Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Ludovico Einaudi

Ludovico Einaudi
New Theatre Oxford, Oxford
14th Nov

SOLD OUT!

...no surprises here...

But some tickets still available for London, 22nd Jan
Hammersmith Apollo
Standing and seats

Oh I feel your pain on that one! Well considering all your other stuff I've listened to, I'm sure it will actually be awesome



Yes I agree it is SO helpful to listen to Mr E. playing himself, to get an 'ear' for his expression. It enables us to add those little nuances that don't show up on the score but are important! Hence I have my Einaudi playlist on YT going whenever I'm mucking about on the interweb. Right now it's Brothers, hehe.

Does anyone know or could find out what mysterious song he entranced people with in the beginning of the second half is? I'm curious

http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/le...ource=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Bumping for the Einaudi lovers. How are you all going with your pieces? Carlos are you happy with your Two Trees yet?

I'm just about there with Questa Notte, but damnation it gives me arm fatigue by the time I get to the last page, I don't know how to combat it. Trying so hard to relax but ARGH!

Run is nicer but much slower going, taking me longer to get the hang of.

In fact, I'm never completely happy with the pieces I play and "Two Trees" is not an exception.
Did you missed my ABF Recital submission? Check it here: Two Tress - CarlosCC

I've played "Run" which is a true "contemplative" piece. It's hard to get the right sound of it, and it's not a good piece to get the audience attention - unless the audience understand the Einaudi's "world" -. But it's a good piece.

Be careful with hands or arm fatigue. IMO, that means you're not using the right posture. Try to relax and/or change your arms/hands position. looking forward to listen your "Questa Notte" - it's a beautiful piece, btw -.

I've been too busy with job/family stuff and, unfortunately, my piano time is decreasing every day. To make things more difficult, I have some extra tasks related with the TV program: we've been visiting some places to do the filming - I tested several pianos in amazing places! -, and they are requesting my presence in some meetings with the TV crew.
So, busy times, as you can see.

Carlos I'm listening to it now, just fabulous!!!!! Such good sound and I love what you do with the music, the changes fit it nicely.

Yes I agree about the posture issue, I know I'm too tense and often take breaks between parts, to 'shake it out'. It's hard without a teacher to bounce ideas off I guess, but I'll definitely keep focussing on looseness and rolling the wrists more.

Great to hear about your TV stuff, how exciting Lovely for the TV crew to get a good pianist too.

Thank you Jessiebear!!!

As you know, I also haven't a teacher so I usually follow my instincts, and I learned to read some "body" signals - like backache or arm/hand pains -. My advice: do not force your arms and hands to the limits. Keep it relaxed.

Silly question, but don't some of these pieces have orchestral backings to them? how do you approach these on the piano? do you play just the piano part? do you try to incorporate multiple voices on a piano alone? do you mix in some backing after? separate recordings?

Curious as to how you folks tackle these to get an idea of how you all vary/work and enjoy playing

Good question UKIkarus!

Yes, some of them are not solo pieces.
In my case:
- "Do you play just the piano part?" - No/yes depending on the arrangement;
- "Do you try to incorporate multiple voices on a piano alone?" - Yes, but it's hard;
- "do you mix in some backing after? separate recordings?" - Never!

To avoid this "problem" I play other versions/arrangements. I change little details along the piece maintaining the original atmosphere.
For example, for the "In a Time Lapse" album, my guide has been the "Live from home" show where Ludovico played some of the pieces alone (without the orchestra). In other situations I try to create the "solo version" myself, just because there isn't a solo version to listen and to understand the variations.
All the situations are a good exercise: listen and try to follow what he did.

Interesting, I'd like to hear what others have to say about this (especially those who play pieces themselves)

I have tried myself using just the piano voices and to some extent it's OK though I never properly tried with sheets (that's on my to do list for the future when I read better) I have naturally tried piecing together an orchestral too since I have a synthesizer... but until I plug it into my PC it's just no use, despite having a full workstation in the hardware itself it is VERY difficult to get the timing just right.

I will have to scope out some of these "Solo versions" and have a listen, something to look at when I have a moment spare

UKIcarus, good question. In Run for example he tackles this by having two notes at a time in the RH, one for each violin. It's tricky to co-ordinate and means a lot of jumping around, but it turns out fabulous and is a great learning process for me especially.

As Carlos said it depends on the arrangement you choose, and you can fiddle around with it a little to make it work. But in pieces like the arrangement of Prima Vera I play, some parts can get monotonous because it really does need a violin in there. Somehow my friends don't get why I want them to start it up! lol

Just saw this on his FB, such a lovely example of the immense layering of instruments and cascade of sound *bliss!*
It's 26 minutes of heaven

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOu-Rmgljik

I just play the pieces as written in the Einaudi song books. I find the double notes in Run pretty hard still. It's reasonably fast and just keeps going and going. Hard to make every double note sound together, or even to figure out which fingering I should use where. Will probably get back to the piece later. Got to practice more Christmas music first!

Early this year I wrote my first post in this inspiring forum; now I'm back to share my exciting news.

For years I resisted my husband's urges to sell our small inner-city house and move out into something roomier in the suburbs. When he pointed out that in a bigger house I could play my Einaudi pieces on a grand piano rather than on my Yamaha P95 digital, of course I was won over. We couldn't find the right house, so reluctantly decided to build one (not a step to be taken lightly by two people in their seventies) with dedicated space for a six-foot grand.

Well, after living in our caravan (with my P95) for months, our house is finished and we have moved in. Three days after the removalists delivered our furniture from storage, I held my breath as my grand was wheeled into what the builders had dubbed 'The Piano Room'. The dealers who had been looking for a good used one for me had found the very thing, and had been holding it for me until the house was ready.

So thanks to an Einaudi love affair, we have a beautiful new home which suits us both perfectly, AND a magnificent ebony Yamaha C3 grand piano in pride of place. I am absolutely over the moon. The C3 will be re-tuned in a few weeks when it has had time to settle in, but I've discovered that I need to be 'fine-tuned' too! In my four years of playing, I've had very little experience on an acoustic piano, and my fingers seem to have about as much control as a baby elephant has over its trunk. Has anybody else felt like this?

Oh wow Marie that is awesome What are you playing at the moment and what song got you hooked?

Yes there is a big difference in the feel with an acoustic, and even more between upright and grand, but it will get better with time

I'm still working on relaxing with Questa Notte, and Run is going nicely- the harder parts flow better now than the 'easy' bits I haven't worked on so much LOL.

How is everyone else going?

Hi Jessiebear! I heard 'I Giorni' on SBS radio here two years ago and was entranced. Searching on line for the sheet music, I found it in his 'The Best of Ludovico Einaudi' album, and had it posted here from the UK.

My enthusiasm for the piano had begun to fade (after two unsuccessful attempts at finding a teacher and making little progress trying to 'go it alone' at a very mature age) but the Einaudi album soon changed that. I'm playing (attempting?) many of the pieces in it, but my favourites at the moment are 'Julia', 'Nefeli', 'In an'altra vita', 'Le onde' - oh, bother, I just love them all. There are beautiful ones in 'In a Time Lapse' to get around to, too - but even in retirement there aren't enough hours in a day, and I haven't even opened the 'Islands' album I bought myself as a Christmas present.

Now if only my fingers didn't seem to have a mind of their own ...

@Jessiebear - Thanks for sharing that KRCB Live show! That's great!
@MarieJ - Welcome back! My dream is to have a piano room, and your story is very inspiring!

In some pieces I think that "live solo versions" are better that the "book versions". What I try to do is to play what I like most. As I told, one example is "Life" - from "In a time lapse" book - which I send to ABF Recital #31 (if you have the sheet music you can compare the differences with my version ).
The great fun is to listen carefully the live versions and then, try to reproduce the sounds and melodies.

That's a really nice mix, you can have fun with that! I keep hearing people mention Nefeli, it's quite a sweet song.

I'm loving the Time Lapse CD, there are some beauties on there

Carlos I agree there's a little something different about his Live performances he puts into it. I really like Life, and your version is STUNNING. You're an inspiration!!

Ludovico Einaudi returns to Australia in Feb. 2014:

Feb. 8th - Perth, Perth Concert Hall
Feb. 9th - Sydney, Sydney Opera House
Feb. 11th - Adelaide, Adelaide Festival Center
Feb. 13th - Melbourne, The Arts Centre-Hamer Hall

Oh, thanks Jessiebear