Episode 92 - Cover Stories

G'day, everyone. Welcome to show number ninety-two of Piano, finally, a podcast by an old bloke who is getting around to learning the piano, finally. In this week's show, I review the Sydney Theatre Company's latest musical, muse about cover versions, and review a really handy pocket device for practising note recognition and copying.

Theatre Review: My Brilliant Career On Saturday, I went to see the Sydney Theatre Company's production of My Brilliant Career. If you want the short recommendation for this show, get a ticket if you can; it is a great, fun production.

• The story was written by Australian Author Miles Franklin, telling the story of Sybilla, a young woman living in outback Australia in the 1890s.
• There is no band; the music throughout was performed by the cast of ten actors, all of whom do an excellent job.
• The lead performer is Kala Gare who plays Sybilla.
• Promo Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ts08hNxCOE
• Tickets: https://www.sydneytheatre.com.au/whats-on/productions/2026/my-brilliant-career

Essay: Cover Stories This week, I look at the fundamental difference between the two different ways we approach music. In classical music and examinations, strict adherence to the score is required. In contrast, big names in pop or rock concerts don't follow their own written music. Shouldn't we be encouraging students to build their skills, but then to take them in new directions?. Should we be asking them to write their own musical stories rather than just more cover stories?.

Review: Korg VPT-1 During the week, a small piece of equipment arrived: the Korg VPT-1 or Vocal Pitch Tuner.

• It costs AUD59.
• It can play a tone at any of the notes in its range and listen to what it hears to display the pitch of the note.
• I've been using it to check that I'm staying on pitch when I do vocal exercises from my voice teacher, Sussanne.
• Mannys: https://www.mannys.com.au/products/korg-vpt-1-vocal-pitch-trainer
• Amazon: https://www.amazon.com.au/KORG-VPT-1-Vocal-Pitch-Trainer/dp/B083ZTJYWF?th=1

Coming Up & Progress

• The Piano has returned to ABC TV in Australia.
• The Bell Shakespeare Company's production of Julius Caesar was excellent. Tickets: https://www.bellshakespeare.com.au/julius-caesar
• In my piano progress, I'm working on Titans by Daniel McFarlane.

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All reviews of products, websites and services are unpaid, and no sponsorship has been received for any content on this podcast.

Transcript

Episode092: 0:00

G'day everyone, I'm David Reedy. Welcome to Piano Finally, a podcast by an old bloke who's getting around to learning the piano, finally. Welcome to show number 92. In this week's show, I'll review the Sydney Theatre Company's latest musical, Muse about cover versions, and review a really handy pocket device for practising note recognition and copying it if you're singing. If you're new to the show, I hope you find all that interesting. And if you're a regular, I hope you're enjoying the contents too. If there's something you'd like me to have a look at or talk about, drop me an email at david at pianofinally.show I'm back to writing the show while sitting at the Opera House. This week, it's not for a concert. It's for the Bell Shakespeare's production of Julius Caesar. It's another one of those plays that I've seen many times. but just like listening to a Beethoven symphony it's great to see how this performance will be put together. I'll mention how it goes at the end of the show. The choir is progressing. One of this week's pieces may as well have been written for tenors rather than basses. It starts on middle C and stays around there for the whole piece. Just as well I'm doing the singing lessons. I'm now not too bad at getting to those middle C's. In the piano lesson this week, I was working once more on titans. The right hand is all chords moving up the piano by octaves, and there are only three different ones, so I can sort of remember the progression now. The left hand plays single notes with some interesting rhythm. Separately, they're both quite simple, but together they still don't work properly. I'm assuming that with practice, it will eventually all line up. On Saturday, I went to see the Sydney Theatre Company's production of My Brilliant Career. Although I knew of the work from reading the book and seeing the movie made in 1979, I hadn't read anything about the STC production. If you want a short recommendation for this show, get a ticket if you can. It's great. For those not familiar with the story, My Brilliant Career was written by Australian author Miles Franklin. It tells the story of Sybilla, a young woman living in outback Australia in the 1890s. Franklin herself was just such a young woman. She wrote the novel while she was still a teenager. And she did go on to have a brilliant career. And Australia's highest fiction writing prize is named after her. I was not expecting the show to be what it turned out to be. The set is simple. a stage covered in dried grass with a raised platform in the centre on the platform was a collection of musical instruments including a piano and some keyboards a drum kit, guitars, an upright bass and assorted bits and pieces I thought it was nice that the band would be on stage as I had worked out by now that it was a musical but no, there is no band the music throughout was performed by the cast of ten actors all of whom do an excellent job The music was written by Matthew Frank as part of an artist-in-residence program at Monash University. It's all original and includes rock, folksy music and a touch of classical and it really shows off the talents of the cast. This is a very new work. It premiered in Melbourne in January this year and this is the first Sydney production. The lead performer is Carla Gare who plays Sybilla. She carries her all perfectly, and given the amount of physical exertion needed in some of the scenes, her performance is truly amazing. I've included a link in the show notes to the promotional video released for the Sydney premiere. It is certainly worth a watch. The production runs until the beginning of May, and if you're able to get a ticket, I'd buy one quick, as I think this is going to sell out once word gets around. The performance I was at was a full house, and it was Saturday afternoon. This play is a great time in the theatre The music is great, the staging is spot on and the performance is spectacular Shows like this prove the contemporary musical theatre is alive and well at least down here There's a link in the show notes to the ticket site Cover Stories A few things that I have noticed over the past few months led me to thinking about the topic of this week's essay. The main one being the fundamental difference between the two different ways we approach the music that I'm playing on the piano or singing in the choir. But it goes back further than that to the Chopin competitions I watched last year, and that is the fact that some music seems to be written in stone, or at least very permanent ink. I remember thinking when I disagreed with the judges at the Bacow and Chopin competitions, The judging was very subjective, and that if I had been asked to judge the competition, I would have been looking at objective criteria such as accuracy rather than interpretation. The judges do, of course, take accuracy into account, and without doubt, a pianist who departs from the written music is unlikely to get very far in a professional competition. In some of the interviews around the competitions, competitors spoke about the different ways they approached the more complex parts of the music to play the exact notes written on the page. A while back, I watched a video where a piano teacher demonstrated a way of sliding their thumb from one key to another so as to play a piece as written. In only a very few cases have I seen a top-ranked pianist discuss playing the music differently from how it is written, and always they have a pile of excuses and reasons for the departure. It would appear that the marks Beethoven, Bach or Chopin wrote on the page are not to be tampered with, despite the fact that there is anecdotal evidence that they did not play their pieces as written. This might seem scandalous, but not playing the music as written is probably more common than otherwise, if we look away from classical music. I've been fortunate enough to see some big names in concert, Sting and Paul Simon, Neil Diamond, Cher, and in most cases the music they perform in the concert is similar, but not identical, to the music in their recordings. In other words, they don't follow their own written music. Okay, it's their music, and they're fully entitled to do what they want with it, and fair enough. Part of the enjoyment of going to an Elton John concert is to hear how he's going to play his music, because it is apparently different every time he performs, even from night to night. No one else would dare make the changes, though, would they? Except that everyone does. A quick look at the music listings for venues will find a plethora of cover bands. Bands which try to sound as much like the original musicians as they can. There are companies that make settings packages for stage keyboards that duplicate the sounds of famous songs. I've even bought some. David Bennett often uses cover versions of songs to illustrate musical points while avoiding copyright troubles on YouTube. These covers are in the same vein as the Sydney Symphony Orchestra playing a piece like Ravel's Bolero As accurate a recreation of the original music as is possible But much more than cover bands, you'll find other artists performing a mix of original music and versions of other pieces Versions which are their interpretations of those other pieces And while they need to be close enough that the piece is still recognisable They are not faithful reproductions of the original works in the choir we do not perform songs the way they were originally written down we use arrangements that keep the musical ideas but which modify them for different vocal ranges and even then we don't always follow the arrangement exactly either and of course these versions of the music are just as valid as the more exact versions of a cover band so why don't we see this in classical music more often why is it that in a piano examination it is strict adherence to the score that is required Shouldn't we be encouraging students to build their skills and then take them in new directions? Should we be asking them to write their own musical stories rather than just more cover stories? During the week, a small piece of equipment arrived that I hope will make a big difference in the way I practice my music, at least to the singing part of my music making. It's a Korg VPT1 or Vocal Pitch Trainer. The device itself is a bit smaller than a pack of cards and weighs very little. It is powered by two AAA batteries, has four small buttons, a microphone and speaker, and a liquid crystal display. The display shows the two staves of the grand staff and can display notes from E2 to A5, or one ledger line below the staff to one ledger line above. It costs 59 Australian dollars. The VPT1 has two main functions Firstly, it can play a tone at any of the notes in its range It's nothing special, just a sine wave But it's enough to get a reference pitch Its second job is to listen to what it hears And display the pitch of the note If I think I'm singing or humming a C3 note It will tell me if I really am And it will indicate whether I'm sharp or flat If I'm not It's that simple I've been using it to check that I'm staying on pitch when I do the vocal exercises Suzanne, my voice teacher, gets me to do. Generally, they start on a note, go up a third, up a fifth, up an octave, and then down again. This then repeats, starting a semitone higher, until I run out of range, usually around D or E4. The cork lets me practice away from the piano, in particular in the car when I'm sitting around in the morning waiting for the swimming pool to open. it's turning out to be really useful and I'm able to grab a few minutes here and there to run through the exercises there's a link in the show notes to one of the Sydney shops I use for equipment but Korg is popular enough that you should be able to find it almost anywhere there's also a non-affiliate Amazon link in the show notes if you can't get to a real shop now if only I could just find an equivalent device for piano practice The piano has returned to ABC TV in Australia I'll watch the first couple of episodes and perhaps review them next week On Monday I have my last piano lesson for the term I'll also be at the singing lessons but they may continue through the holidays This week there's also an extra choir rehearsal for the bass section on Tuesday as well as regular practice on Thursday but Thursday is also the last day of school before the holidays, so I might not get much practice in to start the week, but everything should free up at the end. The production of Julius Caesar was, of course, excellent. The Bell Shakespeare Company has a well-deserved reputation for bringing Shakespeare to the stage, and they don't follow the text exactly. They had a really interesting way of handling the assassination scene, which I won't give away here. There's a link in the show notes to their ticket site, And if you like Shakespeare, then I'd recommend getting along to this production. If you'd like to contact me, email is the best way. You'll find me at david at pianofinally.show and the website at www.pianofinally.show. In both cases, Piano Finally is all one word. The show is also available on Spotify and is an audio-only stream on YouTube. You can subscribe via any popular iOS or Android podcast application or from directories such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. I also post an excerpt and link to each episode as an Instagram Reel. If you're learning an instrument, let me know where you are in your journey. What's going well? Have you got any devices you use to help? How are you managing your time? And so until next week, I hope your piano stays in tune and you enjoy your time at the Keys. Once again it's been a busy week so I didn't get a lot of practice done I am really looking forward to the upcoming holidays to make some decent progress This week I'll just include Titans It's probably moved along the most The music was recorded using the Kawaii NV10 which sent signals to Piano Tech 9 creating a Suguru Kawaii SK-EX Grand Piano on an M4 Pro Mac Mini with Cubase 15. piano plays softly