We watched episode 1 of The Piano last night on Channel 4. Claudia Winkleman is the host, Lang Lang and Mika are the judges. The format is that a piano is placed in a public place and people can have a go at playing it. Everyone played excellently. I don’t know how many others played and didn’t make the show.
The first guy on was Jared, a 21 year old truck mechanic from Kent. He only started playing at the start of the covid lockdown, and taught himself by watching YouTube lessons. Before that, he wasn’t interested in music at all. He didn’t even listen to the radio in the car. He played boogie and was was phenomenal. I’m sure he worked very hard at it, but he also had incredible talent. I also started trying to teach myself to play the piano at the start of the lockdown. I bought a midi keyboard that plugs into my Mac. Then I started working through a book of really easy piano songs. I got reasonably good at Bridge Over Troubled Water, but couldn’t make much progress with harder pieces.
Because I played the clarinet as a child, I know the treble clef pretty well, but it’s quite a mental effort for me to read the base clef and find the relevant piano key. Gradually I drifted into wondering how songs are written, rather than how to play them. What notes work well together? What is syncopation? I too studied a lot of stuff on composition on YouTube. I used GarageBand to write my songs. It was great fun arranging the notes and using different instruments. I wrote 21 songs before realising that I had unfinished business with Sir Anthony Standen. I was quite pleased with my piano duet, Claire wasn’t so keen.
Anyway, check out The Piano, it’s a great show. I’m looking forward to episode 2.