If you knew me, you would have heard from me that I only play by ear since forever. In the last months of 2023 however, an upright Grotrian Steinweg in a piano studio captured my heart as it sang beautifully after playing it, so I brought it home. Now I am slowly reading notes again. I haven’t begun my recording setup yet. But here’s to the years I’ve had my Clavinova and here’s to top 5 of my most played piano experiments off of Soundcloud.
2016 Experiments with Slow Strings
Inspiration from Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, vocalists Kurt Nilsen and Pentatonix
2016 Theme from the Mission
Inspiration from the Piano Guys and of course of my favorite modern composers, Ennio Morricone, who I had the pleasure of seeing perform live in Munich before he passed away.
2019 in Cancun
Short and sweet arpeggios before I leave my piano for Christmas: for my cousin and her husband. Piano experiments by ear with nylon guitar + slow strings after Kina Grannis (Crazy Rich Asians)
2021 Balcony Scene
A first pass of Balcony Scene Romeo + Juliet (Craig Armstrong) and Kissing You (Des’ree) with inspiration from Stringspace – Guitar + Violin for my grandparents who passed during the time of Corona virus.
2014 Experiments with Nylon Guitar
This reminds me of the gentle pitter patter of rain in one of the beloved places I lived back when I was in the university in my home country.
And now to end with a bonus…
2016 Theme from Schindler’s List
Inspiration from Luka Suli of 2Cellos. Started playing this after visiting Dresden which explains the photo. One anecdote related to this is being asked by my in-laws to play the piano in the hotel where we are at in a district in Salzburg. At the time, this was the only music I can play from memory so I hope that was not too inappropriate on a beautiful summer evening in Austria.