Here we are in mid-January, holidays over and presents a thing of the past. Trying to think of some way to brighten up these dark days I came up with an idea: FREE STUFF!
I thought I would start off with freebies for the classical musicians and music lovers, since I am always amazed at the [...]
Modern Instruments
I love Beethoven’s music on original instruments, but I also love the sound of modern instruments. This is most easily reconciled by listening to modern music, so that modern instruments are also original instruments. Our search is then for truly inspiring music of the last century or so by a gifted orchestrator. More than [...]
My last post included my preference for Beethoven’s music played on period instruments. At that time I did not want to delve into the academic maelstrom that surrounds the use of “original instruments” in performance because it can be a “hot” topic, especially in academia. Last night, though, it struck me that this was a [...]
I know that most readers of this blog are guitarists, or at least very interested in guitar. For this very reason I am especially pleased at the overwhelmingly positive response to my posts on classical piano in general, and Valerie Tryon in particular. It is important to listen to other musicians, and other instruments, to [...]
This post has been delayed almost the whole week. I had hoped to answer a very interesting question posed to me: “What would be a good first CD to start listening to classical piano?” The problem was not finding a CD to recommend. That was very easy and was going to be a labour of [...]
Diversity is the spice of life and the spark of creativity. Maybe it is the approaching spring; maybe it is the exciting things coming up, like the Montreal Guitar Show, and the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society convention in Nashville; maybe an important audition for my student and friend Markku; but whatever, I feel like branching [...]
Well I could not let Beethoven’s birthday pass unmarked, although the 238 candles did not leave much frosting on top of the cake.
To celebrate, I have started the Beethoven section of my web site with a page on The Unheard Beethoven. This is a cool site that I stumbled across a few years ago. It [...]