Piano Instruction: Part two, Harmonic Rhythm and Phrasing, Mozart Sonata in C, K.545

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8cBg_qKSeU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u00VjBtn-t0    (Part 1) This part 2 segment explores the second theme of the Mozart Sonata K.  545, first movement, which concludes the Exposition.

The Fritz Piano of Vienna: A Romantic Era Reborn

On a wind swept day in March, while I was shopping in a busy Northwest Fresno plaza, I spotted a curvaceous baby grand piano through the open door of the American Cancer Society Discovery Shop. Its sunbathed, feminine profile and polished wood exterior drew me to it with the force of a magnet. Decades before, I…

Everyone plays the Bach Prelude no. 1 in C (You Tube video embedded)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMwi6agdB1k Is this the latest hit among classically minded You Tubers? How many have flocked to upload Bach Prelude 1 from the Well- Tempered Clavier. Perhaps it's because playing this first one, and singing the "Ave Maria" over it elevate the player to new spiritual heights. Spun out broken chords between the hands lay a…

More Photos from my Dream Piano Adventures

Connell York, Piano Technician: York examines a moth hole in a hammer felt: Terry Barrett, RPT, Registered Piano Technician is pictured below getting ready to tune the Aeolian table style piano. In the process, he discovered its true date of manufacture as April, 1936 (engraved into a key after he pulled the action) confirming York's…

A High Stakes Piano Finding Adventure, or was it a Sopranos TV episode?

A woman named “Sharon Cooper," phoned me one Saturday morning about my helping her select a console size piano in a modest price range. She had heard about my piano finding activity from a friend. Inquisitive and intelligent, with an animated personality, she had an ardent curiosity about the whole process of finding a suitable…

Pics of the Little Knightingale, me, York, and Caroline

There's York, piana tuna,' joining the crowd at Caroline's. He harbored doubts about Knight pianos until he inspected this one. You can see his time honored lamp with its twisted neck hanging down over the piano. Missing are his Filter Queen moth eradication machine and can of Decon. Read: The Little Knightingale https://arioso7.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/the-little-knightingale/

The Little Knightingale

It sang like a nightingale the morning I stroked its keys, yet it has always been a relative unknown in the world of big name pianos such as Steinway, Baldwin, and Yamaha. From an innocuous three-line ad posted on Oodle.com, I discovered that this very Knight piano was for sale, housed in northwest Fresno just…

A Player Piano Without a Name

"Alice," the owner of an unidentified player, is seen above. On a sultry Friday morning before a long Memorial Day weekend, I stumbled upon a Fresno Bee ad for a brand-less “piano,” sandwiched among “moving sale” items. The seller’s address traced to a working class neighborhood in south Fresno that probably wouldn’t house a pricey…

About Regulation and Tuning: My piano cried out for help!

This is such a sticky area, and the pun is intended. How frustrating to imagine a delicate pianissimo, want to produce it, and find that a note or notes won't spring forth with the beauty that a player had intended. For me, it had become painfully obvious that my Steinway M grand, 1917 which had…

The Great Piano Auction

Photo of York, piano tuner, standing beside the Steinway auction piano Fresno Auction Company Public & Private Auctions Estate Liquidations Appraisals On an early Tuesday morning, in December, 2008, I spotted an eye-catching Fresno Bee Online ad for an estate auction that listed a “Steiney” (?) grand piano among an Allen theater harpsichord organ; rare,…