Many teachers of classical lit, in particular, actively teach their charges to "ignore" the sound of the instrument, and gauge their playing off of the relative discomfort created by different sound pressures, and by mental images of what they will the sound to be in their heads...poor suckers...missing out on the experience of sound in the present...I've been there, have been trained to be there, trained my self to be there too...and will never go back.
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Jim Ialeggio
grandpianosolutions.com
Shirley, MA
978 425-9026
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Original Message:
Sent: 07-19-2017 18:36
From: Benjamin Sloane
Subject: Hearing the Piano Like Picasso Painted
I found this video of interest particularly in light of what we do. For the piano technician the metaphor of hearing the piano like a child is different in that we are exchanging how we listen with Other information about the piano, but the argument still holds true as much perhaps more...
Listening to Piano by Emilie Barton, 2 years old
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Listening to Piano by Emilie Barton, 2 years old |
A few thoughts about holding on the happiness of our first musical impressions. |
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Benjamin Sloane
Cincinnati OH
513-257-8480
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