What piano music are you listening to right now? 🎧

RuthPower

Let us know what music is inspiring you in your piano journey at the moment? Please put who the artist is, the name of the album or song-–if specific, what genre it might be and even when's the best time to listen to it!

alexx88

I'm always jumping around playing all types of things. Usually somethingI hear on the radio & think it would be cool to play.

I just started working on Daughtry's version of Sia's "Alive." I just finished up Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time, Fleetwood Mac's "Gold Dust Woman", Elton John's "Empty Garden," "Sweet Painted Lady," & "Levon," Garth Brooks' "Thunder Rolls" & Stronger Than Me," & Sheryl Crow's "Always On My Side." Those are all sing & play ones.

Now I have to go back & get the rust off Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind" & "Piano Man" Elton John's "Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word" & Norah Jones' "Don't Know Why."

Next up I want to play Billy Joel's "Baby Grand" & Evanescence's "My Immortal."

RuthPower

alexx88 ahhh this is such a great selection of tunes! I do love that 'My Immortal' song - haven't played in so long! It's extremely cool that you are singing & playing together. Do you find it quite natural or hard to do?

noellah-jeannica

I'm shuffling between my classical, film music, and jazz playlists currently. I'll recommend a piece / song for each genre:

Classical: Chopin's Nocturnes & Satie's Gnossienes -- they're so hauntingly beautiful and always give me the chills with every listen. I know how to play two of the former & three of the latter.

Film Music: Joe Hisaishi's Studio Ghibli soundtrack collection -- a worthwhile collection of orchestral pieces that I'm very fond of. I know a couple of these pieces transcribed for piano as well!

Jazz: Yohan Kim's "Beautiful" -- a jazz hip hop improv. which actually just got released a day ago, but has stuck to me since my first listen. Yohan's entire repertoire is fascinating, and even as a person who just recently started listening to jazz, I've been constantly fascinated by how he extemporizes pieces -- I think that's so cool! (and I badly wanna do it too)

I listen to these musical works any time of the day -- while exercising, eating breakfast, studying (and during study breaks), and more! In general, motivate me to keep pursuing my quest for improving both my traditional and creative piano skills.

RuthPower

noellah-jeannica wow, what a cool range of genres! I'm impressed by how much you listen to music in the day, most of my listening these days is either for teaching, or for relaxation - so I don't often listen while I'm working, or exercising or eating... preferring to have a bit of silence instead! I know that's probably quite weird!

This Yohan Kim sounds awesome - I want to check it out - do you recommend any other songs from them?
The extemporising of songs is a skill that I adore as well, this is what you are heading towards while developing your creative pianist skills! 🧡

alexx88

noellah-jeannica

RuthPower Yes, the improv!!! That is the creativity I so badly want to get the hang of! When you hear it , it seems so effortless, but it is so challenging for me!

alexx88

RuthPower I'm working really hard at it. It is not natural for me. At all. I would rather either play or sing. Doing both is a big challenge. The one thing I have found, & it's not something that I like, is that ever since I started really concentrating on playing & singing, I've let my straight piano playing skills take a back seat. I dumb down the songs when I sing & play, & there are so many songs that I have played with some really cool arrangements that I made up, & now I feel like I'm not impressed with my own playing anymore. I miss being able to play a song & get lost in it, & add feeling to it without words, if that makes any sense. I just need to find a balance. Problem is, I'm a perfectionist, & even on the basic sing/play songs, I have a tough time just playing one after the other just for fun. I always want to make each one perfect before moving on.

noellah-jeannica

RuthPower There's a lot to choose, but so far I find myself gravitating towards his renditions of "Isn't She Lovely", "Man in the Mirror", and "Autumn Leaves" + his cover of K-pop songs (BTS). He also has some original compositions; "Are You Happy" is a great one for a new listener.

I've been trying to widen the musical genres I listen to; I think that'll be good for my personal repertoire. Given that you've been a musician for a long time, it'll be helpful if you could recommend your favorites as well! 😊

RuthPower

@alexx88 Ahhh it's that perfectionism that's making it hard! Because I will say that dumbing down the piano in order to bring the singing in is a part of the process unfortunately. And sometimes we do have to change the arrangement to make way for the singing - but we can definitely get to a place (with a certain coaching this month!) where you can be impressive with both, but they aren't competing with each other.

alexx88

My husband plays guitar & just goes fro song to song, I wish I could be more like that. He never seems to redo a portion of a song, he just moves on to the next one.

I am SO looking forward to this next coaching!

RuthPower

noellah-jeannica Oh cool, I will have a listen to those songs today!
Regarding my listening habits- I am ALL over the place and love to find new cool bands/artists but also have my favourites that are on constant rotation: I have a few obsessions in jazz: there's a Japanese band called 'Mouse on the Keys' that I love, I also listen to a lot of Jordan Rakei (a kiwi jazz musician who sings & plays keys), Jacob Collier (a prodigy from the UK), Chilly Gonzales is always good, especially his solo piano albums.
For more classical/contemporary I like Nils Frahm, Olafur Arnalds even a bit of Einaudi.. I also like a genre called 'Post Rock' it's instrumental so reminds me a lot of classical music, but you have to find the good stuff that has a lot of piano (rather than a lot of guitar): I like 65 days of static.
I listen to a lot of music that doesn't have piano in it as well, because I like to rest from the piano sometimes and be inspired by other instruments, in that respect the Scottish band 'Mogwai' is one of my favourites of ALL – it can get very heavy! (fair warning!) There's a song that I listen to whenever I'm stressed, it is probably one of my ultimate favourites, its' called 'Friend of the Night' by Mogwai.

RuthPower

In case you want to check any of these out... I might as well link my Spotify playlists! These are personal ones that I listen to in my spare time.. not really official Piano Picnic ones, but if you're curious!

Piano inspiration - is all my favourite piano songs of the moment
{VIBES} is my happy good times playlist of the moment - all my favourite feel-good songs.

noellah-jeannica

RuthPower Wow, thanks for some new addition to my pending listens, T. Ruth! I'm excited to go through all of your recommendations 😄

vkisamore

I don't listen to piano music. I listen to a lot of acapella vocal band,: Hillsong music,; Philllips, Craig and Dean; Secret Garden; Enya. Right now I'm just playing hymns for church and starting to work on improv over chord progressions.

RuthPower

vkisamore I have to stand by some Enya.. 😍 good luck with the improv on chord progressions!

alexx88

@Bev Hi Bev! I was listening to the radio in my car yesterday & I heard a song & I thought of you. You may already know it.

I like listening to country music, & I have Sirius radio. Flipping through the county stations I landed on the Bluegrass station. The song playing was by the Osborne Brothers. It was called "Banjo Ringing Saturday Night." It's a really fun get your feet stomping song. 🤠

Bev

Hi Alexx,
Niceto be thought of. 😄

That's definitely a Bluegrass banjo tune, very 'fun' tune that I've not heard before. I'll have to see if our 5-string banjo player wants to learn it, or maybe even knows it already. Definitely not my husband’s style.

alexx88

@Bev You're welcome! I thought it was a fun tune, also. I apologize for not putting in a link to it. I'm under caffeinated I guess lol. Who's knows? Maybe you'll have a new song in you repertoire!

Here's the link in case anyone else wants to check it out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL54byvtZcc

RuthPower

Discovered a really cool pianist composer in the weekend, her name is Hania Rani, she is Polish - check out this live performance in Berlin studio recently - very beautiful!