davidjohnconnors

An Autumn Leaf is the second last thing I need to prepare for my Trinity Grade 3 exam. It is somewhat challenging around the mid-second and there are some highly specific pedalling requirements in various places around the piece and you can bet the examiners will look for these. This is pretty close to where it needs to be - but I need to dial up the dynamic contrast before the exam. This was rendered out using Pianoteq 7 Bluethner Cinematic. No post production this time around.

Pigment is a hauntingly beautiful piece by Christian Löffler. The score isn't available for purchase but once again my teacher - Jullia Kourtidis (http://www.jkmtuition.com/) - kindly transcribed it for me. Pigment is minimalist and clocks in 60 quaver beats per minute. The entire piece is composed using only minims and semibreves on strong beats- so it is very easy to learn. The piece is made up of two halves of the same thing repeating - the original has the second half backed by interesting electronic sounds that add a lot of depth and feel. I recorded this to the metronome so I can circle back and do another version of this piece in the future that incorporates a bit of electronic backing like the original. This was rendered in Pianoteq 7 using the Grand Steinway D (New York). I did a bit of post production in Logic Pro to add reverb using ChromaVerb and a few others to add a bit more depth.

Today is my two year pianoversary - 731 days since I started. I have kept a log of all the things I've done over the last two years and apparently on this day two years ago I spent 4 minutes playing with a free trial of Youscian. There might have been a few beers involved. 😂 I guess we all start somewhere. Sunrise on the Matterhorn is another of my grade 3 pieces I’ll be using when I sit the performance exam. It is very dramatic / cinematic and is loads of fun to play. I was a bit nervy for some reason this morning (cameras do that to you) and there are a couple of minor slips. I'll have to sort that out. Learning this piece was the first time I felt like all of the theory, scales and arpeggios actually paid off. Half of the piece is made up of D major arpeggios and once you notice that, you don’t need to learn those parts and can just play them straight away - which was a very refreshing experience. Only infinity bajillion other patterns to learn. It sounded pretty thin on the default Kawai audio so I rendered the MIDI out using Pianoteq’s Bluethner Cinematic renderer and I think this suits the piece a lot more.

This is pretty mainstream classical for me (for a non-exam piece) as I have tended to gravitate to more contemporary pieces. I learned this some time ago but never got around to recording it. Most other YouTube versions of this piece use a single chord for the 'big chord' in bar 12 however the version my teacher gave me plays this as a glissando. Overall I think I would have preferred to learn this as the single big chord as a point of contrast.

This lovely piece is from Edric Tan and part of the Trinity College London 2021-2023 Grade 3 syllabus. Amazingly, Edric was born in 2005. To compose something this nice and have it featured as a part of official syllabus is pretty incredible! I learned this piece because I really liked it but won't be using it as a part of my exam submission on the advice of my teacher saying it is simple compared to the rest of the syllabus. I'm inclined to agree - it is significantly easier than the other Grade 3 pieces I'm struggling with. I've ignored most of the dynamics by choice because they seem a bit arbitrary and I think the piece sounds a lot better without them.

This is the third and final piece I selected as a part of my Trinity grade 2 practical exam. It is probably the more interesting out of the three pieces I selected. Glad to have this behind me and looking forward to grade 3.

Shepherd's Melody is another of the pieces I selected for Trinity Grade 2. The alternating tenuto / staccato part in the middle of this recording, while simple, was exceptionally difficult for me to push through. Playing tenuto / staccato alternating like that built up a bucket load of left hand tension that would cause me to make silly errors and then also make the right hand fall out of rhythm. Very frustrating!

This is one of the exam pieces I did for Trinity Grade 2. It is simple, but I had quite a deal of trouble with getting it right - especially the semi-quaver's in bar four. I have these malfunctions from time to time where I really struggle with something that is seamingly very simple. This recording isn't great in a few parts but pretty sure it was more consistent on the one that I sent Trinity a week ago. To be honest, I'm pretty glad to see and hear the tail end of it. 😀 Onwards to grade 3 - the pieces are starting to get a lot more interesting and enjoyable.

It has been a while since I posted - I had shoulder surgery in August that had me in a sling for a couple of weeks plus I have been preparing for Trinity Grade 2 practical exam. Today is day 567 of my adult piano journey. This beautiful piece is by the modern classical composer Eydís Evensen. I believe dagdraumur means daydream in Icelandic. For a change of tone I rendered this out using Pianoteq 7 (NY Steinway D - Gentle) which makes a break from the Kawai built in samples. For those who don't know, Pianoteq is a virtual piano that works by physically modelling a piano rather than using samples. This is the only thing I have played and recorded with it so far and it gives the Kawai CA 79 a very different feel ... Especially with some of the bigger grands. Lastly and definitely not least a big thank you to Julia Kourtidis of JKM Tuition (http://www.jkmtuition.com/), my long suffering teacher, for transcribing this for me.

This is my last video for a bit as I'm heading in for a bit of shoulder surgery 4 Aug 21. Nothing too dramatic (an ostectomy to remove some extra shoulder bone I don't need from a mountain biking accident in '99). I'm not sure how far grade 2 away is as a result. Bagatelle is one of the pieces I selected as a part of my Trinity College London Grade 1 examination and the only classical period piece I learned for the exam. I found this piece difficult to learn compared to the others and fairly annoying to play - mostly because I chose incorrect fingering for one or two places and only worked that out when it was too late. 😀

The Enchanted Garden is another one of the pieces I used for my Trinity College London Grade 1 piano examination - and my favourite out of the three I chose - and definitely the easiest. I hope you find it useful if you're studying for Trinity grade 1!

Pirate Stomp is one of the pieces I selected as a part of my Trinity College London Grade 1 examination. It is simple, fun to play, fairly 🏴‍☠️piratey🏴‍☠️ as far as these things go and, most of all, gave me an excuse to use Captain Pugwash in a video thumbnail. I learned the set of pieces for my exam in January and then lost interest in them before recording a submission - and here I am doing the actual submission in July. Quite annoyed with myself as I had to learn three pieces twice for grade 1 when I should probably be doing grade 2 now - won't be doing that again! I fired the examination submission off today and recorded this top down after that - this is the last time I'll play this piece, although if I do let it slip then I'll have nothing piratey in my repertoire. 😬🦜

June is my first composition and was completed as a part of a homework exercise assigned by my piano teacher. It is inspired by June Berthelsen's story of her years as a patient on Peel Island. This is day 449 of my adult beginner piano journey. Full write up: 👀 https://www.davidconnors.com/june Sheet music: 🎵 https://musescore.com/davidconnors/june

I Thálassa is an original composition by my piano teacher, Julia Kourtidis. It is from her upcoming EP however she was kind enough to allow me to post this recording before its release (lucky because my repertoire is a bit thin on the ground 😁). I Thálassa translates from Greek as The Sea and is a nod to her Greek heritage. The piece is mercifully short for a beginner though some of the transitions were difficult. I missed the dynamics on a couple of bars completely in this recording and nearly choked at the end. It is interesting that what seems like a near car crash in your head barely shows up in the video recordings. Links: ► Julia's teaching business: http://www.jkmtuition.com/ ► Example of her work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES_exxh9qlM

This is my stab at Joep Beving's beautiful piece Ab Ovo from his album Prehension. My left hand finger posture looks strained from the middle of the piece (about 1m25s) - and for good reason - almost all of the chords are 10ths which is right at the limit of my handspan. I have to play the top and bottom notes off the front of the key to reach. Joep looks like a lumberjack and probably has a handspan to match. I've tuned the piano to A432 as per the original (https://twitter.com/DavidConnors/status/1346020715233853440). I started this piece on 4 Jan 2021 and after initially learning it fairly quickly I have been giving it a daily play through or two to try and tackle the last two pages (bars 52 to 71) as the closing of the piece is WELL above my pay grade. The high number of hours overall have been a result of those last two pages. In terms of stuff ups, first grace note was botched and there are numerous timing errors which hopefully will go unnoticed by people unfamiliar with the piece. I bought the score from Faber Music: https://www.fabermusic.com/shop/ab-ovo-d37082 - at 3 quid it is a bargain. I recommend learning the piece mainly due to its brutal use of 10ths and if you're a beginner like me the left hand transitions at the end will really challenge you! Both are good skills that will transfer to other pieces. If you like the video, a like/subscribe/share will help keep me motivated in producing more. The original from the man himself is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6eDmID4jWs

This is my rendition of Lullaby by Max Richter. Most will know it as Departure but this is a slower/simpler/easier version of the theme and used throughout the show. I've spent a total of about 30 hours on the piece over a number of months on and off again. I learned it quite a few months ago now and have added a play through of it to practice every other day to stop it from falling out of my head. Sorry about the missed notes along the way - art ain't perfect!