Excerpt from my blog: "Music, Life and other Challenges."
http://musiclifeandotherchallenges.blogspot.com
On Wednesday, I made a good find: the piano at Alice Tully Hall. It stands in a little terrace by the entrance, below street level, and the stairs that surround it create an intimate space. The traffic noise coming from Broadway was floating over our heads. It took more courage than I expected to just sit down and play.
The traffic noise did a strange thing: I had to focus so hard to hear myself that it brought me back to myself. In the middle of all the noise, the piano and I become a unit making a different kind of sound.
Even though it did not carry very far, I like to think that it made a difference, just being there, adding a faint overtone of harmony to the symphony of the city: traffic noise, the rumble of the subway, people rushing, talking on the phone all the time, their minds at their point of destination before their bodies can take them there. The pianos are a chance to pause for a moment and reconnect.
They invite some to stay and listen, others to sit down and play, whatever comes to their mind - a glissando in passing, an improvisation, a potpourri from the last audition at the Juilliard School, the beginning of a piece learnt at a piano lesson long ago.
Maya 2 // Jun 25, 2010 at 9:11 am
Really true?
Maya // Jun 25, 2010 at 8:38 am
Great idea, a lot of joy!
Elizabeth Grimes // Jun 24, 2010 at 12:40 pm
I played all 4 of the pianos in Lincoln Center. All beautiful and it was so much fun!
http://musiclifeandotherchallenges.blogspot.com
On Wednesday, I made a good find: the piano at Alice Tully Hall. It stands in a little terrace by the entrance, below street level, and the stairs that surround it create an intimate space. The traffic noise coming from Broadway was floating over our heads. It took more courage than I expected to just sit down and play.
The traffic noise did a strange thing: I had to focus so hard to hear myself that it brought me back to myself. In the middle of all the noise, the piano and I become a unit making a different kind of sound.
Even though it did not carry very far, I like to think that it made a difference, just being there, adding a faint overtone of harmony to the symphony of the city: traffic noise, the rumble of the subway, people rushing, talking on the phone all the time, their minds at their point of destination before their bodies can take them there. The pianos are a chance to pause for a moment and reconnect.
They invite some to stay and listen, others to sit down and play, whatever comes to their mind - a glissando in passing, an improvisation, a potpourri from the last audition at the Juilliard School, the beginning of a piece learnt at a piano lesson long ago.
http://onemagicalmomentperday.blogspot.com/2010_06_22_archive.html