The year of the temperament

2013. I read about the hidden world (even to pianists who've been playing for decades) of piano tuning temperament a few years ago in the book "Grand Obsession" by Perri Knize. The concept of changing the sound of the instrument and pieces by small modifications in how one tunes (or mistunes) intervals is fascinating. 

The bug to research this only bit me recently, after years of frustration over the absence of a decent piano tuner in Delhi.

Over the next few months, I will try to experiment with the effect of different temperaments on my pianos (I am, a pretty amateur tuner, but practice makes perfect). The aim is to get a look into practical differences between Equal, Just, Regular and Irregular temperaments. And basically, whatever I can learn about different temperament tunings and their feel on the piano.

I will start experimenting with a Euro made Yamaha upright piano. One that I had recently installed in a small cafe I begun at the end of last year. Then I will try out the temperaments on a chinese built upright that I use for practice. Followed by (when I am confident enough) experimentation on my Steinway Model C grand piano.

I will try to make this as practical and simple to follow. To understand the mechanics and meaning of different temperaments and to understand exactly what goes on in each temperament (Pythagore, Young, Vallotti, Kirnberger etc) please read this really well written and informative post on temperaments. No point covering something someone else has already done really well. 

http://leware.net/temper/temper.htm

My attempt is to try some of these temperaments on the above mentioned pianos and post recordings of the same tunes using these, some classical, some jazz and to understand how temperaments practically affect piano tone.

I'm excited. I've ordered a full new set of tuning equipment (besides the tuning hammer, I was using homemade mutes etc) and for temperament tuning, I plan to use Strobe Tuner by Katsura Softwares coupled with a Lexicon interface and an AKG C1000 mike (Since I already own the equipment barring the software).

If this doesn't work, I'll have to pick up the Peterson 490S strobe tuner.

I'll begin with a few test tunings on the Yamaha tomorrow. The 5 people around the world who might actually be interested in this, I hope you manage to tune in!

I'm super excited!

My super mamika

Some months ago, I came across this amazing set of photos by Sacha Goldberger entitled Mamika. Here's an excerpt about the set from blog.gessato.com

Few years ago, French photographer Sacha Goldberger found his 91-year-old Hungarian grandmother Frederika feeling lonely and depressed. To cheer her up, he suggested that they shoot a series of outrageous photographs in unusual costumes, poses, and locations. Grandma reluctantly agreed, but once they got rolling, she couldn’t stop smiling.  With the unexpected success of this series, titled “Mamika,” Goldberger created a MySpace page for his grandmother. She now has over 2,200 friends and receives messages like: “You’re the grandmother that I have dreamed of, would you adopt me?” and ” You made my day, I hope to be like you at your age.”

This week, I was reminded of this photoset while thinking about my granny. This old gal was diagnosed with  stage 2 cancer a week after her first grandsons wedding. She went through a hellish week of doctors and biopsies and more doctors before finally being put under the knife earlier this week. No time, they said. The tumor is about to burst they felt.

So out came the tumor, and my super granny was back home after this major surgery within a few days. The thing is, she never broke her smile. No matter how worried she was, she took it amazingly, positively and beautifully. She taught me how to live this week, and this lesson I won't forget. Dadi, you're amazing, and even though this image depicts an entirely different women, this is how I see you.

She's already back to her super fit routine of daily walks and exercise, the drainage tubes sticking out of her be damned. 

Wow.

Just Wow.

All my love

Your grandson

A glimpse beyond?

There must be some peace or tranquility in/after death. My grandfathers last words, after a day in speechless coma, were "Hari Om". Just randomly utter the second before his last relatively peaceful breath, considering he was riddled with cancer. It was a powerful moment, the whole family, around this hospital bed we'd installed for him at home, everyone just happened to have shut up and look at him when he said this, maybe it was sub conscious perception of some unseen movement of his.

Hari Om...

Exhale...

Tears and to an extent relief that he was finally at peace after weeks of suffering.

He was a very successful businessman who turned scholar in his last decade or two, voraciously absorbing any text on religion and philosophy he could get his hands on in the languages he knew: Hindi, English and Urdu. Utterly beaten when he started losing his eyesight a few years before the end because of an age related macular-degeneration known as Wet Amd. Why didn't he care to fight for life? Because he said, he won't be able to read anymore, so what was the point.

A month or so before he passed

Steve Job's sister released his last words to be "Oh wow! Oh wow! Oh wow!"

Which is what got me reliving my grandfathers last days, which were 2 years ago. Made me think, these powerful parting words, one of a man the world calls great, and one of a man I know to have been great.

There really might be something beyond that veil. The one unknown, that scares me when I sit and think about it, death.

's good to know.

Let's talk about -

Piano tone and timbre.

You don't know what love is

I've been wanting to write about Vladimir Horowitz, one of my favorite classical pianists, but when I sat down to write, I felt its necessary to first explain piano sound from my perspective, that is, how I hear it.

A pianos sound is a persons voice. And, like when you hear a persons voice on the phone and you immediately form a mental picture of them, their build, shape, height, teeth, lips, complexion, looks... really, everything, I find I often do it with instruments (err, not to that degree). Try it, its fun! Its usually a lot more fun with a piano than most other instruments because of the range of the instrument.

Another thing, an idea, an opinion, has lodged itself in my brain. You how they say pets and owners start looking like each other after a while? I think musicians and their instruments start sounding similar after a while. Take for example my piano and my voice in the link on top. Both bass heavy, rounded, warm and a little out of key :)

The first thing one notices about a pianos sound is the brightness. The hardness or lack of mellowness. Making any sense? Listen to these for a sec

Same piece same pianist, some allowance given for recording variations, but isnt the attack and difference in tone obvious?

Now. Me, I like the mellow pianos. The soft and subtle ones which sometimes gobble up the precision of the notes but add beautiful emotional nuances and warmth. If you want to play Bach, these, perhaps, aren't the best. Use a bright piano with crystal clear enunciation. The mellow ones trade that clarity for a little more character, a little more feeling.

And I'm sure snoopy and the guys would agree

Growing up as an artist, or simply, growing up

What a lovely mail I got from my fathers brother earlier today! 

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dear *,

theres a book i'm reading and enjoying immensely at this moment. just read this part (below) and thought of you. 

shine on :-)

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People involved in the arts understand this endless nature through direct experience. It is part of all the arts. That is why I believe that a personal pursuit in some form of art is so important to a person’s sense of well-being. It teaches you this true nature of life right up front if you pay attention. When I was in my late teens, there were two incidents that created so much more patience within me as a result of a change in my perception. 

The first happened shortly after I had started studying jazz improvisation with perhaps the best jazz pianist in the area. His name was Don. After one of my lessons, Don started playing around on the piano as I was packing up my music. I had never met anyone who played the piano as well as he did. He had earned his ability with years of a solid practice ethic, working at the piano sometimes seven and eight hours a day. While he was playing, Don told me that he felt that if he didn’t start working harder he was never going to get really good on the piano. I was shocked by his casual remark. I commented to him that if I could play the piano as well as he could, I would be content to sit all day long and do nothing but listen to myself play. He looked at me and smiled. “You know, Tom,” he said, “that is exactly what I said to my teacher years ago when I first heard him play.” Don had studied with a world-renowned classical and jazz pianist. I had heard recordings of his teacher, who was extremely accomplished. Still, it occurred to me that if someone could reach Don’s level of playing ability and still feel unfulfilled, I was going to have to re-think both my motivations for studying the instrument and my feeling the need to reach some level of “perfection” in order to become fulfilled. 

The second event grew out of the first and began when I was nineteen years old. I had been studying with Don for just over a year. I was trying to play a certain passage in a piece of music and wasn’t having much luck at it. I was frustrated and feeling a bit sorry for myself for not measuring up to my own standards. I wasn’t progressing fast enough in my mind. I made the decision that I would write down all that I needed to accomplish musically to meet my own criteria of good musicianship. The list included items such as being able to play fluently in certain difficult keys, playing in front of large audiences, etc. 

Several years later I was working in a small practice room at college late one night and I was having another difficult practice session. I remember thinking to myself that I was never going to get any better no matter how hard I tried. Depressed, I decided to quit for the evening. As I started packing up my music, a crumpled-up slip of paper fell out of one of my music books. It was the five-year music plan I had made when I was nineteen years old. I was twenty-two now and I had completely forgotten about it. I sat down and began reading the list to myself. What I read took me by surprise and made a lasting impression. I had accomplished everything on the list in less than three years, not five. In fact, I had done things musically that I couldn’t even imagine doing when I was nineteen, and yet I didn’t feel any different. happier with my music or any better as a musician. My horizon was moving away from me. My concept of a good musician was coming from a different frame of reference. 

In that moment I had a realization which took several minutes to fully evolve. I became aware that there was no point of musical excellence out there that would free me from the feeling of “I need to get better.” In that moment, I understood that there was no point I could reach where I would feel that I had finally done it, that I was as good as I needed to be, and that there was no need to improve because I had arrived at my goal. It was an epiphany. At first I felt a moment of overwhelming depression and fear, but it was immediately followed by joy and relief of the same magnitude. I knew that what I was experiencing was a realization that all true artists must go through. It was the only way to build the stamina necessary to continue in an infinite study. There was a sense of freedom in knowing that I would never run out of room to grow. There was a peace in knowing the race was over. Where I was “right now” was just where I should be for the amount of effort I had expended. I saw the wake behind the boat for the first time and realized I was moving ahead, pretty quickly as a matter of fact. 

But the most important truth revealed to me in that moment was this: the real joy was in my ability to learn and experience that growth moment by moment. The process of discovering the ability to create music that had always been within me was the goal, and I achieved that goal in every second I was practicing. There were no mistakes being made, just a process of discovering what worked and what didn’t. I was no longer struggling up a mountain toward some imaginary musical summit that was going to make my life complete. I realized the infinite nature of music and I was relieved instead of intimidated or frustrated. That moment was the beginning of my shift in awareness of how I approached anything in life which required applied effort over long periods of time. 

That subtle shift in perception, and that is all it was, brought about unlimited patience with myself. I became patient with my progress. I not only stopped looking at my progress, I stopped looking for my progress all together. Progress is a natural result of staying focused on the process of doing anything. When you stay on purpose, focused in the present moment, the goal comes to you with frictionless ease. However, when you constantly focus on the goal you are aiming for, you push it away instead of pulling it toward you. In every moment of your struggle, by looking at the goal and constantly referencing your position to it, you are affirming to yourself that you haven’t reached it. You only need to acknowledge the goal to yourself occasionally, using it as a rudder to keep you moving in the right direction. 

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Sterner, Thomas (2010-10-07). The Practicing Mind: Bringing Discipline and Focus Into Your Life (pp. 56-57). Mountain Sage Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

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On another note, I found this CD after many many years. It's one of my favorites, but the first track is on another plane of beautiful altogether! It's a rendition of a Cuban Childrens song by an extraordinary gay, black and Cuban man nicknamed snowball (Bola de Nieve)

The CD:

The song:

A rebuttal of sorts

Oh, and by the way

The list could go on, the only constant is

I think I've established that I'm not much of an artist, 10 points for effort? :)

The 1 crore cake!

Yes.

That's what I did today.

I'm supposed to be on complete bed-rest, but I couldn't resist the challenge of the call I got yesterday.

Caller: "Hi, is this Cake Away?"
Me: "Yes, how can I help you"
Caller: "I need a 10kg cake that looks like a 1 crore rupee note"
Me: "Umm, you mean a note that says one crore on it instead of say 1000"
Caller: "Yes, exactly"
.
. (a few more minutes of conversation and negotiating rates)
.
Me: "Okay"

This is what I made for her. I think I did good.

That's 3 ft x 1.5 ft. Issa big pure chocolate mother!

The thin white coat of icing is just so that the print looks good

Quite a bitch to get that print on right! I could've shaved the cake around the image to make it just the note, but why waste so much delicious chocolate :)

Bye then.