Piano Blog Archives - ROVING PIANIST

Pianist Tiffany Poon meets Fans in NYC

Sunday, August 19th, 2018 by Ken Leave a Comment

Tiffany Poon with Ken Turner in Central Park, NYC

Tiffany Poon on Social Media

Tiffany Poon is an aspiring young classical pianist whose YouTube channel has over 64,000 subscribers at the time of writing.

Tiffany is also active on Instagram as tiffanypianist.

Tiffany’s Mission

While many pianists are active on social media, few define their goals as clearly as Tiffany Poon. On her personal web site she states that her goal is “to inspire all generations, the old and the new, to appreciate classical music using social media”.

What Fans Want

In another social forum, Tiffany Poon told her supporters that she wants “to break the boundaries and take you with me inside the world of a classical pianist“.

This is exactly what fans like myself want from a pianist like Tiffany. For us she is already a star, because she has many formal performances on YouTube and she’s really good. If you heard her play, you would never guess that she is only about 20 years old.

It’s Personal

I have exchanged pleasantries with top rank pianists at CD signings. Some are generous of spirit, but at root it’s impersonal. That’s not to say that Khatia Buniatishvili or Yevgeny Kissin don’t appreciate their fans, but we must all be one big blur to them when they are on tour.

In contrast, an emerging pianist like Tiffany is actively building her fan base. Having studied music at Julliard and now at Yale. she is on track to an elite career. Social media engagement can be a competitive advantage, and she works hard on her vlogs (video blogs) to engage us.

When Ms. Poon made the gutsy decision to meet fans personally in New York, it was not to be missed. Around 25 of us made it to Central Park in the stickiest heat of August to meet her at Bethesda Fountain.

Tiffany’s Vlog

Tiffany Poon’s YouTube channel contains her vlog, filmed and edited by the pianist herself. She also does livestreams. These videos are uniquely Tiffany: well-presented, chatty, unpretentious and informative. She is a natural in front of the camera, talking to us as if we were friends sitting across from her at a coffee table.

Among my favorite vlogs is Mix – Can You Hear the Difference Between Before & After Piano Tuning? | Tiffany Vlogs #21. during which Tiffany and her viewers learn some neat stuff about piano tuning.

We have also been with Tiffany in practice rooms at Julliard, commuting to school in New York, eating out with her parents, in a supermarket, in a dining hall, and even on her one-way road trip from New York to Yale.

Meeting Tiffany

When I found Tiffany in Central Park, she looked as cool and presentable as in her vlogs, despite the humidity. She recognized me instantly (goodie points!) and chatted individually with everyone who came to meet her. We were a diverse group of all ages (but predominantly young) from all over the world, many of whom seemed quite awed to be in her presence.

Tiffany herself was uncharacteristically at a loss for words. Neither she nor any of us had thought about what we would do once we got together! There was no piano to fill gaps in conversation, no edit function to cut out awkward moments, no beer to cool us down and loosen us up. This was a real life experience that Tiffany had initiated, a bridge between performer and audience. We hung out with her until thunderclaps chased us out of Central Park.

It was almost sad that nobody at the fountain other than us knew that a leading pianist of the Post-Millenial generation was present that evening. I think again of Tiffany’s ambitious mission and how important it is in this age, when a Chopin Etude on your media device may be referred to as a “song”.

Pianists with small hands

Saturday, June 25th, 2016 by Ken Leave a Comment

What does playing the piano do to your hands?

What playing the piano does to your hands

As a child I liked my small hands. They seemed appropriate for the son of writers. Marco Rubio‘s “if your hands are small we all know what else is small” exchange with Donald Trump was decades away.

Delicate hands

My mother told that me I had delicate hands. This became a metaphor for my life. Early in my career I had to fire someone. I could not do it, so I sat in my boss’s office to learn from a man with larger hands. But as he explained things to the unlucky employee, he stumbled verbally. He was as sensitive to the situation as I, large hands notwithstanding.

Large Hands, Small Hands

If having big hands doesn’t make life easier, then having small hands shouldn’t make it more difficult. Or so I thought, until I took up learning the piano. I was half a century past the age when our hands are pliable enough to adapt physically to the instrument.

Rachmaninov, Liszt

At my first piano lesson, I could with forethought play an octave (an eight-note spread). A ninth was uncomfortable and a tenth impossible. I bought the scores of my favorite Rachmaninov piano sonatas, but I had to abandon them because they contained chords that were too wide for my small hands. My dreams were shattered: I would never be able to wrap my fingers round the works of large-handed composers such as Liszt and Rachmaninov.

Virtual Hands

My teacher’s hands are tiny and yet she is a concert pianist, so I asked her about those tenths, those 6-note chords and those unreachable arpeggios. I learned that what is written may not be what is played, and the audience may not notice or may not care. You can omit a note from a chord. You can break or arpeggiate a chord to reach unreachable notes. Such techniques create the illusion that you have played what you cannot play, making your virtual hand larger than your real one.

Sleight Of Hand

It is one thing to be aware of such techniques, and quite another to brave a piece that requires sleight of hand. But I am becoming aware, as my second year as an adult beginner pianist comes to a close, that something has happened to my hands. Those octaves are now easy, and a 9-note spread such as those in Beethoven’s Moonlight first movement no longer leaves my right hand hurting for days. Rachmaninov remains a challenge, but ever since I saw this exquisite performance by Marijan Djuzel I have had my eye on Rachmaninov’s Prelude Opus 23 No. 10 (watch this video, it’s impressive).

Does playing the piano change your hands?

A couple of weeks ago I got to play Chopin in New York. In a photograph taken at the time, I noticed that my right hand looks different. This might just be an illusion caused by loose, warmed-up hands, but I prefer to see it as a Lamarckian response to the demands of the piano. My hands appear to have gotten larger.

Igudesman and Joo

Saturday, January 16th, 2016 by Ken Leave a Comment

Igudesman and Joo

Igudesman & Joo (Aleksey Igudesman and Hyung-ki Joo) look like the unlikeliest duo, which fits their genre of comedy well.

Mr. Joo is British-Korean, and Mr. Igudesman is from Russia. They first met in the 1970’s at the Yehudi Menuhin School in England.

A Little Nightmare in Music

The contrast between the tall Korean pianist and the short Russian violinist sets the tone for Igudesman and Joo’s breakout show “A Little Nightmare in Music”. The physical differences between the men reminds me of Laurel and Hardy, as does some of their combative slapstick. Steinway & Sons must have a great sense of humor!

Igudesman and Joo are classically trained

Although Igudesman and Joo are skilled, classically trained musicians, you don’t have to be a classical music buff to enjoy their material. There are no “in” jokes that only musicians would understand. The music that they play during their skits is well-known enough that they will be familiar to you regardless of whether you know who wrote them or what they are called. They also use some more popular material.

Best Musician Comedy since Victor Borge?

I won’t tell you any more about the show because I don’t want to spoil it for you. Suffice it to say that I haven’t laughed this much at a classically-trained musician turned comedian since I heard Victor Borge do “Phonetic Punctuation”.

Check http://www.igudesmanandjoo.com for upcoming shows.