2010 is the bicentennial of the birth of Frédéric François Chopin - a reluctant instrumental virtuoso, an immortal Romantic composer, and all-around bastard. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on Dec 13, 2009 - 45 comments

Sure, the site around it is not in English but since Music is a language we can all appreciate, the Keyboard Piano is a ton of fun. (Requires Silverlight) [more inside]
posted by empatterson on Nov 28, 2009 - 17 comments

The closing 4 pages are so cataclysmic and catastrophic as anything I've ever done — the harmony bites like nitric acid — the counterpoint grinds like the mills of God... [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on Nov 27, 2009 - 18 comments

The Speaking Piano, and Transforming Audio to MIDI - Austrian Composer Peter Ablinger has transformed a child speaking so that it can be played as MIDI events on a mechanically-controlled piano, making the piano a kind of speech speaker.
posted by Burhanistan on Oct 7, 2009 - 53 comments

Classic 80s hits interpreted for ragtime piano. (SLYT)
posted by FfejL on Sep 16, 2009 - 30 comments

Mindaugas Piečaitis has performed his "CATcerto," an original score written to accompany Nora The Piano Cat's piano improvisation. Here's the video of kitty with orchestra. [more inside]
posted by jbickers on Jul 25, 2009 - 20 comments

Emily Loizeau's Je Suis Jalouse was for me the kind of song that immediately makes you want more. Emily's debut album L'autre bout du monde (The Other Side of the World) was released in 2006. She began studying piano at the age of 5, and cites Georges Brassens, Bob Dylan, and The Beatles as her primary influences. Listen to more wonderfulness with Sister, Je Ne Sais Pas Choisir, or the title track from her debut album. More listening if you are at last.fm
posted by lazaruslong on Jul 17, 2009 - 5 comments

Light-paint Piano Player, a short video by Ryan Cashman. (SLVimeo) (Via this small anthology of videos, which would have been the main link if so many of the best ones hadn't already appeared on the blue. Also: previously featured light painting.)
posted by DaDaDaDave on Jul 7, 2009 - 1 comment

Kathleen Supove, pianist extraordinaire. [via] [more inside]
posted by fcummins on May 23, 2009 - 10 comments

Imogen Heap (previously video) has been having loads of fun recording her newest record, Ellipse. She's putting up half hour long sessions of her playing piano, having album art contests, and losing her keys. Oh and beatboxing.
posted by cashman on May 22, 2009 - 17 comments

Pianist, producer, and songwriter Gonzales (real name Jason Charles Beck) is currently attempting to break the Guinness World Record for the longest solo concert. He's aiming for 27 hours, and at time of writing has around six hours left to go. You can follow the attempt live online. [more inside]
posted by tapeguy on May 17, 2009 - 19 comments

"Maybe, just maybe, we've found the next Mozart." Not just a six year old virtuoso, but a composer as well, Emily Bear seems likely to keep us listening longer than most precocious child pianists. As one tv talk show host has learned, as a composer Emily is both speedy and prolific.
posted by washburn on May 1, 2009 - 52 comments

Fans of video game music and/or piano aficionados, I present three pieces from the Super Mario Bros series: Super Mario World's Air Platform rag, SMB2 overworld theme, and SMB1 overworld theme, expertly played "blind" by ragtime pianist Tom Brier. [more inside]
posted by knave on Apr 27, 2009 - 41 comments

Lafayette Gilchrist is one of my favorite piano players. Featured on a Down Beat cover a few months ago (with Vijay Iyer and Jason Moran), he has released a half-dozen or so albums with his group, New Volcanoes, and he's the regular piano player in saxophonist David Murray's quartet. His playing and composition styles are informed by funk, go-go and hip-hop. And he's from Baltimore. Of course, you might also know him from his appearance on the soundtrack to The Wire.
posted by box on Feb 24, 2009 - 8 comments

29 year old Hiromi Uehara first mesmerized the jazz community with her 2003 Telarc debut, Another Mind. 4 albums later she continues to astonish and inspire. On February 3rd, she released the album Duet, a collaboration with Chick Corea, having first played with Corea at age 17. A graduate of the Berklee School of Music, Hiromi tours relentlessly with her crack band. I defy your jaw not to drop at their performances here, here, and here. [more inside]
posted by Roach on Feb 24, 2009 - 85 comments

Thelonius Monk's advice to Steve Lacy (as transcribed by Lacy)
posted by ericbop on Feb 5, 2009 - 24 comments

Henry Hey's new Bush Song. (SLYTP; previously; via waxy.) [more inside]
posted by progosk on Jan 30, 2009 - 14 comments

Deep in the Heart of Jersey you'll find "Uncle Floyd" Vivino, roaming the streets of various towns and cities, kibbitzing with the locals. In Belleville. Nutley. Bloomfield Avenue and Ferry Street in Newark. Kearny. Cliffside Park. Main Street, Paterson. An abandoned lot in Paterson. What, you never heard of Uncle Floyd? [more inside]
posted by not_on_display on Jan 6, 2009 - 47 comments

Pendle Poucher is a UK based composer, sound designer and lover of funny noises who has written, produced and performed soundtracks for every major UK TV station. He has devised large scale public art projects and written chart-topping dance music. However, what I find most interesting, he is also one of relatively few musicians within the UK who owns a dulcitone. Poucher claims that his Dulcitone 1884 is the world's first multi-sampled dulcitone. [more inside]
posted by netbros on Dec 20, 2008 - 8 comments

Leopold Godowsky's technique was such that Arthur Rubinstein wrote, "It would take me 500 years to get a mechanism like [his]." Which came in handy playing his 53 Studies on Chopin's Etudes - which are often nominated as the most difficult pieces in the repertoire.
posted by Joe Beese on Dec 8, 2008 - 6 comments

PALIN SONG
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 on Oct 22, 2008 - 58 comments

Leo Ornstein is generally considered to have been one of the greatest pianists of the early twentieth century. His performances of works by avant-garde composers and his own innovative and even shocking pieces made him a cause célèbre on both sides of the Atlantic. By the mid-1920s, he had walked away from his fame and soon disappeared from popular memory. And although he passed away in 2002, the internet still remembers him and his amazing legacy of work. At this website dedicated to the artist and his work, you can read all about him as well as listen to many of his scores and MP3s-on-demand. There's also readable sheet music here at the International Music Score Library Project . And there's a register of archived documents spanning Leo's career over at Yale University's website. [more inside]
posted by Effigy2000 on Sep 3, 2008 - 7 comments

Winning the Gold Medal in Young International Piano Superstardom is Chinese pianist Lang Lang. The 26 year old former prodigy compares himself not to Glen Gould, but to Tiger Woods. Given his "star appeal" and numerous endorsements, it's an apt comparison. [more inside]
posted by grapefruitmoon on Jul 31, 2008 - 10 comments

5 Year Old Adopted South Korean Blind Piano Prodigy Yoo Ye-eun can play songs after hearing them once. Watch her perform with Britain's Got Talent's Connie Talbot in a South Korean TV show called "Star King".
posted by MythMaker on Jul 13, 2008 - 29 comments

Smooth Jazz, also sometimes referred to as new adult contemporary music or instrumental pop, is generally described as a genre that utilizes instruments and improvisation traditionally associated with jazz and stylistic influences drawn from mostly R&B, but also funk and pop. Since the late 1980s and into the 1990s, it has become successful as a radio format. [source wikipedia] [more inside]
posted by netbros on Apr 20, 2008 - 251 comments

Monsieur, you vill not speak disrespectfully of a member of ze family! It is a boon travelling companion, without which I do not function, I cannot operate. It has been with me for 21 years, zis thing, this chair!

Glenn Gould performed for 21 years seated in a folding card chair modified by his father to be height adjustable. That one chair accompanied him around the world in support of each of his recordings and performances, and now resides on a pedestal at the National Library of Canada. Luckily, exact replicas of the skeletal, cushion-less chair are available for only €990. [more inside]
posted by carsonb on Apr 16, 2008 - 20 comments

This post goes out to everyone who is supposed to be working right now. Perhaps you can relate.
posted by salvia on Mar 9, 2008 - 19 comments

Free Bird on piano [YouTube]. The 14-year-old musician, who calls himself UnclassicalPiano on YouTube, currently has 16 other selections, including Stairway To Heaven, Behind Blue Eyes, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Message In A Bottle and Black Sabbath's Paranoid (his main interest is metal), all of which he says he learned to play by ear.
posted by amyms on Jan 15, 2008 - 41 comments

Oscar Peterson passed away last night. [more inside]
posted by bluedaniel on Dec 24, 2007 - 80 comments

Have these fellows whetted your appetite for Southern Hemispherical comic singer-songwriters who care about The Issues? Barefoot Australian Tim Minchin ought to satisfy that hunger with an environmental anthem and a peace anthem. But aside from his social activism, he's also vulgar, poignant, dark, and of course, rock. [more inside]
posted by doift on Nov 14, 2007 - 3 comments

A day in the life of Abdullah Ibrahim, South-African composer and performer who creates hypnotic and softly singing grooves. To me, his recent piano trios are the highlights of his work, because they are both swinging and soulful. But his compositions do not sound bad in a big band setting -(or in an arrangement for guitar). His music is quiet and meditative but powerful, and has sometimes been used as a banner for freedom and equality. Now he likes to withdraw once in a while to the smallest scenes (french commentary with some english underneath), putting strong emphasis on necessary simplicity. Written portrait.
posted by nicolin on Nov 1, 2007 - 5 comments

In 1956, Time Magazine wrote, "He is the summit of sex—the pinnacle of Masculine, Feminine and Neuter. Everything that He, She or It can ever want." (Wait. Seriously???) Behold the evolution of The Liberace Show: from dapper virtuoso to sequined, wacky showman. [more inside]
posted by miss lynnster on Oct 30, 2007 - 25 comments

Sad, head-down legendary jazz piano. (Single-link YouTube) More Bill and the Wiki. [Previously] Hopefully more of a reminder than a double.
posted by St Urbain's Horseman on Oct 25, 2007 - 37 comments

Rachmaninoff had big hands. (More from Igudesman and Joo (flash), former students of Yehudi Menuhin). [more inside]
posted by imposster on Oct 9, 2007 - 18 comments

Zenph Studios has developed a process (using high-resolution MIDI) which "re-performed" Glenn Gould's famous 1955 piano recordings of Bach's Goldberg Variations in hybrid multichannel SA-CD format.
posted by chuckdarwin on Sep 4, 2007 - 48 comments

He's got Rhythm (single-link YouTube)
posted by St Urbain's Horseman on Aug 25, 2007 - 19 comments

The Muse's Muse Songwriting Resource is the place for songwriting tips, tools, interactivities and connecting with other songwriters around the world. See the section about musical instruments or get into the guitar player's guide. Start communicating with other musicians and songwriters in the forums and check out the music reviews. Lots to do, see, hear, learn, and most of all, enjoy.
posted by netbros on Aug 22, 2007 - 10 comments

At fourteen years old, Jennifer Lin is a shade better on the piano than most eighth-graders. (video) [via]
posted by Malor on Jul 29, 2007 - 54 comments

A lovely free online text on the Fundamentals of Piano Practice. (Tuning, too.)
posted by Wolfdog on Jun 25, 2007 - 18 comments

Regina Spektor is a Russian-born American singer-songwriter and pianist associated with the anti-folk scene centered on New York City's East Village. Incorporating "piano riffs and integrating moans, nonsense words, groans, gurglings, or warblings," Spektor has a pretty unique voice (Seattle P-I: "an instrument with the agility of an athlete and the flexibility of a yogi") and style which incorporates "beatbox-style flourishes in the middle of ballads, or the use of a drum stick to tap rhythms on the body of the piano or chair" (wiki). She's got a pretty unique voice and "Fidelity" is a very unusual and rather enjoyable music video. Someone to keep an eye on (although Mefites already had been doing so).
posted by WCityMike on Jun 9, 2007 - 68 comments

Nora the cat plays piano Plus there's a sequel!
posted by parm=serial on Apr 25, 2007 - 28 comments

Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No.3, in D minor, with Martha Argerich on piano. Many know the Rach 3 from the movie Shine. [Via C&L.]
posted by homunculus on Feb 26, 2007 - 27 comments

The Hatto Hoax. Joyce Hatto has been described as "the greatest living pianist that almost no one has ever heard of." Her performances of piano works by Liszt, Schubert, and Rachmaninov were praised by classical afficionados for their "addictively beautiful sonority, cultured musicianship, and total instrumental mastery." Since she died in June 2006, however, Hatto has been at the center of one of the stranger scandals to hit classical music in years. It's starting to look like some or all of her treasured, hard-to-find recordings made since 1990 are not her playing at all. [Via]
posted by gottabefunky on Feb 16, 2007 - 52 comments

"Feelings" - As only the brilliant but... ummm... eccentric (case in point: July/August 1995 in that last link) Dr. Nina Simone could've performed it.
posted by miss lynnster on Jan 12, 2007 - 39 comments

What's the most difficult piano piece? Opinions vary. Is it La Campanella, written by Liszt to show off what only he could do? (performance, score) Is it Balakirev's Islamey, which even Balakirev struggled to play? (performance, score) Or Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit, written to top Islamey? (performance, score) Does Godowsky double his points by reconfiguring the already-difficult Chopin for the left hand? (performance) And if someone plays all four hours of Sorabji's Opus Clavicembalisticum, written across four staves to fit the extra notes, will anyone listen? (perfomance excerpts, score excerpts)
posted by argybarg on Jan 6, 2007 - 110 comments

Andras Schiff's lecture-recitals on Beethoven's piano sonatas
posted by Gyan on Nov 1, 2006 - 16 comments

Free piano, slight fire damage.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Aug 13, 2006 - 53 comments

What is people's fascination with playing the Mario theme on the piano? Blindfolded, even. Super Mario World, too. And Mario 64, and... some other rubbish.
posted by reklaw on Jul 12, 2006 - 32 comments

When an accident becomes a community attraction... It's not one of these, but when some lads from Sheffield couldn't fit their piano into their house, they inadvertently created a new concept - the 'street piano'. Start your own street piano community today!
posted by altolinguistic on Jul 7, 2006 - 25 comments

The Pianolina - an addictive flash game - is something like a cross between Pong and WolframTones. Brought to you by Grotrian, piano manufacturers since 1835, the pianolina visualizes musical notes as little squares that chime when they bounce against each other or against a wall. Its sophisticated interface lets you add chords, gravity, or start with the basic notes of well known compositions like Beethoven's "Für Elise".
posted by jann on Jun 16, 2006 - 21 comments