I can not tell you how grateful I am to my parents for forcing me to learn piano. Piano has helped me through some tough times...and plus, learning and then mastering a new song that I like makes me feel...good. haha. I don't know, I feel like I can be a little more arrogant when I'm playing piano sometimes.
Sadly, I'm not even that good. In all honesty, I'm not. Seriously. Everybody I know who plays piano plays better than me. I think part of it is because my teachers weren't really that great. They didn't really push me to try harder. The other part is my fault. I did not put any effort into learning or practicing piano. Which I now completely regret...sigh. Oh well, I'll make do with what I have now.
Anyways, I suck at playing. I have a tendency to get really nervous when playing in front of other people. I also can't multi-task. I can't talk and play at the same time...my brain doesn't like it. My fingers don't strike the keys with any semblance of consistency and I can't control how quickly they hit...especially in faster pieces. Accursed fingers!
I think the reason why I like Steven Cravis's songs is because despite any outward appearances, in reality most of them are pretty basic. The left hand boils down to a basic sequence of notes and broken chords that repeat in different orders, while the right hand carries the melody. It's pretty remarkable what the guy can do with it though.
The one bad thing for me is that all his songs require the use of the pedal...at least for me. There's a lot of legato (basically at least one finger is playing a note to make the piece sound flowing and connected, as compared to staccato, where all your fingers leave the keys for a time, to make a more broken, jumpy sound). The pedal really helps me with this, because I can just let the pedal carry most of the legato while i focus on getting the notes right. But that means, I tend to rely on it too much...
Oh, I was walking back up to Hedrick, and I remembered that one of Matt's Sha friends had told me about the new piano in Rieber, so I decided to check it out. It's pretty cool. If you've ever seen a UCLA piano, you probably know most of them are old, beaten, craptacular crap crap pianos that look like they might collapse. The one in Hedrick even has its pedals mixed up. But this new Rieber piano looks like it's BRAND new. It's a Kohler & Campbell Piano, and the notes are so smooth and crisp, it's like ucla piano heaven.
Imagine this, but much nicer looking. Then you have the new Rieber Piano. My precious...Whereas, all the other pianos are chipped and dead looking. The hedrick one even has keys that are way out of tune. bleargh! damn rieber, why do they get everything?
Imagine this...but a lot crappier and broken-looking. Then you have Hedrick Sproul pianos...Yea, I should've picked better pictures.The one bad thing about the new Rieber Piano is that the note-joining pedal is really weak...which means I have to work harder to make my steven cravis songs more legato. Freaking legato.
Oh...I have no idea what the other pedals do. There are two other pedals. And I don't know what they're called. Or what they do. Yes, I learned piano for six years. Shutup!
