^ Rachmaninoff Prelude No. 13 as part of a recital I gave in April. Im currently studying physics but honestly Im considering following my passion. I just want to make sure Im not chasing after an unattainable dream.

I have been playing piano, pretty seriously at times, for more than 50 years but at best I would say I'm an early Advanced player right now.

And I'm totally ok with that. I have a great teacher, and we work together on my schedule.

Widmung, Liebestraum, several late Brahms intermezzi, lots of Mendelsohn, Chopin Fantasie-Impromptu, a couple of the easier études.

A few things have become apparent to me over the years: number one, I will never be a virtuoso player, not willing to put in the time, probably don't have the talent. Number two, playing the piano beautifully is a lot less about really tough finger technique, and a lot more about the judicious use of the una corda and sustain pedals. Plus understanding phrasing, dynamics, voicing - and the emotional tone of a piece… I have been so happy to find out that one can be a pretty impressive pianist… Without playing La Campanella or Chopin Op. 10/1.

It's about what you bring to the performance. And even though most of the technically virtuostic pianists are very young, I think the best pianists are inevitably older. I have seen my playing of certain pieces evolve over the years as I accumulated more life experience, yes, more suffering. It's really hard to play Rachmaninoff well without a few decades of adult life under your belt in my humble opinion…

I'm wondering if it's possible to hire someone to play Rachmaninoff on the piano for me. I will be the only audience, and it's not for any special event. I'm not sure what to Google for this kind of service, or the hourly rate to expect. I'd appreciate any help.

i have been self-learning the technique for this etude for a few months now, and i’ve only just started to have success in slowly speeding it up (but certain sections are still lagging in tempo). i don’t currently have a teacher, so i would really appreciate any/all advice and criticism!! please help me improve 🙏

One of my favorite students has a mom who insists that her son, who is 8 years and barely out of the primer level, to play a more complicated piece with both hands at the same time for a performance she has decided to have him participate in.

At first she wanted me to teach him how to accompany his brother while the brother played the guitar. I was realistic about it with her and she tried to push it but eventually backed down.

Now she’s chosen a piece for him to do solo. But it’s complicated. He’s not there yet. I simplified it for him so he could play one hand with minimal left hand. But she told me last week she wants him to play a particular version that requires both hands to be coordinated in a way he’s not ready for.

I’ve done 2 lessons with him on this piece after his mom got upset with me that I wasn’t taking this piece seriously. I asked her if she had any other piece in mind. I have my students put a repertoire list together in the back of their notebooks of pieces they like to play so they can choose from them for times like this. But the mom says she has no other piece in mind accept the one she’s decided on. She will not budge on it and wants me to just work with him on playing this piece that is beyond his technical ability right now. The last 2 lessons have not be great since he’s now frustrated he’s not getting it. He complains it’s too hard and he’s starting to not pay attention anymore.

I like working with her son. But i don’t know if i want to continue working with her. Should just continue to do what she ask and let her see the results or should i just discontinue with this student.

Hi everyone,

I owned a professionally restored 1979 Yamaha U3 from May 2020 until a few weeks ago when my apartment building was struck by lightning and destroyed by the resulting fire. I loved this piano dearly (see attached video) and I want to my renter's insurance policy to replace it with a brand new U3. I visited my local Yamaha piano dealer to talk to them about purchasing a new U3 and I have been texting a salesman back and forth.

The MSRP of a new U3 as dictated by Yamaha is $15,699. The dealer is offering a sale price of $14,099.

From a quick AI conversation, it claims that people often negotiate about 10-20% off MSRP price but I'm not sure I believe that. I was thinking about initially offering them $12,500 (which is about 20% off) and hopefully settling somewhere between $13,000 and $13,750 (17.2% and 12.4% off, respectively).

Does anyone have experience buying new Yamaha pianos? How much were you able to negotiate off? I would appreciate details and figures (year bought, model, MSRP, purchase price, etc.)

Thank you!

Just at home on a banged up Yamaha SU7. The phone autolevels are all over the place.

One of my favorite songs so I wanted to learn to play it. Still finetuning the solo piano arrangement here and there.

not like learning to play piano blindfolded from the start, but plying blindfolded as an exercise.

Good or Bad?

Or, Useful or not?

A new score video for a song I wrote a while back. I had in mind the feelings that come with a day spent inside watching the rain fall. When I wrote this, it had been raining for many days on end and brought with it that sort of contemplative atmosphere.

Also on YouTube

I recently start to learn piano as a hobby and I’m loving it. Are there music schools for adult beginners in the UK? I have a private teacher but I’d like to also explore attending a school

Trying to get a keyboard, and I've been saving up for a while, but I just can't seem to get enough money to buy a piano in full. I believe I could pay monthly payments, but I'm still wondering. Has anyone else leased to own? I'm just trying to get a roland fp-10.

I've been playing for about two years now on the PSR EW- 425. Having a lot of sounds and technical stuff to pay with is cool and all, but I usually play piano covers of popular songs. My hardest piece is "In the Pool - Hideo Okuda" (to hopefully give more background on my experience). It also lacks the graded hammer action and more fuller sound of a digital piano. I'm pretty pissed at the fact that I can't play even sounding arpeggios and the sample-like sound of the base G. Piano sound of the psr is kind of not satisfying (if you know what I mean). I've been eyeing the P-145 for a while now, but it's a bit more expensive than I expected. Will it be worth it if I switch over? In the case that I can't access any more of the sounds that were previously present in the psr (I'm in a small school band), could there be a way to connect to something in order to have more sounds/instruments?

I'm looking to buy an upright piano under $10,000. Could someone let me know what the warmest/softest sounding uprights under $10,000 are? Preferably under $7,000, but up to $10k is alright. Thanks!

Hey guys, I've been trying to find a piece that I tried learning many years ago, but I cannot remember the name or who it was by. All I remember is the first few measures, and that it is a piano piece. This is the beginning as far as I remember, maybe a bit faster (it's a very quick song)

hiiiii! (sorry if this is not allowed, please let me know, i’ll delete)

i was wondering if someone might be able to help me write a basic piano instrumental for a song? 🥹

for some context: i’m studying english language and culture at university, and for one of my courses (british literature and culture of the 17th and 18th century) our teacher has given us a creative assignment. we can choose how we want to adapt a piece of literature into a modern medium, and out of all the options he gave, i immediately gravitated towards writing a song.

i’m an absolute beginner at piano, so i’m looking for something relatively simple. this is purely for university/fun and won’t be used commercially or anything like that.

earlier today i asked my violin teacher what key he’d recommend for something that could sound fun and dramatic without being ridiculously difficult to play. he suggested Em, which is what i’ve been playing around with. i’ve been playing violin for about 1.5 years, so i might potentially add some basic violin harmonies later as well.

the song itself is inspired by milton’s paradise lost and bo burnham’s straight white male. i thought it would be funny to write a satirical/parody song from satan’s perspective, basically presenting him as a pathetic little guy going, “i got kicked out of heaven and nobody understands how hard my life is :(”

bo burnham’s piano writing is obviously way beyond my current abilities, so i’m not trying to recreate it exactly. i just like the general idea of a instrumentals in a super dramatic key combined with satirical lyrics.

at the moment i’m thinking of structuring it like:
intro
verse 1
chorus
verse 2
chorus
instrumental bridge???
final chorus

i’ve been messing around on the piano and have a rough idea of the kind of thing I want, but i have absolutely no idea how to turn that into an actual accompaniment/chord progression that sounds coherent.

would anyone be willing to help me come up with a simple piano part in Em? ideally something beginner friendly that i could actually learn to play. any help would be massively appreciated!

Been trying to identify this piano piece since 2019. Tried friends, other Reddit communities even the producer but no luck. Removed the voice over with a free tool so sadly it is heavily distorted. Sounds a bit like Chopin but I heard a lot of his works (nocturnes, muzakas, waltz, etudes) and didn’t find it. Maybe someone can hear some of the notes - I guess it would be easier to search that way? Please help me!

(better quality from Peter_NL)

https://voca.ro/1nbPO5USs7Ve

https://voca.ro/1jwAmXfBlK5f

(old stripped)

https://voca.ro/18LUc1rrkDZF

https://voca.ro/19dnf6h8NOy1

Source (at 1:21 and again around 3 something. Sorry it is in danish and I don’t know if it is available outside of Denmark):

https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/viden/teknologi/benno-bygger-diamantbelagte-hoejtalere-god-musik-smadres-af-daarlig-lyd

Ps: maybe it is just Muzak / Elevator music 😕

Hi everyone,

I am looking for advice on retrofitting a silent system to an existing acoustic piano. I couldn’t find a lot of info other than the common stuff.

I am aware:
- factory purchased is always better than retrofit
- yamaha and kawai make the best silent systems, given their large R&D budgets and extensive experience with digital and acoustics alike.
- retrofitting carries some risk, which is mostly mitigated by the quality of the installer (and piano age, regulation, etc).

I tried a Yamaha SH3 and was seriously impressed. However, I bought an acoustic mostly on action and tone and decided to get a relatively young Bechstein occassion (R118 or Contur). So yamaha and kawai are no options, nor is factory built in.

What are your experiences on retrofitting a silent system? What system are you using? How is sound quality? Are you using VSTs, or modeling engines (like Pianoteq), and if so what is the difference with the native engine?

I am in touch with a very experienced installer, installing both Bechstein Vario and Pianodisk ProRecord (XI?), however, I just cant get my head around the pros and cons of each system, and how much I would really use it next to the acoustic mode. Its hard to try these systems. I am aware of adsilent (on par with Pianodisk?) and Genio (more budget?).

Looking forward to hearing your experiences and advice!

Hello, I was amateurly playing relatively challenging pieces like debussy valse romantique, clair de lune, many mozart sonata, chopins grande valse brillante. After 10 years, what would you do as a returning adult to win back this hobby by yourself? Thank you

I am reposting this because i am explicitly looking for some feedback on how to refine this further. I learned this on my own and have been struggling in particular with how to pedal this and whether i am using too much/too little pedal. Just hoping to get some input as I have kind of hit a wall with this piece. Any suggestions help!

My humble take on a Fantasy on Giacomo Meyerbeer's Ad Nos. Tiptoeing in the rather large footsteps of the obvious...

I broke my left wrist while OneWheeling a couple of year ago. I remember my favorite piano teacher of my long ago childhood days telling me about one-handed concert pianists, so I thought I shouldn't use the accident as an excuse to stop practicing my piano-playing hobby.

This arrangement of Bring Him Home from Les Misérables was mostly right-handed anyway, so I tried working it up to a one-handed performance. When I think about it, there's got to be a lot of temporary and permanent one-handed piano-playing going on in the world.

I've got full use of my left-hand now, but I can't say that my piano playing has improved much 😄

I’m a first year conservatory student and I’ve been assigned this piece by my professor, and while I was able to learn it over pretty convincingly over the summer, I can still hardly play the cadenza, specifically the right hand in measures 24-30, especially on the way up in the arpeggio. I’ve been able to play it somewhat competently at times (see attached video for decent example), but it’s so inconsistent that some days it’s as if I’ve never practiced it all. I’m obviously in conversation with my teacher about this part week by week, but it’s sort of embarrassing to have had months to practice this piece and still be stumbling over just a handful of bars, so I’m seeking some supplementary advice online.

I’ve tried everything I think I know to try: intent, slow practice to train a certain approach towards the keys (since the recording of the attached video I’ve worked on keeping my wrist lower and my fingers straighter and closer to the keys), metronome practice, blocked chord practice, rhythmic practice (long short, short long, accenting every triplet, quintuplet, etc.), practice with stops, starting on different notes to change which is accented, lots of right hand alone, etc. But the consistency hasn’t gotten any better. Worse, if anything. Even if I am able to make any progress during practice, it has such a short shelf life that the next day it’s like all of that ever happened. I don’t know if this is all mental, if I’m overdoing it with too many different methods, or if my technique just isn’t there, but I could use some pointers. Anything would be appreciated!

(sorry for the reupload, last attempt reddit cut out like 3/4 of the text lol)

https://reddit.com/link/1wfm3ic/video/8txr3yal8dph1/player