Cont:

This is PRICELESS! My good friends Peter Canning and Kerri Ann Keogh, whom I had the great pleasure to work with in Moscow 2009, forwarded this gift through the Irish delegation! They claim that it might come in handy if Ireland wins!
I’m already VERY excited about the catering situation if that happens……. As excited as an potato at a low carb fat camp…………

By the way! What’s the difference between an Irish wedding and an Irish funeral? One less drunk!

I guess you just browse in and out of the webpage, clicking on all the tabs, watching all photos, movies and interviews and reading all the thousands miles of text in here. But how did it get up there? You can thank these guys! Eurovision.tv at your service!
Thanks for an AWESOME site guys! YOU ROCK!
http://www.eurovisionfamily.tv/user/Ola+Melzig/blog/?id=90472

I love this piano…
Ah, notice the Apple products?

Chas

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From Dunkley Piano Movers
Baldwin Custom

These are some of the funky pianos from when we attended the NAMM show a few years ago.

Chas

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A few more Baldwins

Chas

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Piano Movers/Manuevers

Many of us complain on the Motif XF8 weight factor.
Imagine moving actual pianos around, for a living even…

Chas

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Education
Learning the art of playing the piano is such a rewarding experience. To those who play, the piano is like a “best friend”. A pianist finds themselves playing the piano in the highest “highs” of their life as well as the lowest “lows” of their life. The relationship of a piano to one who plays is much like that of having a pet in the house.

Music is certainly the universal language that crosses all boundaries. A pianist can enjoy their talents for a lifetime....no matter how rich or poor, no matter how young or old, no matter where we live, as long as we can be at the piano, the life of a pianist just seems to be better.

There have been several studies completed by major universities that show the great benefits of learning to play the piano. 
http://www.englandpiano.com/musicandthebrain.html
http://www.englandpiano.com/newsSATMusicScores.html
http://www.englandpiano.com/newsGallupPoll.html

Chas

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Nineteenth-Century Classical Music

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The nineteenth century brought great upheaval to Western societies. Democratic ideals and the Industrial Revolution swept through Europe and changed the daily lives of citizens at all levels. Struggles between the old world order and the new were the root causes of conflicts from the Napoleonic Wars to the American Civil War. From New York, to London, to Vienna, the world was changing and the consequences can still be felt to this day.

The lives of musicians, composers, and makers of musical instruments were greatly altered by these social changes. In earlier times, musicians were usually employed by either the church or the court and were merely servants to aristocratic circles. Composers wrote music for performances in these venues, and musical instrument makers produced instruments to be played by wealthy patrons or their servant musicians. With the rise of the middle class, more people wanted access to music performances and music education.

In music, Romanticism, along with new opportunities for earning a livelihood as a musician or composer, produced two seemingly opposite venues as the primary places for musical activity—the large theater and the parlor.

A new artistic aesthetic, Romanticism, replaced the ideals of order, symmetry, and form espoused by the classicists of the late eighteenth century. Romantics valued the natural world, idealized the life of the common man, rebelled against social conventions, and stressed the importance of the emotional in art. In music, Romanticism, along with new opportunities for earning a livelihood as a musician or composer, produced two seemingly opposite venues as the primary places for musical activity—the large theater and the parlor.

Music as Public Spectacle
One result of the Industrial Revolution was the creation of a middle class. This new economic strata consisted of a larger number of people with more expendable income and more leisure time than had ever existed before. Musical extravaganzas that triumphed the musician or composer gained popularity with the masses of concertgoers. Beginning with Beethoven, composers began to arrange large concerts in order to introduce their works to the public. As audiences desired more, composers wrote larger musical works and demanded more of performers and their instruments.

The “bigger is better” mentality led to new musical forms such as the tone poem and large-scale symphonic and operatic works. Orchestras grew, including larger string sections with a full complement of woodwinds, brass, and ever more percussion instruments. New types of orchestral winds (2003.150a-g) and brass (2002.190a-n) that allowed for greater facility and more accurate playing were introduced. Composers such as Hector Berlioz, and later Johannes Brahms and Richard Wagner, continually pushed the limits of the available musical forms, performers, instruments, and performance spaces throughout the nineteenth century.

Musicians who could dazzle and amaze their audiences by their virtuosity became the first musical superstars. The two most famous nineteenth-century examples were the violinist Nicolò Paganini (1782–1840) and the pianist Franz Liszt (1811–1886). Both dazzled audiences throughout Europe with their performances, elevating the status of the musician from servant to demi-god. Their fame grew throughout Europe and their likenesses would be recorded in a variety of visual arts.

In order to withstand the virtuosic and often bombastic playing of these soloists, as well as to provide the type of volume needed in large concert venues, more powerful instruments were needed. Larger and louder violins like those by Antonio Stradivari or Guarneri del Gesù (1698–1744)—preferred by Paganini—replaced the quieter and subtler violins of earlier masters like Jacob Stainer or the Amati family. The demands of pianists like Franz Liszt pressed the technology and design of pianos to ever-larger instruments, eventually replacing the internal wooden structures of the eighteenth century with cast iron frames that could withstand thousands of pounds of pressure.

cont:

Chas

Cont:

Parlor Music
Conversely, music gained popularity in the intimate nineteenth-century parlor. At the time, home life was centered in the salon, or parlor, where children played and learned with adult supervision, and where the family entertained company. Musical performances for small groups of people became popular events, and some composers/performers were able to support themselves financially by performing in these small venues and attracting wealthy patrons. Most famous among these was Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849).

Music in the parlor was of a very different sort than in the concert hall. Solo performances and chamber music were popular, and included everything from operatic and orchestral transcriptions to sentimental love songs and ballads. In the United States, hymns and folk songs by composers like Stephen Foster (1826–1864) supplemented the European repertoire.

With the rise of the parlor as the center of family life, music education became increasingly important. Children were often taught to play musical instruments as part of a well-rounded education; for girls, playing an instrument was more important than learning to read. When guests and potential suitors visited, the children and teenagers would entertain with performances of the latest popular works.

All sorts of musical instruments were used in the home, and at various times the guitar, harp (2001.171), concertina, and banjo were extremely popular. However, the most important musical instrument in the home was the piano, because it was useful as both a solo instrument and as accompaniment to a group of singers or instrumentalists. To accommodate home use, smaller pianos were created, first square pianos and later uprights. Small pianos took up less space and, although they were not as powerful as larger types, they were also less expensive. With the technological advances of the Industrial Revolution, the mass manufacturing of musical instruments—especially pianos—provided a seemingly endless supply of musical instruments for the huge markets of both the United States and Europe. The piano would remain a central component of domestic life until it was replaced by the phonograph, radio, and television in the twentieth century.
Jayson Kerr Dobney
Department of Musical Instruments, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Citation
Dobney, Jayson Kerr. “Nineteenth-Century Classical Music”. In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/amcm/hd_amcm.htm (October 2004)

Further Reading
Samson, Jim, ed. The Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002

Chas

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Spot of tea Major Tom? How about you Govenor?

Chas

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Scariest Piano ever…

Chas

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She plays some nice warm tunes…

Chas

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A piano and flood water don’t make a mixer very well:

Shaken, not stirred…

Chas

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This looks like fun times…

Chas

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Sahara
http://saharamusic.eu/

Inca una tare de la Costi Ionita: remix reusit, piesa resuscitata, sanse mari de a intra in clasamente. “Domnul Doctor” si-a revenit serios pe final de 2011 (de aceasta data fara sustinerea caselor de discuri), reusind in aceasta perioada sa aiba simultan pe radio 3 piese noi, difuzate in sistem heavy rotation:  “Don’t Know” (Dya), “Is It Love” (Celia) si “Zaleilah” (Mandinga).
“I Wonder Why” este cel mai recent single al proiectului Sahara, rework-ul de fata aducand acest material undeva la stadiul “digerabil” al melodiilor promovate pe radio. Recomand versiunea asta playlist-managerilor CHR.

I just wanted to share this video:
I Wonder Why

Some pleasant piano playing in it, not to mention meeting lovely Sahara…
I think I actually prefer the remix.

Chas

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“At the Piano” by Ethel Mars
The hours of practice run together in my memory and are now more like a dream. I could never say how often or deliberately I played. There is only a smattering of details left: the faintest streaks of wood-grain I perceived through the dark stain on the piano’s heavy, wood frame; a wall painted the color of split pea soup; the musty smell of the living room on humid, late-spring afternoons. That room could be so dark and dull (even more so in the foggy din of memories), but when I tapped those keys with the soft pads of my fingers, all was color and light, like a strawberry blonde standing in an endless field of poppies on the sunniest of days.

Chas

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If you’d like a fun challenge, try to play this, well:

Then we can bring you into the studio for a recording session.

Chas

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