Tuesday, January 15, 2019

It will be 10 years in June............

.................since I first embarked on this piano journey.
I now feel like I have definitely made the transition from a guitarist to a pianist being entirely comfortable on the instrument. I own 4 keyboard instruments, my faithful Yamaha U3, 2 Casio's including the phenomenal Casio PX560 and very capable XW-P1 and lastly a Novation Impulse midi controller.
I have written heaps of music for the piano which can be found here.
I have released 4 albums which I could not have written for and produced without my new skill set. The next challenge is to get out there, after my partner and I have completed building a new home, and present the repertoire I am currently working on. I had originally planned to do this after 10 years of working on the instrument so I am on track to meet that important goal.

Coming soon!


Friday, September 22, 2017

Yesterday was a very special day.
I came out publicly as piano player. Yep. I really did!
The guitarist who discovered he was really a pianist?
Considering the LGBTI/same sex marriage debate we find ourselves currently embroiled in it is a little ironic.
The lovely folk who run the Denmark Piano Club allowed me to play three of my own compositions Andy's Song, Yungup and Inkling and I am allowed to come back and play again.
All things considered it wasn't too bad a performance and the monkey is well and truly off the back as I have been working towards yesterday's goal since I first started my piano journey way back in 2009.
Feeling pretty damn pleased with myself!

Sunday, April 10, 2016

Sunyata released


The culmination of my efforts on the piano over the last few years occurred on my birthday a few days ago when I released the album Sunyata.
It presents 10 original tunes with a bit of rhythmic grunt for jazz piano trio.
The great crossover jazz outfit EST has been a great influence on my writing including a head entitled Gladwrap based on their much loved tune Goldwrap.
You can purchase or stream Sunyata from any of the usual digital distribution sites.
Listen to Sunyata by Robin on @AppleMusic.



Thursday, May 21, 2015

Functional Piano Practice/performance Lighting

If you use an upright piano, the new iPhone 6 (being somewhat longer) is very useful for creating a lovely intimate source of lighting. I use it in my practice studio when it is still dark in the mornings rather than turning the lights on in an effort to save on electricity. I think it would also work very well for performances to enhance a particular piece's mood or where the lighting was not quite up to scratch.

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Five years in to my piano journey

My goal to post here much more regularly just did not happen as I had desired but, I can report that I have been busy!

I continue to play Bach and revisited and relearnt the Fugue in C Minor from WTC 1. The constant posting from the irrepressible Shirley Kirsten has opened my eyes to a couple of the more accessible movements from the French Suite V so I have been working on the Allemande and as of today started looking at the Courante too.

I have composed two new piano pieces Friday's Beckoning Seas and Zep. I have a few others on the go and have also completed a couple of arrangements for different instrumentations. I have continued to work on my improvising skills using my own pieces in the main. Those skills have improved quite a bit as my technical competence has been pushed along because of the major goal I set myself for this year which was to study 12 of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas.

I have been using an easiest to hardest list, that I secured courtesy of Phlebus on the Piano World Forum, and it has worked very well for me.

1 - Op 49#2
2 - Op 49#1
3 - Op 14#1
4 - Op 2#1
5 - Op 79
6 - Op 10#1
7 - Op 14#2
8 - Op 10#2
9 - Op 26
10 - Op 13 "Pathetique"
11 - Op 54
12 - Op 27#2 "Moonlight"

Why, you ask? Well as a late beginner, having started this journey in my late 50s, I figured that if I can get some sort of handle on all 32 piano sonatas it is likely to stand me in good stead for pretty well anything I am likely to want to explore in the repertoire. Apart from gaining more technical skills my sight reading has also dramatically improved allowing me to more easily explore other repertoire. More than useful. Could I play you a competent performance of any of the sonatas? Well no, not at this point in time, as my procedure is to get a grasp of six at a time before going back and revisiting them all. So, having just completed the second six, I have started revisiting the first six for the third time. Once I have completed that process, I will move on to the new group of six for a second revisit. Each time they are revisited more of the technical challenges fall away and I get much closer to being able to play them. However, that is not my goal. I am challenging myself to explore them to gain more technical skill for composition and improvising for performance. So I am more likely to choose one or other to learn for a performance if that is something I decide I want to do at some point.
So what has the been the main technical challenge I have faced exploring the sonatas? Arpeggios, arpeggios and arpeggios! Both Shirley Kirsten and Graham Fitch have provided excellent technical information and routines that I have taken full use of to assist gaining a better understanding of arpeggio playing.
I would like to mention that the Pianist and International Piano magazines are tremendously inspirational for a self-directed student such as myself, with the former, in particular, providing a terrific entree to the repertoire with the number of pieces to play that they include in each issue.
Well, that is it from me for another year and it is straight in to the next twelve sonatas on the list.
13 - Op 28 "Pastoral"
14 - Op 31#3
15 - Op 78
16 - Op 31#2 "Tempest"
17 - Op. 22
18 - Op 2#3
19 - Op 2#2
20 - Op 90 
21 - Op 31#1 
22 - Op 27#1
23 - Op 10#3
24 - Op 7
Bring it on!

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Zep

Well the pieces just keep coming. Here is another written with adolescent pianists in mind even though most have possibly never heard of Led Zeppelin before. Anyway, the riffs work pretty well here in a piece designed to assist students to gain further hand independence. The Immigrant Song riff works so well as an ostinato. The piece is available here.