Jedi Elana

Thanks to my piano teacher, I now see the piano in a different light.
Before this, the piano to me was just something that produced sound at different pitches. And as a pianist we play those sounds at different lengths to produce a song.

Now I see the piano as more than that. The piano is a unique instrument with hammers and strings.. and it is up to us the pianist how to manipulate the hammers to harness various beautiful sounds from the strings. You can use the pedals in various ways to accomplish this. You can have legato pedaling to make it smooth between notes,... or to amplify the sound... half pedalling, quarter pedalling... flutter pedal... slow-motion flutter pedal... hahahah Teacher proved to me that it's all about experimenting to show how you can produce the unique sound required for each song....

Of course now I'm learning all about mellow sounds,... bright sounds.....
different timbre.... melody shaping... tone colour... whoa!!! So interesting....

Sometimes you can do more than play the keys... she told me that sometimes special effect can be done... she said there is one song... you play on the Grand, and you actually get up and litterally glissando on the strings with your fingers .... wow !!!
She also showed me you can actually produce harmonics on the piano! I was spellbound.....

Further from the introduction to Bela Bartok, she also told me that there's this special piano crafted just specially for Bartok with 2 extra keys at the low end... a G and an F... cos he wrote one song that called for those two notes....
and on the piano... the 2 keys are painted black.... seems there is a white Grand (she said the kind that Richard Clayderman played,... ahhahaahah,.. now that's something i can relate to) at La Salle with such extra keys... hmmm interesting.....

I really like it when she tells me such trivia and stories =)