My Current Practice and Performance Technology

I hate turning pages. In particular, I hate turning pages in my music book while I'm performing in front of an audience. It seems risky to me and I have gone to great lengths in the past to avoid turning pages during a performance. I have used clips, copied pages and taped them into my book, taped pages onto cardboard and many other contrivances. However, when I was studying for the Australian Amus exam, I realized that I would have to perform a piece that required many page turns in front of several judges. It was my worst performance nightmare. So, I decided to acquire an electronic device that could display my music and also to purchase a bluetooth page turner. These items have absolutely transformed both my piano practice and performance. I can barely imagine going back to my previous practice methods with books, paper copies, pencils, erasers, etc.

My first purchase several years ago was the Microsoft Surface Pro Tablet. I was orginally choosing between a Microsoft Surface Tablet or an Apple iPad Pro product. Either one had a decent screen surface area and would work for reading music. Most of the music industry has standardized on Apple, so an iPad Pro would make sense from an app perspective. However, I'm pretty geeky and have preferred Microsoft computers for quite some time. I do not regret my choice and have been quite happy with my Surface. It has turned out to be a reliable machine and I use it not only for reading music, but also as my business laptop. I added a tiny microSD card into the exterior Surface slot which gives me two drives inside the tablet. So, I'm able to keep all of my piano and music files on a separate drive from my regular laptop, yet it is constantly accessible.

Once I had my computer, I needed software to display the music. There are quite a few music reading apps for the iPad, but they only work on iPads, plus the apps all appeared to save the music in proprietary formats. I didn't want a program that used proprietary music formats, because these formats only work within that program. If I ever stopped using the music app, I would also lose all my music and personal notations. So, I started looking for a program that would allow me to annotate music as pdfs. This way, I could scan and save my practice music into a standard pdf format. After a good bit of research and several failed program attempts, I settled on a reasonably priced program called PDF Annotator.

The Microsoft Surface came with a Surface Pen which allows the user to draw on the Surface. This pen is great when used with the PDF Annotator program. I can draw on my music and make notes in different colors. I can highlight in different colors. I can erase the marks. I can make my marks permanent by melding them to the document. I can save different pdf versions. Sometimes, I even add pages to my document with inspirational images or composer information.

So, finally we come to the page turns. There are choices for bluetooth pageturners and I decided to try the Airturn Foot pedal based on reviews I read at the time of my purchase (a few years ago).  I love it, but it certainly requires practice to use. I normally put the Airturn to the left of my piano pedals, so my left foot can tap the Airturn for the page turn. However, you do have to practice where to place the airturn in relation to the pedals. Then you have to practice hitting the pedal correctly with your foot without looking down. I also normally place a mark in my music for when to tap the pedal for the turn. The pedal has some lights that let you know when it is connected to your tablet, but they are a bit erratic. It took me quite some time to realize that pressing the on/off button for 3 seconds without caring about the blinking lights would work reliably.

My current practice now consists of me sitting down at the piano with my Surface and Pen on my piano's reading stand. I put my Airturn to the left of the Una Corda and my iphone next to the surface for use as a metronome. I open the OneNote program on my Surface (a lot like Evernote) and notate my practice time and practice hints. (I also use OneNote for my piano student records.) I then open my scanned music in PDF Annotator and start my practice. I love it. However, if I am doing performance practice, I usually open my music in Adobe Acrobat Reader in full screen view instead of PDF Annotator. I can't annotate the music in this program, but my previously annotated music displays a little larger on my device for performances.

My pre-performance routine now consists of saving a copy of my music with my preferred notations. I then make sure the Surface Display is set for a long display time (so it won't go blank in the middle of a performance) and that all my devices are fully charged. Just before going onstage, I turn on the Surface and open my music in full screen view with Adobe Acrobat Reader and then I connect and test the foot pedal. I love this system and my page turn jitters are a thing of the past.

Just one more thing...... I always have a paper copy of my music in my bag just in case. You can't be too careful.

They Came To Play - Documentary

For a recent birthday, I received a documentary on the 2007 Van Cliburn Amateur Piano Competition, They Came To Play. I watched it alone because other similar documentaries on pianos or musicians that I have watched and mostly enjoyed like "Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037" would be pretty boring to my non-pianist family. However, this documentary was better. I wouldn't suggest my family watch this documentary, but I might see if my adult piano students would be interested. As a lifelong piano student, I found the documentary inspiring and satisfying.
The piano competition brings together 70+ of the world's best amateur pianists for one week of competition. The competition is open to non-professional pianists age 35 and over who do not derive their principal source of income through piano performance, instruction, or composition.  The competition selects entrants through video screening. "All applicants submit a 15-20 minute audition video with repertoire of the applicant’s choosing. Works performed in the screening videos can be performed during the Competition rounds. The video must be filmed with both the pianist’s face and hands in the frame at all times. Recordings may be paused between each repertoire selection. Each work on the video must be a continuous and unedited performance. Videos must not be filmed more than six months prior to submission."
The documentary follows a number of contestants, featuring their motivations and path to the competition and then cuts to video from the competition itself. It was interesting to see people of all ages from so many walks of life attempting the competition, but this section was a little long at times. However, as the competition went on, the more serious and gifted piano students (who just happened to chose a non-musical profession) seemed to dominate the competition. (I also noticed that most of the more serious contestants had access to a grand piano in their home for practicing.) However, I still found it inspiring to see opthamologists, civil attorneys, french tennis players, and dental assistants all play their hearts out on stage. It was easy to see that these splendid performances came from people who simply just love playing the piano. It is a wonderful example of ordinary people doing the extraordinary.
The bonus material on the DVD included semi-final and final round performances that are well worth watching.

The Secret Piano

I love autobiographies about pianists that overcome obstacles and find satisfaction and/or success with the piano later in life. This novel hit all my "hot buttons". It is about a young girl  who had been on a fast track for success at the conservatoire in China, but got derailed (and brainwashed) during the communist revolution. After working hard at an age too old for the typical pianist, along with an astonishing amount of generosity from many people, she has achieved a reasonable success as a concert pianist and educator.  I'm definitely going to look up her recordings of the Bach Goldberg Variations.

I've read some other autobiographical books about the communist revolution.  Mao's Last Dancer was required reading for my daughter in her English course a number of years ago, so I read it as well. The Secret Piano was unique for me in that Zhu Xiao-Mei was in the Conservatoire, old enough to witness the effects on the teacher/artists at the school, but young enough to be "brainwashed" by the revolution.  She experienced and participated in terrible atrocities.  All the deaths and humiliations of the teachers in the Conservatoire were especially chilling.  The destruction of manuscripts was heart-rending. Her denunciations of herself and others along with the lifelong repercussions of her own actions were fascinating.  However, once she escaped from China and reached the US is not the end of the story, but merely the halfway point in the book.

Zhu received much help along the way, but also had to persevere terrible obstacles.  People helped her by opening their homes to her. She worked in many menial jobs to make enough money to survive.  She auditioned and was accepted to the New England Conservatoire after reaching the age of 30.  She realized that she wasn't attaining her goal in the US and wound up moving to France where she kept studying and practicing.  Then through even more help and her own hard work, she finally received some professional success. The second half is a testament to persevering in the western world despite enormous obstacles. It also includes quite a lot of philosophy that she used to help her survive, move forward, and finally shape her philosophy of music.

As I said before, this book hit all my buttons.  Its got an interesting historical component that taught me more about China's cultural revolution.  Its got an older pianist achieving success when conventional wisdom predicts failure.  She must be a remarkable artist and person to have achieved her success. The Secret Piano is a wonderful book and I will be recommending it to all my friends.

As a piano student and teacher, I also look at the book on another level. I like to see if there's anything in the book that would not only help me in my playing, but also in teaching others to play the piano. Here's some excerpts that I especially liked:

"By constantly practicing, without casting about or forcing the matter, insight into life and how things worked emerged without my conscious awareness of it. This is the essence of Chinese philosophy: something that can be experienced without always needing to be explained. The Chinese path to understanding is quite different from that taken by Westerners.  It is more intuitive, less strictly rational. The Chinese believe that many things do not need explanation because they are natural phenomena.  Unlike their Western counterparts, who see understanding as a prerequisite to practice, Chinese people see practice as one way to achieve understanding.  They are skeptical about any single-minded search for an ideal or truth.... Once I have analyzed the entire piece, I play it evenly and attentively: I never force it or try to grasp its meaning too quickly.  I do this until I experience love for each passage and note, until I reach a state of natural and intuitive understanding."

"It is increasingly clear to me that the thrust (line of reasoning or meaning) of a work is linked to its thrust (forward motion or direction). That the music - propelled forward and shaped by the life-giving bass notes - advances horizontally, and that this horizontality ultimately takes precedence over its verticality."

"I also learned... not to struggle with my piano.  It is an eternal friend, regardless of external events and the day's fugitive moods.  This in turn allows me to better explore its infinite resources, to get closer to the attack and sonority that I am seeking."

"Before playing a work, I have discovered I need... to be peaceful, to empty my mind. To see down to the bottom of a lake, the water must be calm and still. The calmer the water, the farther down one can see. The exact same thing is true for the mind - the more tranquil and detached one is, the greater depths one can plumb."

Zhu tells us that studying Chinese philosophy helped her understand the "truth of music".  Maybe it resonated with her more because it fitted in with her cultural worldview, but maybe studying some Laozi wouldn't be so bad for me.