Can you do it? Like they do on the films? I can`t . . . .

Yes, I can and I always think it's funny that the talker acts like it's no big thing.

rada

Sometimes it seemed like Steve Allen could not talk without comping himself!

isn't it the same as singing?

you should not talk only during eating....

Hi Peter!

it depends by kind of music you are playing.

When I play for people in meetings, hotels I use to say "Goodevening sir" for example.

Rather, I take little conversations with guests.

This is for jazz...

Instead, when I play the Chopin Etudes (for example), I find difficult to speak with someone.

It's a question of respect for the execution.

And during sex of course....

Yup.... what I like to do is take it to the next level:

play and sing, and at the same time have a conversation (you can squeeze the conversation between the lines of the song).

Example: Sum-mer-time .... so didja go to the movies recently?
And the living is easy... Oh, yeah, I've been wanting to see that, how was it?

Etc, etc

As a veteran cocktail pianist I'm pretty good at talking and playing at the same time. As long as it's English. I moved to Germany in 1994 and began to learn German ( a most unkind language to begin at age 37). So now, on gigs, people speak to me in German while I'm playing. My German is fluent, but I still can't speak it while playing. Train wreck. English is right brain. The new language, German, is left brain. I am doomed.

- only with difficulty, and when I do talk it's likely to be unavoidably synchronized with the rhythm of the piece...

GREAT POST FOR ME... THANK YOU... This happens each day for me. I live in a disabled facility with 90 plus other disabled people and I play the piano for them through out the day when the mood strikes or they ask me, etc. I have never been able to talk and play piano at the same time. Not even when I am playing from a fake book etc. I wish I could especially because they need attention so badly as some do not have company in general and I would love to talk with them as I play piano. I get much company as I am a member of a local Catholic church and the volunteers take me out to lunch etc and there are many of them so I am blessed. Any suggestions please as to how I can talk and read music at the same time? Sandra M

"Any suggestions please as to how I can talk and read music at the same time? Sandra M "

Sandra, I said "Talk and play at the same time" heh heh - I can`t even read music and play at the same time . .

It's a lot easier if you're not reading. The playing has to be automatic. I can pull this off when I'm improvising on some standard (I will dumb down the improv as required), but not if I'm reading !

Yes—Teddy Wilson's hidden son is correct. You can't be reading motes and hope to talk at the same time. It's some sort of right brain-left brain thing that I don't understand—but when you have the music well memorized or you are improvising a different a part of your brain can regulate the talking. Just don't try it with a foreign language.

My wife likes to talk to me during sex. Yesterday she called me from across the street. ( cymbol shot )

I used to never be able to talk while playing. When I tried, it sounded very slurred.

So I tried doing what works with learning a new piece on the piano...by beginning very slowly, and with something very easy. Previously, I was trying to talk in more "advanced" sentences.

I began with just saying my name, slowly, or something very simple like "hello", while playing something easy for me.

Over the years, it has become much easier to talk while playing. So I guess it is just a skill, like learning to play with both hands.