Inspiration: quotes, videos, talks, & links

Inspiration! Music is an art that requires us to live life, to experience new things, and to be inspired by our environment. If we live life in a bubble, I believe we will never have anything interesting to say in music!

I often get inspired from something I see or hear on YouTube, TED talks, photographs, paintings, art, quotations or other media. Here is a collection of inspiration that I have put together. I hope they will inspire YOU.

Inspiration: Music and Your Brain

Eyetracking: What is a Pianist looking at?

Cool use of technology. Watch as professional pianist Daniel Beliavsky performs while wearing special glasses that track where his eyes are looking. This short video also features his student performing. About halfway through the video, it shows where their eyes are looking while they both sight-read an unfamiliar piece. So interesting!!

 

How Playing an Instrument Benefits Your Brain

Ted-ED is a free educational website for teachers and learners. One of their videos, “How playing an instrument benefits the brain” is a good one. Most people know that music lessons are good for the brain. This video shows you why. I like that there is a visual of how much of the brain is engaged when you are playing an instrument. The importance of music and music lessons can never be emphasized enough!

The Power of the Pentatonic Scale

A website that I am on often is TED.com. TED started as a conference on where Technology, Entertainment and Design meet. Their website is full of short talks given by experts in their field. I’ll probably include a number of videos from this site. This is one is a talk given by Bobby McFerrin at the World Science Festival. I love how he gets the audience participating in music-making–even ones who think they are not musical!!

 

Inspiration: The Instrument

The Making of a Steinway

If you’ve ever been curious about what goes into making a grand piano, here is a video that takes you through the state-of-the-art manufacturing facility of Steinway, one of the most famous manufacturers of pianos. I always wondered why some pianos cost more than a house. When you see how much detailed workmanship goes into making one of these instruments, you won’t ever wonder again.

Inspiration: Performance

Lang Lang’s Story – A short documentary

I frequently get asked about what it takes to be a concert pianist. I point students in the direction of this Youtube video–a documentary on the Chinese pianist Lang Lang. While every person’s story is different, I enjoyed watching this short film to get a little glimpse into his life as a concert pianist–the dedication, self-discipline, and endless hours of practice that go into this challenging profession.

 

Lubka Kolessa

Recently, I came across an article that talked about tracing back your piano family tree. I am proud to count Lubka Kolessa as my “piano grandmother”. I never got the chance to meet her, but have heard wonderful stories about her from my piano teacher. I am thankful for YouTube and how it gave me the chance to hear her play! Her technique is awe-inspiring!

The Piano Guys

This group is made up of Jon Schmidt, Steven Sharp Nelson, Paul Anderson and Al van der Beek. If you aren’t familiar with them, they became famous on YouTube for their piano and cello renditions of popular songs, mixed with classical music. Jon Schmidt was a popular solo piano performer and composer before the Piano Guys became a hit on YouTube.

This video is a rare view of all four of the members. I love how they use the grand piano to contribute to their music making.

 Vladimir Horowitz – Carmen Variations

Vladimir Horowitz was famous for the ‘singing’ quality of his playing as well as for a wide range of dynamics and tone colours. When he plays, he doesn’t play with many flamboyant, extra gestures. His face usually shows intense concentration, his upper body stays relatively still while his fingers fly about the keyboard. He’s most famous for his octave work as you’ll see in the video below. The piece is from Bizet’s opera Carmen and weaves themes (mainly from the Gypsy Dance) into a awe-inducing showpiece that he often used as an encore.

https://youtu.be/Qnla_5zrHAE

Alex Boye, Lily Walker, and ‘Let it Go’

Frozen is one of the most popular songs in my piano studio and I like to share the video of this little powerhouse named Lily Walker. I love the elements of African music that’s incorporated by Alex Boye.

 Inspiration: Quotes

John Williams

I love this quote because how cool is it that a famous film composer who could very easily “rest on his laurels” is still one of the hardest working composers out there. With over six decades of music under his belt, it’s satisfying to hear this humble quote from him.

Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein was a famous American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist. He has many wonderful quotes about life, music, and music-making. This is one of my favourites.

Inspiration: Humour & the Piano

Victor Borge, comedian, conductor, and pianist

I remember watching his hilarious rendition of “Phonetic Punctuation” a comedy sketch built around the question: What would happen if we gave sound effects to punctuation when reading out loud? Victor Borge was a brilliant pianist and a comedic genius that brought much joy to many people. Numerous famous sketches include the topics of page turning, sight reading, and accompanying. Many of his comedic moments can be checked out on YouTube.

Igudesman & Joo, classical musicians

(the link will take you to their YouTube channel)

The first time I saw this duo was at Ottawa Chamberfest. The duo, made up of Aleksey Igudesman (violin) and Richard Hyung-ki Joo (piano) do shows that combine comedy with classical music and pop culture. Two of my favourite sketches is Mozart Bond (a cool mash up of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 and James Bond!) and Rachmaninov had Big Hands.

Don’t Shoot the Pianist

If you are on facebook, head over to “Don’t Shoot the Pianist” for fun and clever “stick figure drawings” of life as a pianist. If you aren’t on facebook, you can check out his cartoons on his website at www.euge.ca

The Invisible Drum Kit

Doesn’t relate directly to piano, but I found it inspiring nonetheless. Rowan Atkinson does an amazing job acting out what we would all love to do if we ever got our hands on a drum kit–invisible or real!

Inspiration: Music and the Other Arts

Dance

This YouTube video shows how music can cross generations. We’ve seen when old standards are brushed off, modernized, and trotted out for whole new audiences. But watch what happens when you take the upbeat tune: Uptown Funk and put it to dance moves. With a twist! Kudos to the editor–making the moves work and join seamlessly must have been quite the project!

Inspiration: Composition

Music from the TV Show ‘The Musketeers’ (Link to video on BBC’s website)

I have a few students that are interested in Composition and I’m always looking for ways to inspire them. Video game, television, and film music are especially popular with a lot of my students. This is an interesting video about Paul Englishby, a composer who writes music for the BBC TV show The Musketeers. I love how you get an inside look on his creation process and especially how he creates everything starting with the piano!

Scott Bradlee – Twinkle Twinkle variations

Scott Bradlee deserves a “Bravo!” for his amazing Evolution of Popular styles – 24 Variations on Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. (Thanks for letting me link to it, Scott!!) I got a kick out of how well he adapts this ‘simple’ little tune to 24 different time periods and styles of playing. Neat to see how versatile he is and extremely interesting how he changes the melody and harmony to distill each time period’s important musical idioms.

Inspiration: Things to watch on Netflix

Seymour: An introduction

This documentary is about a former concert pianist: Seymour Bernstein, who quietly retired from the stage in order to compose and teach piano. Watching Seymour Bernstein teach piano is inspirational. To see the passion for music that pours out of him as he conducts masterclasses and teaches one on one is so interesting. He goes into great detail when he teaches and seems to know exactly what will bring out the best in his students.

A Drummer’s Dream

This is a documentary about a music camp for drummers in Ontario. Even though it is about teaching drums, the musicians in this film are phenomenal, and their teachings and philosophy cross over into any instrument. I guarantee that you will feel uplifted and excited to go make music after watching this movie. It follows the drum instructors at this camp as they teach different styles of drumming including jazz, rock, soul, fusion, and latin percussion.

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