Thought this was interesting. Especially since to the general population, it looks almost like magic. I mean, how can she do that?



But let's take a look at what's happening here. Oprah picks a few notes (from the Key of C Major) hint ... Now after this, the pianist takes a moment.

Now, what is she doing? First, she actually gives the piece an introduction. Then on to the melody itself. Notice too that the piece is an ABA form.

Or, I could be completely wrong and she just improvised the whole thing without thinking. But I doubt it. She knew she would be playing some kind of music in ABA form.

Well, if there's thought, intent, and form, then it doesn't align itself with your "method" does it? There should be no thought right? What's your point?

She does a nice job. I hope people loved it. Very pretty and cohesive.
However, part of every conservatory's freshman year keyboard studies class is learning to harmonize a melody. So, she did this with a very simple series of notes in C maj, and arpeggiated the left hand harmonies. I am impressed this was on Oprah, and she really did a nice job, but pretty simple stuff.
It would have been a little more impressive if Oprah could have randomly chosen any note rather than just from naturals, and maybe even if it was 9 notes rather than 5.
This girl probably could have easily done that as well.

I'd love to see what Lola Astanova would do with that little melody. Here's what she did with Rihanna's "Don't Stop the Music":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lqorloj2YZY&feature=channel

One day I'll marry that woman.

When you do, please convince her to stop playing. Good job. Thank You.

What? Why? What's wrong with her playing?

BTW.....welcome back.

Thanks

Ah!!! And another Einaudi is born!!
g

I don't understand. Care to elaborate?

Sorry, but how the heck did she get on Oprah? There are many pianists (college students, and most likely many on this forum) who can do what she did. Am I missing something here?

hahaha!!! whatever you are missing, I am missing too - goodness, gracious me, if I'd realised that's all you needed to do to hang out with Oprah - hahahaha!!!!!!

yes, what deal with the devil has that poor girl done to be able to elicit such magic from the keyboard - hahahaha!!!!!

Her improvisition is typical Yamaha Junior Original Concert (JOC) improvisation. JOC kids are a group of selected students. People who pass Yamaha grade 5 exam also can do this kind of improvisation. I took the grade 5 exam many decades ago.

Here how she/others do this kind of improvisation.

1. Prepare an intro, you need to memorize the intro. In her case, she knows that her first chord for the motif will start with tonic (C chord), and she also knew that she will play only in C Major, so she just needed to memorize one kind of intro. In the grade 5 exam, it was way harder, because we do not know what key we will get, so we have to memorize many types of intro in many keys.

2. Look at the motif that she got. C B G E F. From here, you can tell that the first two chords are CM7 and Dm7. It is a piece of cake, because it fell into the typical progression, what you need to do is just to have certain pattern that follow those two chords. We can memorize the chords, however, we still need to have a little talent to make up a melody that go along with the memorized chord progression.

3. The B part can be totally memorized.

I have to say this is half improvisation, not a full improvisation. Try do it infront of people, it is not that easy to play. I know many people with Bachelor piano performance degree failed to pass the Yamaha grade 5 exam. In the exam, we should play at the level of what demonstrated by this girl.

Nothing is mystery about this kind of improvisation. Normal people if they practice can do this, but for most people, it looks and sounds impressive.

What got me, was the hyper-theatrical closing of eyes, and intense concentration, as though she was channeling some ethereal muse, before launching into, what was for many of us, a very basic improv.

Oprah must have been having what journalists call, a 'very thin day'

You are correct....it was totally a show.

I noticed many Asian pianists are very expressive physically. I do not know why, the extreme example is Lang Lang, and there are many others, professionals and non professionals.

When I saw this video a few years ago, two thoughts went through my head:

1 - it's very impressive
2- lots of people can do that

It's not something anybody can learn; I do think you have to have a certain level or combination of talent and training, but that's all.

Two quotes come to mind:

One from the movie "Ratatouille": At the end, the critic says "Not anyone can become a great chef, but a great chef can come from anyone."

The next is by one of my favorite thinkers on education, John Holt (author of my signature!)

"The true test of intelligence is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don't know what to do."

But I don't even think it's all that impressive, except to people who would be equally impressed if Oprah had said "Well, today I have with me someone who can do the most remarkable thing: I'm going to put a piece of music in front of her that she has NEVER SEEN BEFORE and after 30 seconds of thinking about what she is going to do this pianist will play music she has NEVER EVEN HEARD!!!!"

Surgeons aren't impressed much by appendectomies, either.

(Which is pretty much what I think the Oprah improvisation is - a skill that is specialized, but not particularly difficult or exotic.)

I'm pretty sure there are a dozen or so of us here on the forums that could do it. eweiss and Tar could definitely pull it off; I'm guessing Elissa probably can, some of the ABF crowd, etc...

You didn't like her classical videos either?

That's one of the funniest things I've read on this forum!! SO TRUE (and obvious!)...... Imagine that on Oprah!!!

No. Let's just say I find them entertaining. I could care less about her forays into improv.

I like you stores (kennywood). Always a positive thing to say. But why hide?

This is real improv, and real funny! FYI it has a single swear word if you would be offended by such things.

D4v3, that was so awesome. Absolutely hilarious.