Two students of mine—Adriana and Vincent, recently participated in the Steinway & Sons Malaysian Youth Piano Competition 2011-2012. I received some good news today that they have made it through the audition stage. Now it’s onward to the semi-finals where these 10 shortlisted contestants will battle it out for the finals in Kuala Lumpur on March 22, 2012. Five will be chosen from this stage and then the first prize winner will go to Singapore to compete in the Regional Finals. If they make it through that they will then go to Hamburg, Germany to compete in the Grand Finals.

Congratulations, Adriana and Vincent. Now I’m going to roll up my shirt sleeves and work you two—stay focused and on course!

Having used Korg’s excellent KDM-2 for a few years now, I’m hoping that the KDM-3 (at least I assume that’s what the next version will be called) will be coming out soon. Here’s my wish list for it:

• Backlit LCD display
• A push-button number pad AND a rotary dial for inputting speeds
• A real metronome and bell sound
• A female and/or male voice to count out the beats (Note: some people might see this as a gimmick but I think it’s a nice touch. Moreover it has been featured in Yamaha’s latest Clavinovas)
• A choice of colors—black is always in fashion, but how about red, gold, brown, etc? A digital metronome could be the next fashion statement!
• A more powerful speaker system compared to the KDM-2. Don’t get me wrong, the KDM-2 is pretty loud, but…oh well.
• The ability to use rechargeable batteries would be nice
• A soft carrying pouch or case

If you have any other suggestions, feel free to drop me a comment.

Yes, it’s Anthea—one of my favorite students (she played Happy Birthday for me here) and now she’s doing a piece called Malaguena. She found this piece a little challenging at first but she stuck to it and now she can play both hands quite well. I seized the opportunity to record her on my Canon PowerShot SX130 IS and here’s the result. After experiencing the HD quality on this camera I’m not going back to normal 640 resolution again (sorry Crystal, heh heh)

Well done, Anthea. I’m proud of you and would like to thank her mom Josephine for permission to publish the video here.

I’ve already recorded another version of this wonderful song in my other blog, but this piano version has been requested by a close friend of mine, so I have acquiesced. Forgive me if I look a little forlorn in this video, but this song always tugs at my heartstrings. It’s one of those Christmas songs I never tire of playing every Christmas.

And if you’re wondering why I have my penguin suit on, well my friend requested that too. Enjoy and Merry Christmas, everybody!

Note: this post was first published in my other blog in March 2009, but I thought it relevant to be included here.

Wikipedia defines a metronome as

…any device that produces a regulated aural, visual or tactile pulse to establish a steady tempo in the performance of music. It is a useful practice tool for musicians that dates back to the early 19th century. The mechanical metronome was invented by Dietrich Nikolaus Winkel in Amsterdam in 1812. Johann Mälzel copied several of Winkel’s construction ideas and received the patent for the portable metronome in 1816. Ludwig van Beethoven was the first notable composer to indicate specific metronome markings in his music, in 1817.

Musicians use the metronome during practicing in order to attain a constant tempo (or speed). Tempo is measured in beats per minute, or BPM. Metronomes can be set to any tempo the performer chooses, usually between 40 to 208 BPM. Mechanical metronomes have been around the longest, but they do have some shortcomings:

1. They aren’t particularly accurate at the extreme ends of slow and fast tempos, due to their mechanical makeup.
2. They need the performer to periodically wind it up, just like a mechanical clock.
3. They are sensitive to extremes of temperature, and also to humidity.
4. For some strange reason, even if you take very good care of it, mechanical metronomes just fail to tick properly after some time. In other words, the ticking becomes uneven and inaccurate.

I’ve owned a couple of mechanical metronomes before, a long time ago. When electronic metronomes saw the light of day, I was one of the first to acquire one, a Wittner Taktell, which was powered by a 9V battery and had a flashing red light. Then later on, in 2000 I think, I happened to see the Korg KDM-1 at a music store here, and it impressed me with its loud sound (students sometimes complained to me that they couldn’t hear the Taktell’s sound over their own playing). Moreover, the KDM-1 had its own volume control, which was a definite plus. It also had an earphone jack, though I wouldn’t recommend you use it for blasting the ticking sound directly into your eardrums. It could last about 70 hours, powered by only a 9V battery.

When Korg announced the successor to the KDM-1, known simply as the KDM-2, I was ecstatic. It was like a KDM-1 on steroids, being just slightly wider and 40 grams heavier. Here’s the plethora of features it possesses (taken from the Korg website):

• Korg’s original, cylindrical resonator speaker provides powerful sound, now with even more volume and improved tone.
• An LED provides visual confirmation of the tempo, a convenient feature for practicing with the metronome muted.
• Newly added beat variations range from basic to sophisticated rhythms like son clave and rumba clave
• A total of 19 beat patterns cover your practicing needs in numerous musical styles.
• Tap Tempo function makes it easy to set the tempo.
• An audible Reference tone in a range of C4 to B4 is available, allowing you to tune your instrument.
• An encoder-type TEMPO/CALIB dial and switch provide direct access to the desired setting or function.
• A large LCD screen makes settings easy to see.
• Original and compact style.
• Long battery life (4 AAA’s), with approximately 120 hours of continuous use.

The KDM-1 had served me well for quite a few years without any trouble, so I sold it off to a student of mine and bought the KDM-2, which was a steal at $35 USD. This concludes my metronome odyssey. Needless to say, I await the KDM-3 with baited breath! 

P/S Perhaps those clever wunderkinds in Korg could incorporate a female voice counting out the beats in the KDM-3. That would be cool!

November 23 marks the birthday of a wonderful friend I’ve managed to reconnect with recently. Rather than presenting the birthday song here, I’ve decided to rustle up Somewhere Over the Rainbow instead. No flashy licks or wild runs, because this song doesn’t need it. It’s just one of those melodies that speaks for itself.

Happy birthday, my dear friend. I’ll meet you somewhere over the rainbow, someday

In retrospect it amazes me that I chose my piano teaching career so early on in my life—I had already made my mind up about teaching piano when the idea of continuing my further studies in the UK was brought up by my parents. They asked me whether I really wanted to pursue it, and gave me some time to think about it. I have to admit part of me was itchin’ to get away from Penang, perhaps my rebellious side. However, I was pondering a lot over it. Although I was just 17 at that time, I had enough insight and maturity to realize that this was a big decision I had to make. And I went for it. Fortunately a few of my parents’ friends gave me sage advice about what to expect when I went over to the UK.

So I spent a few years in the UK and then four more in the US (read more about it here) When I came back in the summer of ‘84 I was raring to start teaching. I didn’t have a set agenda, but I guess a few folk were doing the “publicity” for me, and I was very grateful for that. Pretty soon I had my first motley batch of students—big ones, small ones, and everything in between. Experience is the best teacher, as the saying goes…and that’s something that one has to be patient with, you can’t gain experience in a few weeks or months.

My father had an old Wagner upright piano in the house so I used that. After playing all those wonderful Steinway grands in the US, this piano with yellowish keys felt like a total let-down, but I had to take what I had, at least in the beginning. Several years would pass before I was able to purchase my new Young Chang upright piano. Besides, the Yamaha Clavinova was still in its infancy in those days, so no thoughts of a digital piano flashed through my mind yet. I bought myself a metronome, brushed up on the piano-teaching books I’d brought home, and then there was nowhere else to go except to get my toes (or rather fingers) wet.

A good piece of advice I had from an uncle of mine (who also taught piano) was that when first starting out you can’t be too picky. In other words, I’d get good students as well as the not-so-good ones. I’d get beginners as well as advanced students. You also need to focus on getting the experience first, instead of monetary gains. I was guilty of this at the start, because fees for advanced students were naturally higher than for beginners. But as my uncle reminded me, the best experience I could ever obtain would be to teach students when they were at the beginner level, and then nurture them onwards. If I gave them good quality teaching there was a good chance they would stick with me as their musical needs grew.

A suggestion to those just starting out in the field would be this—get as much advice as you can from experienced piano teachers. Don’t be shy or too proud to ask. Do what you will with the advice they give you, and remember you can change or modify it to suit your own teaching. There is no one correct method, you have to go with whatever works best for yourself and your students.

It all started one day when I was six years old and playing in the garden. My mom came up and said “OK, it’s time to go to your first piano lesson.” And being a dutiful son, I obeyed and off we went. I started lessons with one of my aunts—Grace, who led me through some beginner’s books and the lower grades of the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM). I didn’t mind going for piano lessons, in fact I quite enjoyed it. I also realized that I was enjoying all genres of music, since my dad had his own Jazz band and my mom had quite a sizeable record collection. Those were the days…

Pretty soon I was heading in the direction of the higher grades (the ABRSM has eight grades in all, 1 being the easiest and progressing up till Grade 8 ) When I reached Grade 5 level I was handed over to another aunt, Hoon—dare I say it, she was firmer than Grace, but she had an enormous love for classical music, as evinced by her huge record collection, her music books and scores. At one point they had about 5 or 6 pianos in the house! Needless to say I was very encouraged by her teaching, even though I found some stuff hard. Things like sight-reading and playing rhythms properly (in hindsight I should have been pushed to use the metronome more) gave me hours of sheer frustration.

As I was going into my teenage years, I came home from school one day and found another musical instrument in my living room—a Yamaha electronic organ, model D3. I was soon getting my hands all over it, experimenting with the different sounds and saying to myself, “Wow, what a fantastic instrument!” I learned to play the organ by myself, including the pedals. Never took any lessons, but my classical piano background gave me a firm foundation. To this day I haven’t regretted starting out on the piano. It’s still my most preferred instrument.

My parents also played their parts well. They allowed me to have one foot in the classical camp and the other in the Jazz and Popular music camp. However, they were very strict about practice times, especially when my piano exams drew near. I vividly remember the small clock on top of the piano. I would practice for an hour, then it would be my brother’s turn (I would be studying or doing schoolwork) then we would switch places again.

I passed my Grade 8 Piano exam at the age of 13, no mean feat in those days. I thought that’d be the end of all those laborious hours of practice, but nope—my parents insisted that I continue on to Diploma level. So I soldiered on and finally obtained the LTCL (Licentiate of Trinity College London) in 1979 and the FTCL (Fellowship of Trinity College London) in 1984. Those diploma exams were hard.

I should also tell you that after my Grade 8 piano exams I was playing with a band and holding rehearsals at home. Our band had a ridiculous name—The Flinkstones (up to this day I still haven’t found out who thought of this disgusting name) Oh it was cool then in those days to play in a live band. There was a guitar player, a singer, a drummer, my brother on bass guitar and myself on organ (a Yamaha YC-20 portable combo organ, the sounds were pretty lame) We played a lot of gigs and what made me proud was the fact that I was earning pocket money before I had even finished high school. And we excelled in the Rock genre which was the pinnacle of popular music in those days. I was crazy about Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin then.

To cut a long story short, I graduated from high school here in Penang in the late 70’s and then decided to pursue a college education in music in the UK (I was a little rebellious at heart and thought this would be the perfect opportunity to get away from my parents, the authority figures) Read more about it in my Years in England posts, and also my Years in America posts, in my other wonderful blog.

Yes sir, if that mug shot of me looks familiar, it’s because I run another blog here. I’ve been toying with creating another blog just for chatting about my musical perambulations, specifically my 25 years of piano teaching (don’t yawn, I’ll forgive you if you do, but do bear with me) and also my cocktail piano playing excursions. I’ll delve into a little bit of history about how I ended up in this mess (!) but this sure beats writing about it in a plain old boring diary…I am aiming for world domination (don’t send the Fantastic 4 over yet)

I’d also like to get some formalities out of the way first. Namely:

• These anecdotes, ramblings, thoughts, etc. etc. are entirely my own—no stealing or plagiarizing ok? Or if you really feel the kleptomaniac arising from within yourself, I am partial to Starbucks lattes, Domino’s Pizza, and Burger King whoppers. And anything that has chicken in it.
• Aside from that world domination phase I mentioned earlier, rest assured that I’m not a selfless egocentric #@!$ musician. This is just how I do things in my piano teaching and cocktail playing. Everybody else has his or her own way, so there! Don’t come blaming me if you flare up, twist an ankle, contract warts, or turn into a flesh-devouring zombie after reading my posts. I absolve myself of all blame.
• I welcome and relish comments from you, my faithful followers and readers. But let’s be nice ok? I don’t want this to be like Human Torch and The Thing arguing. If so, I’m gonna retreat into my shell…
• If you feel like guest-posting in my humble blog to speak about anything related to what I say, feel free to drop me a line. Ask and it shall be given (well it depends on my mood sometimes)
• Last but not least if you don’t agree or like what I say in a post, please…please drop me a comment and tell me nicely. I’m not infallible—see the humility I’m displaying right now? Or if it drives your insanity levels up, get some java, rest yourself and visit my other blog. It’s good over there too. Trust me.
• I know I said last but not least above, but I’d like to thank each and every one of you for visiting this humble blog of mine. ‘Tis no easy task writing and creating a new blog (at least not for me) but boy, when the juices flow, it sure is fun! Happy reading!