Interview with British Pianist Stephen Hough
musicandliterature.org
Interview with British Pianist Stephen Hough
1–10 of 28 posts
Re: Interview with British Pianist Stephen Hough
#2Learning to play piano takes years, but rewards can be more or less immediate if one knows how to set the right expectations.
As an adult learner, you need to make sure you are enjoying the instrument so it should have the right action and sound. It's unbeliable how you can purchase a Casio CDP S100 these days for less than 400 bucks and get a decent keybed and sound, advances in digital piano technology are staggering! not only sample libraries are huge these days, most digital piano companies have been including physical modelling into their sound engines with success, it's only a matter of time until these offering end up in the lower price points
One can safely predict that in a decade the only difference between an affordable digital piano and a real acoustic piano will be the keyboard action.
Re: Interview with British Pianist Stephen Hough
#3This bit in particular resonated with me, as someone who's had problems with nervousness giving piano recitals:
I have a psychological approach to nerves as well. We have to consider the so-called importance of our little place in the world. This Beethoven performance is unlikely to be of any significance in three hundred years—and in three thousand years, not at all.
It’s like standing on a different planet and looking down; let go and lose yourself. At the same time, we have to realize that the smallest gesture has enormous implications.
Re: Interview with British Pianist Stephen Hough
#4Learning to play piano takes years, but rewards can be more or less immediate if one knows how to set the right expectations. As an adult learner, you need to make sure you are enjoying the instrument so it should have the right action and sound. It's unbeliable how you can purchase a Casio CDP S100 these days for less than 400 bucks and get a decent keybed and sound, advances in digital piano technology are staggeri…
Fine, but you have nothing to say about the interview?
Re: Interview with British Pianist Stephen Hough
#5Learning to play piano takes years, but rewards can be more or less immediate if one knows how to set the right expectations. As an adult learner, you need to make sure you are enjoying the instrument so it should have the right action and sound. It's unbeliable how you can purchase a Casio CDP S100 these days for less than 400 bucks and get a decent keybed and sound, advances in digital piano technology are staggeri…
Yes! Additionally, these keyboards can record directly to your computer via MIDI. This facilitates online lessons and YouTube recordings to show family, and also opens a whole world of electronic music production.
I think a big breakthrough will be the mass availability of smaller (e.g. 15/16) size keyboards with professional actions. Right now, a large amount of jazz and advanced classical literature is literally out of reach for people whose hands are not at least the male average – and this includes most women [0]. This can be extremely discouraging for the aspiring pianist [1].
[0]: http://smallpianokeyboards.org/hand-span-data-recent-austral... [1]: http://smallpianokeyboards.org/competition-results/
Re: Interview with British Pianist Stephen Hough
#6Learning to play piano takes years, but rewards can be more or less immediate if one knows how to set the right expectations. As an adult learner, you need to make sure you are enjoying the instrument so it should have the right action and sound. It's unbeliable how you can purchase a Casio CDP S100 these days for less than 400 bucks and get a decent keybed and sound, advances in digital piano technology are staggeri…
> One can safely predict that in a decade the only difference between an affordable digital piano and a real acoustic piano will be the keyboard action.
There is still some chamber repertoire that really does rely on a real acoustic piano for resonance effects: the pianist silently depresses keys, so that the strings are left to vibrate, and then they will sympathetic-resonate with notes played by another instrumentalist.
Re: Interview with British Pianist Stephen Hough
#7Learning to play piano takes years, but rewards can be more or less immediate if one knows how to set the right expectations. As an adult learner, you need to make sure you are enjoying the instrument so it should have the right action and sound. It's unbeliable how you can purchase a Casio CDP S100 these days for less than 400 bucks and get a decent keybed and sound, advances in digital piano technology are staggeri…
It is absolutely true that adults can begin to learn piano (or any musical instrument) and reap rich rewards. And as you say the key is to set the right expectations and enjoy the sound, enjoy the process.
However, I don't agree that affordable to even high-end digital pianos will be able to approximate real acoustic pianos within 10 years in two primary areas: dynamics (being able to produce the full range of sounds from pianissimo to fortissimo) and haptic feedback (the subtle vibrations felt by the fingers and body when playing a real piano). Digital piano keybeds are getting better and better in these areas, but are just not close yet to a real piano sound and feel IMHO.
If anyone knows of any models of keyboards that prove me wrong, please share!
Re: Interview with British Pianist Stephen Hough
#8Learning to play piano takes years, but rewards can be more or less immediate if one knows how to set the right expectations. As an adult learner, you need to make sure you are enjoying the instrument so it should have the right action and sound. It's unbeliable how you can purchase a Casio CDP S100 these days for less than 400 bucks and get a decent keybed and sound, advances in digital piano technology are staggeri…
> One can safely predict that in a decade the only difference between an affordable digital piano and a real acoustic piano will be the keyboard action. There is still some chamber repertoire that really does rely on a real acoustic piano for resonance effects: the pianist silently depresses keys, so that the strings are left to vibrate, and then they will sympathetic-resonate with notes played by another instrumenta…
Resonance between instruments? Do you know a piece or recording, sounds awesome!
Re: Interview with British Pianist Stephen Hough
#9Learning to play piano takes years, but rewards can be more or less immediate if one knows how to set the right expectations. As an adult learner, you need to make sure you are enjoying the instrument so it should have the right action and sound. It's unbeliable how you can purchase a Casio CDP S100 these days for less than 400 bucks and get a decent keybed and sound, advances in digital piano technology are staggeri…
It is absolutely true that adults can begin to learn piano (or any musical instrument) and reap rich rewards. And as you say the key is to set the right expectations and enjoy the sound, enjoy the process. However, I don't agree that affordable to even high-end digital pianos will be able to approximate real acoustic pianos within 10 years in two primary areas: dynamics (being able to produce the full range of sounds…
I think the dynamics is a solved problem in terms of technology: at the extreme, you only need to sample every note for every expression level, it's just that it's not feasible in terms of hardware cost. Then you have damper resonance but todays high end models have some implementation and given that it's software one can expect great advances there in terms of modelling (soundboard resonance will be there).
Regarding keybed, the Kawai MP11 is supposedly the best with wooden keys and long pivot points, but again it's a matter of expectations and obviously a professional player will be able to tell the difference.
Re: Interview with British Pianist Stephen Hough
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
> One can safely predict that in a decade the only difference between an affordable digital piano and a real acoustic piano will be the keyboard action. There is still some chamber repertoire that really does rely on a real acoustic piano for resonance effects: the pianist silently depresses keys, so that the strings are left to vibrate, and then they will sympathetic-resonate with notes played by another instrumenta…
Resonance between instruments? Do you know a piece or recording, sounds awesome!
Luciano Berio's Sequenza X is generally a solo trumpet piece, but it requires a piano nearby for resonance. Henri Dutilleux’s Figures de résonance for two pianos also exploits the idea.
Also, when it comes to purely solo piano works that require one to leave certain keys silently depressed for resonance effects, György Ligeti's Touches bloquées comes to mind.