Sound and fury, musical aspirations and the new piano
Although I've not yet invested in rocker leather pants I have been taking guitar lessons for the past few months. That's right I've been taking my rock star ambitions seriously. I think I'm making reasonable headway, I can't technically "rock" yet, but I'm getting there. I like the guitar and, despite the ever so painful learning curve, my fingers are beyond the initial callous forming stage. The basic cords don't seem so masochistic any more. The bar chords are coming on strong and its now on to things like the pentatonic scales and blues riffs. Yeah, its hard for me to believe too. This is all due to the patients of my teacher, Greg Luttrell, who really can rock. He also is a talented blues, rock, and classical guitar player, and just an all around cool guy. He can sing too and plays gigs all over town and even has a record out with his band Blacksnake on iTunes Music Store, so check it out. His style and skill set are perfect for helping out a wanna-be guitar player like me. So I pay up and we have a good time every other week. He's even been kind enough to record some play-along stuff for me using my copy of GarageBand which really helps.
Despite all of that hard work, I find myself falling into some of my all too familiar bad music habits I formed years ago. So it's time for true confessions in hopes that by doing so publicly I'll break these habits.
I don't like metronomes. I have reasonable rhythm. Or so I think. At least in my head I do. Okay, I don't. I need to keep on time. I need to do this. That's the first thing.
Second, I don't really focus on reading the music. That could be staff notation, tab notation, or whatever. I wing it, then memorize it, then play it. Yep, bad. Because eventually I forget subtle parts and make mistakes. Bad, bad, bad. It also leads to crap down the line when I want to pick up stuff quickly and play with friends. I need to focus and get the sight reading down. All forms of notation pertinent to my instruments.
Third, somehow I don't get music math. That's an odd one due to my math and science background. I just never clicked on the piano. Music theory and the math of keys, transposing, and all that jazz (if you will) never sunk in. First degree, second whatever, etc. I don't even get the words. I suck at that and I need it all. Especially because my favorite music is improve, which is all about the math and getting such things. Visualizing the fret board or the keyboard in ways that keep you in line. I desperately need this. I could spend the next five years on nothing but this. And I really should.
So, I picked up a piano the other day. Why? Well, because now that I'm older (yikes, did I say that?) I regret not keeping up my lessons that I started when I was really young (you win mom). I took seven years, then stopped when my piano teacher finally figured out that I had been faking sight reading the whole time. I'd been memorizing, not reading. Ha ha. Oops, joke's on me. I'm paying for it now. So, I want two things from this piano. First, I want my skills back and more. I want a proficiency in piano. Basic, not concert. Just basic. Secondly, and really this is more important to me now, I'd like that math, theory and sight reading skill set drilled into my brain. Somehow I think this means that I like pain, because I don't think this will be easy with my older brain (oy, I said I was old again).
So, if you've kept up with my blog you'll know by now that I don't do anything half way. So, I couldn't get just any piano. Nope, that just wouldn't do. I had to get a unique and special piano. Or at least it had to feel that way to me. And because I'm single (hello, ladies!), that means I can spend my money this way and have fun. So, here's what I got. It's technically a baby grand piano. A full 88 key acoustic harp, only with two strings per note (except in the lowest octaves where its one per note) rather than three. But, its not your normal baby grand. It was designed to be used in rock concerts in the seventies and transported from show to show. As such it breaks down into two parts and is rugged. It has electric pickups, much like an electric guitar, that take the sound from the piano strings and convey them to some external amplifier and then to the concert's speakers on stage. This piano produces a really nice and popular sound. When it was replaced, the sound was electronically sampled and is still to this day one of the most popular sounds to emulate. You can still find this piano as a rental for rock concert gigs around the country.
It's called a Yamaha CP-80. There are other models, the CP-70, the CP-70B, and the CP-80M. The 70 series wasn't a full 88 keys. The 'M' was a later model CP model that had a built in MIDI interface, it was the last series and essentially a cross-over to the more modern sounds in the late seventies and early eighties. Here are some pictures. This first picture shows the piano setup and ready to play. It only has the sustain peddle. Notice the rugged construction, the exterior is the same tolex you'd find on an concert guitar amplifier, so you can set a drink on it and not be concerned. I like that, it's a pure 'guy' feature.
The next picture show the piano cased up ready for transport. It breaks down into two pieces, first the harp, second the more rectangular box is the keyboard. The cases have covers and places for the legs. Its all very well done. Together they weight over 300lbs. So 'portable' is a relative term.
Then we get to the important part, the harp. There is a front opening area that you'd normally leave closed, but for display purposes you can open. I may for a while do that. But as you can see the harp is full sized.
Years ago I had a CP-70B and loved everything about it except that it was missing the lower octave, that was a pain sometimes. The CP-80 doesn't have that problem, so I'm golden. One of the best things about this piano is that you get the full feel of a real piano. The weight, the hammer, the strings. At the same time because the strings are enclosed the tone is suppressed and the neighbors don't complain. Or in my case, the cats don't line up and whine along with you as you practice (I'm not that bad, I hope). When you want to play, plug it in and amp it to some nice speakers and it sounds like a concert grand piano. The best of both worlds.
So, I've done it again. Gone hog wild for an instrument in hopes that it will spur on my musical aspirations. It seems to be working with the guitar so far. Maybe it will work again with piano. Who knows. Which reminds me, I have to fess up about my three new guitars sometime.
posted by Gregory Burd @ 11:12 AM
