Excerpt from an email to the MD and Director of NINE (see previous post).

Hi Sarah & Paul.

I’m getting used to the digital piano. As you know, I have one myself but they’re so different to real pianos. On digital pianos the keys are slippery, the touch is wrong (and can cause muscle pain, esp. if the foldback is not right), and it can’t make all sorts of finely graduated tone colours etc. It’s even harder to hit the right notes.

However, I’m now coming to see the unique qualities of digital pianos, through playing the Roland so much at Roleystone. You can get a really useful left hand bass (providing people stop messing about with the dials), and other sounds, such as harpsichord. The other real thing for me is the different tone colour, which I’ve slowly begun to appreciate.

The different tone colour, somewhat bell-like, has inspired me to start composing a new work, being my first composition specifically for an electronic instrument. It’s written with that bell-like quality in mind and doesn’t sound right on an acoustic piano.

So, from that, you can see that I have travelled a long way (not just in kilometres). I don’t want to give up the real piano, of course, but I’m much more comfortable with the digital than I used to be.

The whole show has been a very pleasant experience, and a nice little challenge after having been away from music theatre for a long time.

What a great cast of singers! (And they’re not hard to look at, either). This is one of the best live musicals I’ve been involved with. It even boasts a contestant in the current Miss Universe contest playing a leading role.

NINE is a musical re-working of the film 8 1/2, which was a semi-autobigraphical work by Frederico Fellini. A new film, being a re-work of the musical, was released world-wide in December 2009. This is the Perth premiere of the musical.

Anyway, you can hear yours truly at the digital piano (with other instrumentalists) for eight performances only at the Roleystone Theatre on Brookton Highway in the Perth Hills. We’re playing 8pm on Wed, Fri & Sat, starting Friday 19 November until December 4, 2010.

Check it out here:

http://www.roleystonetheatre.com.au/web/Coming%20Attractions

http://www.aussietheatre.com.au

REVIEW: http://www.theatre.asn.au/theatre_reviews/nine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_(musical)

Wow! What a performer!

But this is something I already knew, having been to Victoria’s Farewell gig at the Perth Hyatt something like 17 years ago, just before she moved to the UK. And I have dim memories of her playing clarinet when we were both at UWA.

The Ellington is new to me, it’s a great venue and quite cheap. Very well thought-out, you can sit at tables or pay less and stand at the bar. I did neither—simply couldn’t stand still with such exciting music, so I practically danced at the bar. While the music’s on you are not allowed to talk (if you must chat, you can go upstairs where the show is on a plasma screen or something like that), which is really good.

This is the email I sent to Victoria:

“Just wanted to say I really enjoyed the gig at the Ellington last Saturday. You had me moving to the music the whole time, I never stood still. That’s pretty good, considering I don’t dance.

Strange to observe, though, that most of the audience didn’t move to the music. I always thought that was a peculiarly classical audience thing (I rarely attend jazz performances). What is it with some people? Why don’t they tap their feet or something?

And what a wonderful programme you devised, absolutely inspired. The slow blues number by Ella someone [not Fitzgerald] really hit the spot, wonderfully sung and just at the right point in the programme (such a perfect contrast after the other, off-the-beaten track numbers). The other blues, Humdrum or something, was another highlight.

You may have almost converted me to jazz!! And Tal [Cohen, pianist], OMG, what an improviser!”

They were all great improvisors: piano, string bass, guitar, drums, vocals.

See http://www.myspace.com/victorianewton
http://www.victorianewton.co.uk/
http://www.ellingtonjazz.com.au/

Bumped into Kathy Corecig (nee Potter), viola player, at Zenith Music the other day. Hadn’t seen her for years. I was accompanying a couple of string players and she had a couple of students playing there, in the Catholic Schools Festival of Performing Arts. Apparently, they have 1800 participants!

Anyway, Kathy is a composer and plays in several ensembles. On her very original-looking website you can see videos with her film music scores. She’s a wonderful musician and with one of her groups, Viola Dana, she’s put music to lots of old silent movies. ‘The General’ by Buster Keaton is a lot of fun. See http://www.corecig.com/videos

I’ve just come back from accompanying a very talented young singer, Bronte Turpin, at a charity concert. We did ‘Listen’ and she also sang with a jazz band. She and two others there, I think all from Aranmore Catholic College, are ‘ones to watch’ as they take their singing further. In the years to come you can say you first heard about them here: Bronte Turpin, Caterina Sullivan and Barzley Paculanang.

Barzley had a great jazzy accompaniment for My Foolish Heart from an Aranmore music teacher, Russell Holmes. Caterina (14yo) accompanied herself in one number, quite an achievement (and something I’ve not really mastered myself).

The whole thing was masterfully MC’d by ABC Radio’s Verity James, who donated her time to help raise funds to restore St Mary’s Catholic Parish church in Leederville. They’re aiming at $1 million and so far they’ve raised about $700,000 by various means!

I’ve been to or participated in a great many similar events and I have to say this was one of the best. The sheer confidence of the performers (mostly school students) was obvious, and it made a big difference to their performances. They must have some good teachers.

(Apologies to the many other excellent student performers, I didn’t get everyone’s name and I didn’t want to do a formal review of the whole event.)

I’ve just come back from accompanying a very talented young singer, Bronte Turpin, at a charity concert. I’ve made a post to my voice blog about the singers, but here’s some stuff of interest to piano people (do you mind being referred to as ‘piano people?’)

The whole thing was masterfully MC’d by ABC Radio’s Verity James, who donated her time to help raise funds to restore St Mary’s Catholic Parish church in Leederville. They’re aiming at $1 million and so far they’ve raised about $700,000 by various means!

Afterwards I was able to chat with Verity in the ‘green room.’ But I kept getting distracted by an old piano in the corner and just HAD to go and have a look. Quite out of tune, with a beautiful case (although in poor condition). Reminded me a lot of my best piano, my Thurmer, which is covered in Burr Walnut (see pics of three of my pianos here). It’s a real pity that these old piano cases are being lost now, just because the inner workings are too expensive to restore.

This is what happened, as it was told to me many years ago by Dave Carlsen, my piano tuner. Some time ago, I suppose about twenty or thirty years ago, every household in Japan had to have a piano. Does that sound familiar? It would if you were living in the UK, Europe or the USA a hundred years ago. But then something happened to the Japanese economy (does that sound familiar…?). Also, all their kids grew up and left home. So, they wanted to clear their instruments.

At the time I bought my Thurmer from Dave, must have been around 1990, it was worth about $3,000 (that’s a whole story in itself). With the expectation that its value would appreciate, some years later I got a written valuation: can’t remember exactly what it was now, either $4,000 or $4,500. I was pretty pleased with that.

Then the Japanese had their little problem…and started exporting all their secondhand pianos to Australia. They flooded the market. So, now you know why a lovely old European piano is practically worthless, even if it’s in reasonable condition.

However, if you know what to look for, you can pick up a cheap old piano for a few hundred dollars that can be put to good use. You can read all about that process in my article at http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Margaret_Dylan_Jones

Welcome to my VOICE  BLOG.

Use this site to discuss anything about the voice in general, including singing technique, vocal health for singing or speech, vocal physiology or anatomy, and voice science. And feel free to discuss your OWN voice if you want guidance or clarification about a vocal problem you are having or have had in the past.

Mix Margaret Dylan Jones, MusB, DipEd, LTCL, ATCL, AMusTCL, AMusA

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BTW, I also have a piano blog.