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I’ve been writing this blog since 2009, but there still seem to be plenty of interesting topics to mull over. You can subscribe (it’s free) to follow the blog by email – each new post will pop into your inbox.
The difficulty of ending in tempo and without a pause
When you play a lot of Romantic piano music, you get used to the final notes being extended by a written pause. Composers like Chopin and Schumann often wanted the last chord to ring on gently (or triumphantly) while the mood of the piece hung in the air. We pianists...
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Brian Kellock, great Scottish jazz pianist, has died
Very sad news that the Scottish jazz pianist Brian Kellock died last night. Brian was revered in the Scottish jazz world and far beyond. I didn't know him well, but I had got to know him a bit through attending his Sunday afternoon performances (with double bassist...
Signing paperbacks
Here I am signing paperbacks in Toppings Bookshop in Edinburgh this morning. Whenever I'm in a big bookstore, especially a well-curated one like Toppings, I look at all the tables with their piles of new books on a thousand fascinating subjects and wonder what chance...
Thoughts at the end of the year
I haven't written much on my blog recently, for two reasons: 1. My website was hacked (aargh), and I have been struggling to deal with the technical issues that resulted. 2. I have been working on a new book. More of that in the new year! As we come to the end of the...
More on hand sizes
A little while ago I wrote about my sudden insight that most printed fingering in the scores of piano pieces was probably devised by men, and for male pianists. Yesterday I had some follow-up to that from a doctor who had done some further reading about male and...
Programme notes – help or hindrance?
Yesterday I was at a concert where, just as I was thinking of reading the programme notes, the lights went down and I couldn't read them. Some concert halls don't put the lights down; others dim them slightly, and some put them down to 'theatre levels', just leaving...
London Piano Festival pianists
Phew! That was indeed a two-piano marathon at the London Piano Festival. Looking tired but happy after the three-hour concert last Saturday night in King's Place are, from left to right, Christian Ihle Hadland, Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen (co-directors of the...
The male hand as default …?
At the Edinburgh Book Festival I went to hear Caroline Criado Perez talk about her book 'Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men'. The book has just won the 2019 Royal Society Science Book Prize. The book's mission is simple but profoundly...
London Piano Festival
I'm preparing for my two appearances at the London Piano Festival in King's Place on Saturday October 5. At 2pm I have a solo lecture-recital on Schubert's A major Sonata D959. At 7pm I'll be joining the other festival pianists in a 'two-piano marathon' concert. Most...
Feeling the tempo before you begin
I did a piano workshop recently at which a number of different people played. One of our topics was tempo. How do you decide at what speeed to play something, especially if the composer gives no indication? Even written instructions such as Andante or Adagio are...
Sitting at a window, doing nothing
I've been on holiday in Italy and can feel that it has done me good. What can be more cheering than to start each day by opening the shutters to find a golden haze lying over the landscape (again), the hills receding in layers of paler and paler blue? It was very hot....
The range of topics at the EdBookFest
For the past couple of days I've been at the Edinburgh Book Festival (one of the world's major literary festivals) listening to other writers' talks - that is, when I could hear them over the noise of the thunder, lightning and rain battering on the canvas roof (in...
NYO Dress Code – then and now
The marvellous National Youth Orchestra Prom concert with Nicola Benedetti last week has set me reminiscing about my time in the NYO (in the photo, I have long fair hair and am just to the left of the middle of the group, playing 2nd violin.) Watching the NYO Prom on...
Edinburgh International Book Festival event
As August approaches, Edinburgh is suddenly full of posters advertising the thousands of Festival and Fringe events about to be unleashed upon us. You can feel the city is about to overflow with visitors. One of the most popular of the several festivals which co-exist...
Putting fuel in the tank
After a recent concert a member of the audience was telling me how much she'd enjoyed it. 'I always say it's great to hear top professionals playing, because it's only when people have really mastered the notes that they can think about how music communicates', she...