The "world's fastest laptop computer" - ie, my Sager 9262 - has just arrived!! Quad Core, 2.8+ GHz, double graphic card XP goodness was liberated from its cardboard carrier as soon as i arrived home to undergo installations of necessary software (Pure Data Extended, Quick Time Pro, Firefox, Google Chrome, etc.)  A full detailed review will be forthcoming, but suffice to say this thing is wicked fast!!  I'll be eager to put it through its paces and am keeping my fingers crossed...

The puppy is over-the-top big (the power block itself is laugh-out-loud-large), but actually not as much as i had feared.  I can actually lift the darn thing, and it's definitely more portable than the desktop i had originally purchased.  That being said, it's definitely not a unit to be carried under one's arm for any sane period of time. 

Hm...makes me almost want to go out and get one of those new-fangled PC games just to have something to show off with....

A whole month has gone by with me being the absent blogger, and the cumulative burden to get around to putting something up has finally taken its toll. Rather than trying to tackle an essay of titanic proportions, I thought i'd wean myself back into the web fold with a little “less is more” gimmick. So, here goes my attempt to summarize a summer that's been like no other in so many respects:

1. 
   

   Packed

   
   



2. 
   

   Productive

   
   



3. 
   

   Infuriating

   
   



4. 
   

   Inspiring

   
   



5. 
   

   Exciting

   
   



6. 
   

   Exhausting

   
   



7. 
   

   Varied

   
   



8. 
   

   Video'd (um...my made up word to express that I have a TON of video footage to edit through and post up...)

   
   



9. 
   

   Tech'd

   
   



10. 
    

    Tapped (as in, um...tapped out! Hahaha)

    
    

As an old pastor friend of mine once put it, “let's unpack this”:

Packed

– Two weeks of teaching the inaugural year of Strings International Festival's Piano Studies program in Bryn Mawr, immediately followed by two weeks of teaching/performing/programming (in increasing order of busy-ness) at the Rocky Ridge Music Center Festival in Estes Park, Colorado, accompanied by my whole family;

• 
  

  Two recitals at the Great Auditorium in Ocean Grove, NJ – one with the inestimable Nitzan Haroz, principal trombonist of the Philadelphia Orchestra (and high contender for coolest guy in Philadelphia, perhaps the entire East Coast!); the other recital jointly with Gary Schocker, flutist/composer/pianist extraordinaire and soprano Jacquelyn Familant.

  
  



• 
  

  Two recitals with Gary at his own masterclass session in Poughskeepie, NY (YouTube videos to be posted very soon)

  
  



• 
  

  Visual Recital to celebrate the debut of the new 9 foot Cunningham Piano at the Woodmere Art Museum

  
  



• 
  

  Visual Recital/Music Technology lecture/performance at the Summit Music Festival

  
  



• 
  

  Recital with my dear old friend and master violinist Aaron Rosand. According to one cello professor in attendance, he thought it was one of the greatest recitals he had ever witnessed – wow!

  
  

Productive

• 
  

  Finally, after two years of beating around the bush, got down to learning Pure Data/GEM, the open source audio/visual programming language. Still a lot more to learn, but the basics are tremendously promising, and I hope to devote a good portion of the coming year to getting comfortable creating new Visual Recital programs with this amazing program.

  
  



• 
  

  Got my feet wet with Blender, the open source 3D modeling/animation program. Two excellent textbooks should help me get a better handle on this program. Oh, and check out these amazing videos created entirely with Blender and other open source programs!!

  
  



• 
  

  More toe-dipping with another realtime visualizing program called VVVV (how in the world does one pronounce that??) This program works natively with DirectX 9 in Windows, such that the performance and speed with massively complex visual algorithms is by far the most impressive i've seen with any program of its kind. Can an old brain learn two new programming languages simultaneously? This year we'll find out...

  
  

Infuriating

• 
  

  Pure Data doesn't come with a manual per se, but only with a series of example patches that range from incredibly helpful to infuriatingly obtuse. I think I lost the most hair this summer trying to figure out some of the most embarrassingly basic aspects of this program...

  
  



• 
  

  being told the night before a show after having spent nearly an entire sleepless week programming (and learning to program) that the visuals were too “over the top” for a particular piece. Well, why the dadgum blazes didn't anyone TELL me what they wanted from the beginning, instead of at the last minute?? I was ready to smash my computer, go home and forget about this whole crazy “visual recital” thing. Somehow I managed to neuter the “wild” visuals and create an entirely new set of visuals for another piece piece in under 10 hours, to rave reviews.

  
  



• 
  

  Discovering that high altitude causes my 5000 lumen projector to shut down after only 40 minutes or so, due to insufficient amounts of air to cool the lamps!

  
  



• 
  

  My faithful old Samsung i730 PDA phone was starting to kick the battery bucket, so I upgraded to the Samsung i760. Neat phone, except for some strangely sluggish performance – but then, the USB connection started to die out, even after hard reboots. Called Verizon tech support, and they sent out a replacement i760, but the LCD screen died shortly after arrival. Cool phones simply aren't cool when they're slower and more problem prone than older models...

  
  

Inspiring

• 
  

  Believe it or not, Verizon tech support! They were great about sending over the replacement right away. When the LCD on the second unit died, tech support asked if I wanted yet another i760 as a replacement, or if I was willing to try another unit. I had originally wanted the VX6800, but the store I was at didn't have it in stock, so I went with the i760. Fortunately, tech support had the VX6800 – not only that, but they were willing to FedEX it to me overnight for a Saturday delivery! As the agent started processing the order, I quickly scanned through some online reviews and found some complaints about the speakerphone sound quality and overall volume problems with the phone. I asked if it was possible to change my mind, but the order had already been placed – I was also starting to have reservations since I had invested in a dock, a belt clip, and a travel charger for the i760. The agent recommended that I try the VX6800, and if I didn't like it I could still return the phone for another exchange. If I decided to go with the VX6800, he offered to send me an extra battery, a leather case, AND another travel charger – all for free. I did a double-take on the phone – was I dreaming?? Since when did customer/tech support go above and beyond the call of duty like this?? Not to mention the fact that the VX6800 was at least $100 MORE expensive than my i760 – needless to say, I am in complete awe of Verizon from a customer support point of view!! Bravo, Verizon – you're setting an incredibly high bar that other companies should really pay attention to!! (kaff kaff – Apple 3G iphone? Kaff kaff...)

  
  



• 
  

  Performing with Aaron - it's been a long while, much too long, due to a series of health ailments for my dear friend, but what an incredible comeback!

  
  



• 
  

  went to my first-ever rock concert, seeing Coldplay at the Wachovia Center. The first two hours were pretty wretched, with two amateur opening acts that made Kyungmi and I wonder if this was all going to be a waste of time. But then, after a lengthy sound check, the lights dimmed, the opening riffs started, and 10,000 people leaped to their feet all at once, screaming and cheering and singing along with every single song! NO ONE sat down for the entire 2 hour show – one guy right in front of us was having a “religious” experience, waving his hands in the air, much to Kyungmi's and my own amusement. The lead singer even made a dash towards the end of the show off stage and ran up to the back of the stadium to sing a few more songs, just a few rows away from where we were sitting - er, standing! Now why can't classical music concerts be this much fun and inspire that kind of reaction from an audience?

  
  

Exciting

• 
  

  Watching Korea beat Japan in the semifinals of Olympic baseball. Baseball?? Who'd a thunk that Korea would excel in a sport like that!

  
  



• 
  

  Riding horseback in the Rocky Mountains with Eric and Timmy

  
  



• 
  

  Advancing to high orange belt, despite missing so many karate classes with my crazy schedule

  
  



• 
  

  COLDPLAY LIVE!!

  
  

Exhausting

• 
  

  Programming nonstop and trying to get computers to talk to each other through Pure Data net connections (one computer to process audio input, the other computer to receive audio data and incorporate into reactive visuals) – all at the last minute, naturally (WHEN am I going to learn?? sigh...)

  
  



• 
  

  Trying to adjust to 9000 feet altitude. My previous visit to Boulder hadn't been that bad, so I was unprepared for the effects of thin air. Being constantly winded with racking headaches is no fun when you're just walking from point A to point B! Everybody advised drinking lots of water and staying away from caffeine (hm...i guess caffeinated water wasn't such a good workaround...)

  
  



• 
  

  Wrestling with a nasty bronchial cough for almost 2 months, thanks to lack of sleep (at least nothing shows up on chest X-Rays – still pretty frustrating to deal with, especially with hack attacks in the middle of the night)

  
  



• 
  

  Back to back everything - this has been one nonstop summer, i'm ready to drop thank-you-very-much...oh, wait, Curtis just started its fall semester...sigh...

  
  

Varied

• 
  

  the Rocky Mountain YMCA in Estes Park – this must be the most amazing summer camp for kids! The campus is absolutely gorgeous, and the variety of activities is amazing! Kyungmi was able to enjoy a day hike to snow-capped mountains; the boys enjoyed activities ranging from archery, swimming, and hiking, to horseback riding, rock and rope climbing, and white river rafting.

  
  



• 
  

  splurging at Wegman's to prepare a terrific dinner for some good friends of ours, consisting of marinated lamb chops, strip steak, Alaskan snow crab legs, my own Lychee martini concoction, and discovering the Assouline Ting gourmet warehouse in Philadelphia, one of the only remaining places where I could find authentic foie gras.

  
  



• 
  

  Multiple trips to Kress Wine and discovering a new favorite red for Kyungmi and me, Red Zinfandel

  
  



• 
  

  Seeing Sheryl Crow live at the Mann Music Center (and being disappointed with the way her band kept drowning her out)

  
  



• 
  

  Discovering Sheryl Crow's opening act James Blunt (his live performance is terrific; CD leaves something to be desired, but still decent)

  
  



• 
  

  Labor Day with the family at Cape May, a nice departure from our previous trips to Ocean City and Wildwood. Much nicer atmosphere, not nearly as crowded or over-developed, terrific beach and perfect weather. Lovely way to end the summer!

  
  

Video'd

• 
  

  stay tuned, tons of concert footage (and other neat stuff) to be posted here very shortly! I still have last year's concert footage to put together...sigh...

  
  

Tech'd

• 
  

  New toys galore! In addition to my new VX6800 PDA phone:

  
  



• 
  

  a new regular non-tablet pc laptop (HP Pavilion dv5-1002nr) – actually pretty disappointing, given that there's no firewire port and the graphics card actually leaves a LOT to be desired performance-wise – but the keyboard has a nice feel, and Vista actually looks nice (as long as I don't try to push it too hard...) Oh well – this is what happens when you buy a laptop in a rush from a retail store like Best Buy...

  
  



• The HP laptop was supposed to power the visuals for my updated visual recital - given its lackluster performance, i discovered much to my chagrin that there simply aren't any laptop graphics cards that are comparable in performance to their desktop siblings.  To power my presentation at the Summit Music Festival, i invested in a Gateway GT5692 Desktop, fitted with an NVidia GeForce GTX 260 graphics card.  The desktop runs Vista 64, an ornery operating system that doesn't like most of my older programs (including the drivers for my page turning pedal...had to resort to an X-Keys workaround).  At least the graphics were decent, but with only a 2.1 GHz clock speed (AMD Phenom 8450 triple core processor) i'm sure there are much better solutions in the $1000 price range.  I was hoping to transport this desktop as carry-on luggage in airplanes, but to my dismay i've recently discovered that my next flight will not accept computers as checked baggage (coupled with the fact that any protective case would exceed the allowable travel dimensions - boo on the airline industry!  They should let Verizon take over!!)  Which leads me to my latest (yet unarrived) purchase:



• My (soon to arrive) Sager 9262 laptop computer.  I'll do a full write up on this as soon as i receive it, but the basic idea is that this 12 pound portable monster actually uses DESKTOP graphic cards - two of 'em, in fact! - to mow down pretty pictures on the screen.  This franken-puppy has been called "the fastest laptop on the planet" - given that i was able to downgrade the OS to Windows XP (yay!), i'm eager to see if that nomenclature holds true!  Should be arriving at my doorstep tomorrow!

Tapped

• All of the above was paid for in cash, believe it or not (the Sager was a bit over $3K...yikes...)  That said, there ain't no cash in my checking account anymore now...sigh...

Hm, now that was a fairly effective word exercise to jumpstart a stalled blogbrain!  Pictures, videos, reviews and lots more goodies coming (hopefully) very soon!  Nice to be back in action in the blogosphere!

The past two weeks have felt like my head was jacked into a mainframe and overloaded with programming, a la Neo from "The Matrix":

After the success of my "audio reaction engine" developed at Rocky Ridge Music Center, i had the crazy idea of finally diving in and learning the program i had been avoiding for 2 years: Pure Data/GEM.  This is an open source audio synthesis (Pure Data) and integrated visualizing program (GEM) that a Brazilian programmer had introduced me to back in December '06.  PD also happens to be the precursor*** to the popular commercial program(s) Max/MSP and Jitter by Cycling '74.  They say it normally takes 9 months to get fully comfortable with PD - i'm just barely scratching the surface at this point, but i was able to pull together at least a small working portion of the Visual Recital this past Wednesday at the Woodmere Art Museum.  What worked, worked brilliantly - what didn't, simply didn't load up, and i ended up playing the music sans visualizations (which wasn't necessarily a bad thing!).  I'll try to get around to processing some of the video from the show as soon as my massive headache clears up.  i also hope to start putting together a few short tutorials on PD - it's a daunting program, make no mistake of it, but once you get the hang of its quirks, it actually makes sense.  The visualizing possibilities are simply staggering - i never dreamed that one could achieve such a powerful level of control over the realtime manipulation of images, animations, and videos! 

One major hangup is the fact that despite buying a new HP Pavilion dv5-1002nr laptop with an ATI Radeon HD3200 graphic chipset, the visual renderings within PD/GEM were still sluggish - maybe it's the fault of the Vista 32-bit operating system?  I'm going to try and install an Ubuntu Studio-flavored Linux partition on the laptop to see if there are any performance improvements.  In the meantime, now that i've gotten my gray mass sunk into relatively hardcore programming, i'm starting to investigate another visualizing program called VVVV (i have NO idea how you're supposed to pronounce that...).  VVVV is free for non-commercial use, and runs up to 500 euros for a commercial license (yeow!!)  One nice thing about VVVV is that it appears to be VERY Windows friendly - this seems to run natively with a version of DirectX 9, and the demo patch runs smooth as silk.  The graphic programming protocol looks almost identical to PD, with some very significant GUI improvements (pop out menus! patch cords that can be shaped! huzzah!!)

Time to jack back into the mainframe...oh, and if those of you in the Philadelphia area missed the WHYY radio pieces on me and my work with the Visual Recital concept, along with the "Piano tasting" piece courtesy of Cunningham Piano Company where i demonstrate the different sound qualities of a variety of piano brands, check out the links below!  Many thanks to Alexandra Schmidt for her wonderful reporting!

http://www.whyy.org/podcast/news/arts20080730.mp3

http://www.whyy.org/podcast/news/arts20080729.mp3

Last week i had the immense honor of performing with Nitzan Haroz, principal Trombonist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, at the Great Auditorium in Ocean Grove, NJ.  Tonight, i'll be returning to the Great Auditorium with two dear friends - Gary Schocker, flutist/composer (and a pianist to be taken very seriously!!), and Jacquelyn Familant, soprano.  We'll be giving a wonderfully varied program of Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Hindemith and others, along with some very special featured works by Gary himself.

Seats are $13 each, and the performance begins at 7:30 pm.   Hope to see lots of you there tonight! 

For directions, check out the Google Map link below:

Pick up a copy of the Daily News in Philadelphia, read the front cover lead in article on the Cunningham Piano comeback on page 27 (wow, my hands never looked so good!), then follow the jump to page 30 to read a nice feature article by arts writer Tom Di Nardo.  Thanks also to Alejandro A. Alvarez for the beautiful pictures!

Ok, break time over...gotta get back to programming my next Visual Recital with Pure Data and GEM!

Just a quick post before i dash off to another recital with Gary Schocker in upstate New York (this after having just returned from a 2-week stint at the Rocky Ridge Music Festival in Estes Park, Colorado - more on that when i have a moment to breathe!).  A good friend of mine just sent me the link to this video from www.TED.com, and i can't help resonating with Sir Ken Robinson's contention that public schools tend to undermine and stifle creativity.  I would go further to say that music conservatories themselves (and the vast majority of us as private music educators - i'm throwing myself into this lot, btw!) are far more guilty of this than i think we care to admit.  I wonder how many times "urtext" trumps "unique"?  The concert "taboos" that get frowned on by artists to create a stifling environment for everyone involved? ("don't clap between movements"..."how dare you play from memory?  It's Chamber music!"..."no, that's not a dash - that's a dot.  Please pay more attention to the score!") And don't get me started on competitions...

Anywho, take a look at this if you dare.  It certainly helps that Sir Robinson has a wonderful sense of humor liberally sprinkled in with his talk!

(in case the embedded video doesn't pop up correctly, here's the direct link: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html )

At the invitation of the Strings International Music Festival, i've been helping to develop a brand new Piano Studies program.   Situated on the beautiful grounds of Bryn Mawr College, i've just finished the first week of working with a wonderful group of students and coming up with a variety of cutting-edge master class and pedagogy techniques (here's a cool panoramic picture of the Thomas Library where most of the Piano Studies program activities take place, stitched together from 3 shots with my Canon G9):

In addition to participating in chamber ensembles, each student receives 3 private lessons a week from me, as well as 3-4 afternoon group classes covering a variety of topics.  Naturally, the students have been seeing a LOT of my tablet pc's, as well as my other tech tools that work so well for musicians.  Afternoon classes usually involve me projecting scores and digital ink annotations as i give the group lessons, making it easy for everyone to follow along.  Here's a brief sampling of some of the techniques and topics covered:

• Practice Journals - using the Snipping Tool from Microsoft's 2005 Experience Pack for Tablet PC's, i demonstrate how easy it is to cut out sections of the music and paste them into separate "practice journals" (my PJ's), effectively giving me an efficient means of covering the most difficult spots of a piece quickly.  Even without a tablet pc, one can still create an effective PJ by using Post-It notes or just numbering the location of difficult passages.  Taking the time to isolate problem passages, then cut-and-paste those passages into something like a composition notebook can make practicing exponentially more effective and speed up learning time overall.  In the projected example below, i helped one of the pianists "pull apart" a difficult Bach fugue a section at a time. 

• Fingering Master Class - in this class, i set up my portable camera document scanner to project a live video feed of my hands on the keyboard split with a zoomed view of the score as i demonstrated various techniques for effective fingering.  Some key principles are as follows:
  • Take advantage of the natural shape of the hand to maximize the strongest fingers and comfortably find intervals
  • Focus on the horizontal flow of the hands, rather than "vertical" fingerings that look good on paper but actually contort the hand uncomfortably in "realtime" ("vertical" or "linear" fingerings usually focus too heavily on keeping fingers numerically consecutive, for example)
  • When it comes to figuring out fingerings, cheating is good!  Jorge Bolet, my old piano professor, was a master at finding ingenious tricks to make difficult passages easier (and that usually meant sounding better!) This takes a good bit of "out-of-the-box" thinking - i'll try to see if i can post some examples in a future article.

• Improvisation - after outlining the three primary chords (I, IV and V chords - tonic, subdominant, and dominant respectively), we worked on improvisation exercises within simple binary forms (A-B-A).  One student in particular is extending those exercises by embellishing existing melodies, creating new improvised accompaniment patterns, setting poems to original music, and even coming up with an improvised collaborative composition with a violinist.

• Recording Session Master Classes - using my Samson C01U USB microphone and splitting a projected screen again with music scores and live tracks from the open source audio editing program Audacity, i've been helping the students to hear and fix their own playing; simultaneously, i've been demonstrating how producers annotate recording sessions, then edit the takes to create 'finished' recordings.  This is turning out to be a terrific method for getting everyone to sharpen their ears and quickly correct problem areas, as well as getting a 'hands on' experience with manipulating sound waves visually.  Note, i'm using audio gear that's portable and easy to set up - i'll try to demonstrate work with more 'professional' gear later on.

• 4-hand piano literature - using two tablet pc's and two sets of custom-designed page-turning pedals, the students have been getting hands-on experience with reading digital scores and 'turning' pages hands-free, as well as exposure to some classical 4-hand literature by Mozart, Clementi, Satie, and others.

More pictures and posts to come as we wrap up the second week of the Piano Studies program at Strings International 2008!

The new piano actually arrived a few hours after i took the pictures of my old Steinway - it was tuned this past week and has been generally getting adjusted to the climate of its new home.  The una corda action didn't work when the piano first arrived, but a quick pop out and resetting of the action bed had that problem fixed in a jiffy.  There was an annoying damper pedal squeak for the first few days, but after some heavy practice sessions that too happily disappeared.  I'm fully expecting the tuning to go out right away, especially given my heavy technique, so i'm planning to schedule tunings at least once a month for the foreseeable future.  This isn't a fault of the piano, mind you - any instrument needs time to adjust and settle to any new environment. 

Here are some pictures of the new baby:

I really like the inlay of the rim!  Kind of reminds me of a Hamburg Steinway/Boesendorfer finish!

A detail shot of the inside strings and frame - ahhhh, the smell of new strings!

The fall board had some cracks, so it's still in the shop to be refinished - i picked the piano for its warm tone.  Looks were secondary, but it'll be nice once the piano is actually "whole".  Come to think of it, i'm actually kind of enjoying the open view into the action!  German Renner action, by the way - nice and meaty touch, with good response!  Italian felts, i'm told - the hammers are a bit on the bright side and will need to be voiced down as part of the "settling in" process (i tend to compact hammers pretty quickly, given my heavy touch). 

Here's another view of the action - can you tell i'm enjoying the low-light capabilities of my Canon G9 camera?  This was taken sans flash and a slow 4 second exposure after a 2 second timer-shot setting.

I guess it's too early to say if these pedals will give me "greenfoot", but so far so good!

Rear view of the pedal lyre.  Note the brass supports, as opposed to the old wooden ones of my previous Steinway.

My old Steinway's wheels were so narrow and impractical - i really appreciate the wider footprint of this piano's wheels!

Note the brass sockets for the lid - a nice touch!

A more modern music desk support rack - slow exposure seems to have captured my tablet pc's pen tether swinging back and forth!

Hmm...no fallboard to display the make of the piano...can anyone identify this serial number?  ;)

Here's another clue:  Model 178?  Number 02744?

Good thing the name of the piano is emblazoned on the side of the cabinet!

Full disclosure closeup:  this is a brand new Cunningham Piano!

Geeze, Hugh,

I enjoyed visiting your blog, tipped off by a Google news update on the keyword Steinway.

And so, I hope you'll take this in the right way: YIKES! How could you do that to a Steinway?

It was built, checking the SN with the Steinway age finder, between 1972 and 1973. A mere adolescent in piano years.

And to have afixed shipping labels, et al...

I can't stand to see pianos and dogs abused.

Now I'll have to wait to see what you traded it in on. It had better be a Fazioli because you just sent out a piano with wonderful potential. Your spit didn't cause the brass to flake off; brass doesn't flake. I can't account for the pedals - that's strange, but they can be relacquered and unless the strings have "popped" because of incredible pressure on them thus damaging the pin block (for shame) it looks so repairable.

Anyway, I don't expect a reply - I'm just heartsick.

- M

Thanks so much for visiting my blog! My goodness - what a passionate response! While i can certainly understand your feelings on hearing how a once-beautiful piano received so much abuse over the years, that's an unfortunate everyday fact when you have to pound out a lot of high-intensity repertoire. The concert D at Curtis gets pounded to a pulp every year. My two Steinway B's in my office are pretty badly thrashed now - fortunately, we have a terrific in-house technician at Curtis who's promising me a new set of hammers over the summer!

My home Steinway was a baby L - way too small to sound any good, in my opinion. There was always this bizarre inharmonicity in the scale that made it impossible to tune completely correctly, and i think the small size prevented it from being able to produce a good tone (difficult for any grand piano that size/shape, regardless of make). i guess i'm spoiled with B's and D's.

I've heard wonderful things about the Fazioli, but i actually haven't had an opportunity to try one out yet. For now, the piano i've just traded my Steinway for seems to have a lot of wonderful potential...

But of course you can post my chastisement on your blog. But you need to tell people I'm not necessarily an old (which I am) whiny (which I sometimes sound like, even to myself) b****y idiot who has nothing better to do than gripe at the perceived follies of other folk.

Instead, cast me in the light of someone so in love with pianos that he'd rather watch back-to-back "Reservoir Dogs," "Pulp Fiction," and an endless series of Bush Speeches and Cheney leers than the one scene in the old Laurel and Hardy masterpiece: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Music_Box_(1932_film)

I couldn't stand to see the movie The Piano again; find Shine to be as rusty nails on a chalkboard; and Lang Lang's gyrations akin to ... well, it's akin to nothing but it sure is distracting.

Anyway, I can see, now that I know it's an "L" that you might not want to keep it up, but let's hope it's not being used for kindling.

I've screamed at good friends who dared to put a drink, sans coaster, on my polyurethane'd Kawai and came close to firing a cleaning lady for putting Pledge on my B. And God forbid someone attempt to dust the top of the black monster with circular motions and anything but an imported Chamois skin and water...

I've got a friend in Chicago who sells Faziolis and they are fine, fine pianos. Should you move that direction sometime, please let me know so I can let him know.

And now that I have granted Piano Dispensation, I'll be reading your blog to see what you replaced the Steinway with.

Mike

My old Steinway has been gathering dust for quite some time now, since its multitude of busted strings and misaligned hammers made it pretty useless for practice.  I normally practice on my studio pianos at Curtis anyway, and the kids have been having their lessons on the Casio Privia PX-110 (although the Privia isn't really in tune, believe it or not, it's certainly better than the sorry pitch condition my poor Steinway had deteriorated into).  I had a technician come out to the house the other day to see if anything could be done to salvage the piano.  When he looked saucer-eyed and didn't even bother to crack open his toolbox, i knew the poor piano had seen its last days under my fingers.  Even if i had poured money into a complete overhaul, the end really wouldn't justify the expense since the piano - to be brutally honest - was never all that great to begin with.

Yesterday was "T-Day" - the day my Steinway was going to be traded away for a newer piano (i'll reveal that in my next blog - it was simply an offer i couldn't refuse!)  Suddenly, i was overcome with nostalgia - after all, this was the piano my Dad had bought for me, the instrument i had grown up with ever since i was a little kid!  Memories of being enslaved to "the black beast" for hours on end, spitting on the fall board out of spite (maybe that's why the brass lettering flaked away...), memorizing the nicks and scratches peppered throughout the woodwork...i never realized the thousands of stories that a musical instrument can elicit, the deep imprint into one's memories - musical and emotional -  it can leave.

I never came up with a name for that piano, and i never really took notice of the serial number until yesterday - good ol' 428295.   (Sounds like i'm writing a eulogy for a droid!  "Ah, C3PO...how well i knew you, R2D2...")  I took the opportunity to use my new Canon G9 to preserve the views of my piano that i had taken for granted for so many years.  You can see the full gallery of pictures here. 

There are stories in the scars - i'm sure that alliteration has an obvious source somewhere, but it's still amazing to recall those stories as i post these pictures. 

Here's a view of the battle-scarred piano-scape, complete with busted strings and overturned tuning pins.  You can even make out the chalk marks on the strings from all of my prepared piano exploits!

You can just make out the remains of the lettering here - spittle marks evaporated long ago, but i'm sure they contributed to the accelerated oxidation of the brass labels!

Eric had only good intentions when he decorated the piano with a large postage-delivery label.  He had no idea that i would be so upset - and no idea that tacky labels would be so difficult to remove from lacquer finishes!

My piano's brass pedals weren't unique, but the way they colored the soles of my feet green from hours of practice was certainly memorable.

I don't know what it was about this old-fashioned music rack support bracket, but i always found its double-fold design to be endearing...

I know i've been harping on the ugly scars on my piano, but it still had its beautiful perspectives even after all these years...

I've been working with the superintendent of the Neptune, New Jersey school district for several months now to put together my latest Visual Recital workshop for the Neptune High School students.  This is my most exciting VR workshop so far, if only for the fact that i'll be able to work with the students for about a month (as opposed to the one-day workshops where we make the art then quickly scan everything into the computer for a show either later in the evening or the very next day).  Given the advanced artistic capabilities of the older students, i've decided to try something much more challenging:  visualizing the Ballade No. 1 in G minor of Frédéric Chopin. 

Today we had our first hands-on workshop where i presented the Ballade in 13 segments, each with a short descriptive text to give the students a basic concept of the emotional content and flow.  We tried picking out a few landscape pictures that a previous art class had already made, matching them to the shifting moods of the ballade.  That led to some fantastic brainstorming to come up with an amazing set of story and visual elements!  I'm planning to use www.VisualRecital.com as the project website to present notes, sketches, and a discussion forum for the students to contribute ideas and flesh out the scenes for the ballade's visualizations. 

Thanks to being debt-free and getting a better handle on my business-related finances, i've been investing in several new bits of equipment, such as:

My brand new Sanyo PLC-XF20 5000 lumen monster projector (aka Proxima PRO AV 9350).  Did i say this beast was a monster?  Try lifting this puppy at 80 pounds!  Hence, the dolly in the picture - an absolute necessity for me to move this elephant around!  As a point of comparison, my old HP M3130 DLP projector throws out only 2000 lumens and can be carried on my shoulder - can't be more than 7 pounds or so, i guess.  The Sanyo is loaded with tons of inputs and blazes its luminary output with 4 halogen lamps.  There are a lot of thoughtful touches in the design, such as the retractable handlebars on both sides of the unit as well as the front feet dials which have spring-retractable knobs as well (so that you can rest the unit on either side while you catch your breath trying to get the hippo into your minivan...) 

The lamps are surprisingly easy to install and remove with the back top-loaded hatch.  The main lens is motorized for automatic zoom and focus.  I got this projector very used through eBay for an incredible steal of a price - i wasn't planning on getting this type of projector for a good while yet, thinking that it would cost me twice as much as it did.  Hopefully this will help to address image brightness issues for future Visual Recitals.

At an initial pre-workshop meeting with some of the art students, i noticed that they were working with large canvases.  There was no way i would be able to fit their work onto desktop scanners, so i knew it was time to bite the bullet and finally invest in a decent digital camera.  I've been getting along with my trusty Sony DSC-T7 for three years now, but you can only do so much with 5.1 megapixels and a limited set of shooting options (my DSC-T7 pictures have always had gamma balance issues, heavy on the red and yellow spectrums).  I wasn't interested in going out on a limb to overspend on a full digital SLR, so i tried to get something to meet me halfway:  the Canon Powershot G9.

i suppose almost any camera after a relatively crappy point-and-shoot would be reason to celebrate, but man oh man, i LOVE this 12 mega-pixel camera!  Don't get me wrong, the DSC-T7 served its purpose well by being the camera easiest to hide in a pocket and whip out at a moment's notice, but the G9...wow, i never realized just how much fun it could be to play with F-stops for depth-of-field shots like this one (yes, i took this flower shot):

Here is a sample shot from one of the art students' landscapes:

You can see some other pictures from the Visual Recital Chopin Project blog here.

More tech to talk about, but right now i've got to catch up with some serious video/audio editing...back to the digital salt mines (sigh...)

A friend of mine just alerted me to this disturbing ad from Bidvertiser flashing across my site:

No, i do not "need girl friend" and i certainly don't need Bidvertiser anymore.  The offending ad services has been promptly removed.  My deepest apologies for the offensive display - please let me know if you come across any other advertising anomalies on any of my sites! 

Google Adsense seems to be somewhat better behaved, as it tries to match ads to the text content of the site.  I see a lot of ads for music related products and services, tablet pc's, and even some financial things from time to time.  The other web ad referral services like Amazon Associates and various online music publishers like Virtual Sheet Music are much more preferable if you want direct control over advertising content.  With Amazon, i can select only items that i'm interested in promoting, such as my own CD's, carousels of my favorite books on career and finances on TheProsperousMusician.com, and music scores that i'm starting to recommend to students on my new piano lesson satellite site (more recommendations and updates to that site forthcoming soon).

A side note:  placing ads on my website helps to take care of the costs associated with running the site (domain name registration, server subscription, etc.), but i'm not expecting to retire rich from the income anytime soon. i'll be posting some metrics on my earned web income soon at TheProsperousMusician.com later today. 

Being a musician who strives to eliminate paper from his office and music stand, making the cover of a magazine is definitely one time where i can appreciate the benefits of paper!

Many thanks to Piano Magazine editor and musical scholar extraordinaire Jeremy Siepmann for graciously inviting me to submit a double whammy - an article and an interview.  i'm still marveling at the surgical skills of Jeremy's editing - i submitted a 2000+ word monster of an article and for the life of me couldn't find a way to pare it down below 1400+ - you'll simply have to buy the magazine and see a master journalist's handiwork ;)

As you can see from the title, the emphasis is on my explorations of technologies to enhance the classical pianist's art and capabilities.  Jeremy came across one of my blog articles on the subject (back when i was just starting my search for the perfect digital piano) - he seemed to find my depiction of some of the concert stage pianos i've put up with as "kindling and firewood" particularly fetching, and asked me to make sure i kept mention of that in my contribution. 

I'll have to keep my eyes out for US distribution - Piano magazine is based in the U.K., and i haven't seen it here (yet), but you can order subscriptions online.  Can't wait to get my own copy!

i'm proud to announce the "launch" of my new blog dedicated to the finance and business side of music, "The Prosperous Musician" (www.theprosperousmusician.com or www.prosperousmusician.com ) 

Nothing more than the intro blog post for now, but be sure to check out the book carousels along the left hand column.  I'll be writing up a number of book reviews in the coming weeks and linking up to as many classical music business sites that i can find.  For those of you who have been following this blog for the past year or so, you can probably understand why personal finance has become such a passionate topic for me, given the amazing success our family was able to achieve in knocking out our personal debts in only 9 months (a la Dave Ramsey).  We aren't rich yet, but i'm excited about the tremendous opportunities that are out there, particularly for the classical musician who is willing to think "out of the box". 

Thanks to Valerie from www.free2create.com for the encouraging comment to get this new blog baby started!  Hope y'all find this new resource helpful as it grows!

i find myself coming to a strange financial crossroads.  i and my family feel a deep sense of gratitude towards Dave Ramsey and his approach to bringing personal budgets under control and eliminating debt.  Thanks to his techniques, we were able to pay off over $55,000 in personal debts in only 9 months - in the following 4 months, we managed to come up with a 6 month emergency fund and have now started on a serious investment plan to fund our boys' college and pay off the rest of our house mortgage in (hopefully) one or two years.  Another result of having had such an intense fiscal focus over the past year has been a new appetite for financial literature.  i found myself gravitating towards Phil Town's "Rule #1" book on "safe" stock market investing, rolling my eyes with stuff by Suze Orman ("rip the dollar bill and feel the pain"..."tell yourself over and over, 'I am rich and wealthy beyond my wildest dreams'"...oh brother...), and slogging through several other books like "Stock Investing for Dummies", Jim Cramer's "Real Money" (scaaaaarry risky stuff...), Andrew Tobias' "The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need" (GREAT book in an affably readable style), and a pile of other books on Mutual Funds that i have yet to get to. 

One book on loan from a friend was "Cashflow Quadrant: Rich Dad's Guide to Financial Freedom" by Robert Kiyosaki.  i had heard Dave Ramsey mentioning Kiyosaki's first book, "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" several times on his radio show as a "must read", so naturally my curiosity was piqued. 

Several things struck me about both the book and its author:

• Robert Kiyosaki comes from a 4th generation Japanese background; being a second generation Korean myself, i felt an immediate connection to several cultural aspects he describes being an Asian in an American setting



• His depiction of his real father being the consummate professional, having graduated with advanced degrees and employed in the highest echelons as an educator, working harder and harder for an increasing salary (and increasing debt load), while ending up with less and less time for his family and virtually nothing financially at the end of his life.  This sounds too much like the life track i'm currently on...



• His clear depiction of the 4 quadrants of cashflow:  on the left side, E for Employee and S for self-employed;  on the right side, B for Business and I for Investor.  Again, this makes a lot of sense, and i find myself identifying with both the E and particularly the S quadrants ("S" folk are perfectionists, tending to do everything themselves and having difficulty delegating their work to others)



• The idea of "getting your money to work for you, instead of you for your money" sounds awfully gimmicky at first - but it starts to make a lot of sense when you see how a combined portfolio of real estate, business startups, stocks and bonds and even royalties for intellectual properties can actually work passively to bring income - "cashflow", being the operative word throughout Kiyosaki's books.  Financial freedom is defined as coming to the point where your passive income brings in more money than your expenses.



• Kiyosaki's definition of an "asset" is pretty radical - the most stunning example is his assertion that a personal home is NOT an asset, but actually a liability.  Assets are supposed to be those investments that have a positive cashflow, putting money INTO your pocket, not taking them out (any homeowner will tell you that bills, property taxes, repairs all siphon out money on a regular basis).  Waiting for an investment to appreciate in value is akin to gambling, according to Kiyosaki. 

Dave Ramsey also points to what he calls "the pinnacle point" in his book, "The Total Money Makeover".  That point gets achieved when the interest from your mutual funds exceeds your expenses.  The problem is, particularly in light of today's stock market volatility, mutual funds go up and down - there's a long term record of steady growth, but the wild swings get awfully hard to stomach when you see your OWN money lurching up and down for the ride.  For example, close inspection of my TIAA-CREF retirement account revealed that it lost $7000 for the first quarter this year.  That sucks. 

Dave eschews ALL forms of debt and regularly proclaims his own FICO score to be "0" because he hasn't borrowed money for 20 years.  All his investments are done in cash with the "100% down" plan (ie, no payments).  Kiyosaki, on the other hand, makes a compelling case for leveraging the power of OPM (other people's money) and OPT (other people's time) to actually make debt work for you by increasing passive cashflow.  Here's a simple example from Kiyosaki's book, "Rich Dad's Prophecy":

• Putting 20% down on a $100,000 property (=$20,000), borrowing $80,000 to mortgage the difference and pulling in $200 of rental income per month after expenses would net a ROI (Return On Investment) of 12% ($200 x 12 - $2,400) - roughly equal to Dave Ramsey's Mutual Fund average 



• Putting only 10% down ($10,000) with the same example above, coming up with a reduced monthly income of $130, the ROI actually INCREASES the net return on the $10,000 investment to 15%

Of course, theory always looks great on paper and has a funny way of turning out a lot worse in real life...i'm not about to take a financial sky dive and become a high rolling real estate investor overnight, but i have to confess that Kiyosaki's books are inspiring me to read up more on exploring passive forms of income from real estate, businesses, and other income-generating assets.  i like his example of comparing the risk of investing to the risk of driving a car - there's always risk every time you drive, but if you take lessons and practice, you simply become a better driver over time.  My plan in the meantime is to try to pay off the house, continue monthly investments with mutual funds, and lots and lots of reading up on investment/business "how-to's".  Who knows?  i may end up creating another blog specifically dealing with "Money for Musicians"...

Hm...some musicians would say that this just reveals what many of us have known for years about heart-less conductors...as for me, just show me the downbeat and i'll be happy, Maestro ASIMO! 

Wired magazine's online blog reports that Honda will be sponsoring the concert with their advanced robot ASIMO as the stick beater and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, featuring Yo Yo Ma as soloist on May 13, 8:00 pm.  What's especially heartening is the generous support for the arts that Honda is pledging to, with a $1 million donation to the orchestra's "Power of Dreams" educational fund and continuing support for master classes, scholarships, educational concerts and the like.

Maybe this robot has a heart after all...

Dave Ramsey has a neat commission system for kids, where instead of a regular allowance, they're only given money for assigned chores and taught to divide their money into three envelopes labeled "Spend", "Save", and "Give".  In fact, we received another copy of the Dave Ramsey "Financial Peace Jr." kit as part of a prize package for having our debt-free video aired on Dave Ramsey's TV show.  The kit includes 2 dry marker magnetic boards for listing jobs and tracking commissions, 2 sets of durable labeled envelopes, a change purse, calculator, and instructional CD. 

Timmy has been fanatic about tracking all his jobs, and as a result he's consistently racked up high commissions each week.  Eric, on the other hand, really could care less and only fills in his chart sporadically and under duress.   He just doesn't share the same excitement about seeing his money grow as Timmy does, so it's been hard to find fiscal incentives to help him keep up with his assigned chores. 

Eric had been half-heartedly mentioning that he wanted to start saving up for a Nintendo Wii video game system, but i chalked this up to wishful thinking given the game console's incredible popularity and scarcity in stores.  Jeff, our financial planner, had just recounted his own Wii-purchase adventure, having snatched up the last unit after months of searching and pestering his local video game store.  This past Saturday on the way to Tae-kwon-do lessons, Eric asked to stop by a Game Stop store to see if there was something he could purchase with some gift cards he had received as birthday presents.  On a whim, i asked the store clerk if they had any Wii game consoles in stock, not really expecting there to be any.  He asked me to wait a moment while he checked the back stock room.  Lo and behold, he actually came back out with a unit, one of the last two they had left.  Two?  Since last Tuesday?  The clerk was equally incredulous - the only explanation he could think of was that lately customers had become so accustomed to being told that nothing was available that they had pretty much given up asking.  Not wanting to let opportunity slip away, i immediately texted Kyungmi and got her permission to buy it. 

Lest y'all think i'm succumbing to a poor example of instant gratification for my kids, i should explain the stipulations placed on our yet-unopened Wii:

1.  No one would be able to open the game system until it was completely paid for - i just guaranteed that there would be an actual reward for hard work instead of the additional frustration of hunting down scarce inventory.

2.  The power of incentive just shot up exponentially for the kids!  New jobs have been created for the boys to ensure that they would be able to apply the rate of savings needed to enjoy the Wii sometime before the age of retirement...

Eric immediately went to work vacuuming the minivan, practicing his piano and trombone, and even giving trombone lessons to Timmy.  Additional jobs include putting out the trash, weekly cleanups of the basement playroom, back massages for Dad (he's got the best feet for walking up and down my spine), etc.

Kyungmi and i agreed to allow the boys to dip into $100 of their bank savings and $70 of their current "Spend" envelope accumulations.  If Eric and Timmy perform all their jobs weekly, they should be able to take care of the remaining balance of $300 within about 6 weeks or less ($250 for the game console + $60 for the additional controllers - Eric's gift cards brought the balance down after taxes to $300).  Paul has also agreed to help out with some of his commission earnings, so that might cut the time period even faster.

Amazing to see how well the power of Wii-ncetives works!