The Pianist's Thread

**FL4RE** · Joined: 15 Jul 2008 Posts: 4178 Location: Liverpool yano

So...Who other than me on scorehero is a pianist?

If so how long have you been playing?
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**TheLieInKing** · Joined: 20 Oct 2009 Posts: 437 Location: London, UK

I've been taking lessons since I was about five, I think. I consider myself pretty mediocre in respect to how long I've been playing and my other musical abilities, but I still love to play.

What are you guys playing at the moment?

I picked up a suite of Xenakis songs recently, a couple of which have been keeping me busy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5wcPouZXzQ
Published only posthumously, and incredibly far from his mature style, but I love them all the same.
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**FL4RE** · Joined: 15 Jul 2008 Posts: 4178 Location: Liverpool yano

Learning one of the final songs in FF10 (when they're on the airship after the whole omgbattle). I started it today and I already hate the key because its E flat.

I've been playing for about 7 years but I had a huge break about 3 years ago. Only started playing properly again a few weeks ago so I've got a lot worse

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**evilpacman18** · Joined: 26 Jun 2009 Posts: 948 Location: Azusa, CA

I've been playing 10 years. Plan on majoring in music performance, hopefully at Boston or Miami University but I'll have to transfer because my only two options at the moment are community college here in Texas (which reminds me, I need to change my location) or Azusa Pacific in California if they accept me. I have a couple videos of me playing but none of the three videos I have are a fully completed playthrough of the song, it's all while I was still learning them. This is the only one I uploaded to Youtube. I didn't even have it fully memorized yet.

My favorite composers to play are Debussy, Rachmaninoff, and Bartok.
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Piano performance major at APU. GT: evilpacman1742 | My Last.fm | My music blog

**OpenYourEyes** · Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 10:03 pm Post subject:

Pianist sounds like penis.

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blingdomepiece wrote:

Eastwinn wrote:

As a kid I wasted my time cheating in SimCity or the Sims, and now that I'm discovering how much fun it is to not cheat, I'm also discovering how stupidly hard it is

Set all the tax rates to 9.

**FreeXBird** · Joined: 24 Mar 2007 Posts: 2485

**OpenYourEyes** · Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 10:11 pm Post subject:

**wuLFe** · Joined: 18 Aug 2006 Posts: 2679 Location: Richmond, IN

I'm somewhat lapsed in my pianistic (or penistic *LOLZ*) endeavours, but I've been playing on and off since I was 6 years old - by the end of my high school career, I was quite proficient, but ended up going the computer programming route, and let the piano slide - I have picked iot up again on and off during adulthood, but it's pretty difficult to focus on that, gaming, spouse, guitar, work, etc, etc.

The most recent piece I was working on was Philip Glass' "Mad Rush", but I'd say that as far as my favorites go, I've always had an affinity for Beethoven and Chopin.

**METALfootball** · Joined: 27 May 2009 Posts: 457

I've been playing ~10 years. It's transferred over to awesome musical typing skills on Garage Band.

And Chopin blows everyone else out of the water when it comes to piano.
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New Song

**evilpacman18** · Joined: 26 Jun 2009 Posts: 948 Location: Azusa, CA

I think Late Romanticism (again, Rachmaninoff) is WAY better than just straight up Romanticism. Chopin is very complex so I haven't played TOO much of his stuff because most of it goes over my head but I've played some things by him and I like it. I have this album of his entire piano catalog played by Idil Biret and it's really good but I still like other later Romantic composers better. I think the Etudes are really a lot better than any of his dances (Waltzes, Mazurkas, Polonaises, etc.) which are good at times but can get boring. I'm also not a fan of creating VERY emotional interpretations of the music I play and Chopin often REQUIRES just that. I prefer cold pianists like Michelangeli and Weissenberg who don't take too many liberties with the tempo of volume of the piece, for some reason.
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Piano performance major at APU. GT: evilpacman1742 | My Last.fm | My music blog

**ace5993** · Joined: 30 Mar 2008 Posts: 1920

I've been playing for... 12 years now? I started when I was 5 but didn't have a teacher for like 6 years so I developed lots of bad habits (which I later broke

). Currently working on:

Scuhmann Piano Concerto (recital next month)
Chopin Etude No. 10 in the second set :p (technique work)
Chopin Fantasie Impromptu (needed something quick to do for a concert, after which it was revealed I wasn't playing piano for the concert O_O. Still fun to play.)
Ravel Tzigane (accompaniment part obviously, my sister's doing it in a competition)
Wieniawski Violin Concerto No. 2 (see above)
Beethoven Piano Trio Op. 1 No. 3 (need to do chamber for a "certificate" program at the place I take violin lessons and violin chamber parts are boring as hell lol)

I also teach piano as a part-time job. I put a couple vids on youtube of "class" recitals (kind of like masterclasses I guess). I'll put up something actually polished for a real recital one of these days XD

EDIT: How can you say Chopin's Etudes are his best works evilpacman? They're... etudes >_> I.e. incredibly simple and boring covered by a veil of virtuosity. They have no substance. His dances are way better.

**RichardGHP** · Joined: 01 May 2009 Posts: 2327

I first started about 6 or 7 years ago... the first piece I learned to play was "O Christmas Tree", taught to me by my late grandmother. Truth be told, I haven't gotten much further since - mainly due to a lack of professional lessons. My skills started sliding in 2008, and I am only just now getting used to the unique synchronisation of the left and right hands needed to play again. Pretty much the only things I (can) play now are themes to various TV shows or short pieces (8 - 16 bars) of classical music, because in the absence of any accessible prodigious talents on the piano, I do have an excellent ear.

I have the piano to thank for starting my love of playing music, but I am definitely better on other instruments - the drums, or the bassoon, to name two.

I'd refute FreeXBird's point on the pronounciation of 'pianist' but I'd only get torn to shreds and the consequent strips burned, so that's it for me.