Official Piano Day 2021 Playlist

Happy Piano Day!

Piano Day 2021 Playlist

Microtonality Miniatures

The group "Piano Soundboard", is happy to once again be part of Piano Day. This falls on the 88th day of each year, which is the amount of keys on a piano. Enjoy this fantastic tracks from all over the world.

Piano Day 2021

good finds

Contemporary piano music. Everything I feel like it's worth listening but I try to focus on innovative, strange and moving pieces. Suggestions and comments are welcome.

Piano

piano 2

Justified

Each year there is a celebration for Piano Day. It falls on the 88th day of each year. In case you don't know the significance of the number 88, it's the amount of keys on a piano keyboard. I have had a love affair, over the past 3 years, with recording real pianos, so once again, I pulled of the front & top panels of an old "Beale" upright, positioned Royer 121 ribbon mics left & right & then set a Nuemann U87 directly in the middle above the hammers. Then I rolled the tape & just improvised this tune. Many people have been feeling meaningless, due to the Covid 19 restrictions & how it has changed our lives. Isolation, lack of socialisation, fear for the future & so on. This tune was born from these initial feelings, but has an optimistic ring to it. Enjoy.

Meaningless

Meaningless #Piano Day 2021

Now on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/intl-tr/album/14eqrXQJoSPrzzweUYyc46?si=IlNY6NNJSYusFvDqyiTE_Q

Imagine a very special turtle which is born with a pearl. It protects the pearl with its shell and no other creatures can't take their eyes off it's beauty. This is the turtle's story. Dance with it in the depths of the sea.

Turtle with a Pearl

Pink floyd vibes with jarre-esque synths rolling through this blissful melody, with the electro-jazzy vibe of the guitar/percussion, meandering bassline against the light dancing keyboard riffs

Girl Looking at Sky

“Hypnagogia" taken from Vetle Nærø’s forthcoming album ‘Introspecion', out on April 16th 2021 on 7K!

Pre-order and stream here: https://7k.lnk.to/Introspection​

Medias: https://linktr.ee/vetleneaero​

Follow 7K!
https://www.facebook.com/7Klassik/​​
https://twitter.com/7K_Music​​
https://www.instagram.com/7k_music/​​

Hypnagogia

Cave

The first piece I've written since March 2020. Difficult times.

Über den Berg

Über den Berg - Piano Day 2021

Anlässlich des Piano Days am 27.03.2021 veröffentlicht Piano Soundboard auf Soundcloud wieder eine Playlist, für die ich dieses Stück an diesem Wochenende komponiert habe.
On the occasion of the Piano Day on March 27th, 2021, Piano Soundboard will again publish a playlist on Soundcloud, for which I composed this piece this weekend.
Die komplette Playlist / The complete playlist:
https://soundcloud.com/the-piano-cloud/sets/piano-day-2021

Handle My Moods

Track from Black Shaman new album Old City (Out April 29, 2021)

Black Shaman, dark jazz / downtempo an experimental musical project from Madrid, Spain.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/blackshamanmusic
Bandcamp: https://black-shaman.bandcamp.com/
Web: https://creepysound.com/
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/sycantrhope

Old City

Tune Motion

Tune Motion by Black Shaman

Rescue

Please share your comments on: Twitter (twitter.com/scottu) or Facebook (facebook.com/scottunreinmusic)

Incandescent (2021) for piano and marimba

Oversky

Download

Jacob Pavek - Illume

This is a justly intoned arrangement of Chopin's Etude in C Major (Opus 10, No. 1), the first Etude of his series of Etudes which demonstrated his new piano performance techniques.

Although Etudes are usually technical exercises, Chopin's are special since they are immensely listenable with intricate harmonies.

I have retuned Chopin's harmony to have much more than 12 notes to the scale. More to come (hopefully soon!) about the notes which have been used. Concisely, the major and minor triads and sevenths have almost everywhere been preserved, and Chopin's use of sequences leads the harmony down very interesting and long paths in the 7-limit tonal lattice. A couple of jarring transitions are where the harmony jumps up by a syntonic comma (or 7-limit comma). As always, 11th and 13th harmonics are smuggled in, in some of the diminished chords near the end.

Enjoy!

Dave

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See also:
- https://arxiv.org/a/ryan_d_1 (arXiv) for a list of my academic paper pre-prints, including my writing on music theory and Just Intonation
- http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4785-9766 (ORC ID) for my academic profile
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidryan59 for my LinkedIn profile

Chopin Etude in C Major - Op. 10, No. 1 - Chip Synth, Justly Intoned

This is a justly intoned arrangement of J. S. Bach's Prelude in C Sharp Major, the third Prelude of the 48 Preludes and Fugues, a body of work by Bach which demonstrated that with tempered tunings every major and minor key was usable. It was made using a custom sequencer in Excel+Octave which allowed exact frequencies to be specified.

'Normalised commas' mean that the piece was composed in simple Just Intonation by specifying local frequency ratios, the most important of which are major (4:5:6) and minor (10:12:15) triads locally. However, between different sections they may be out of tune by microtonal commas (e.g. 81/80) and to fix this the different sections need to be stitched together by multiplying the later section by an accumulation of commas. This means that we get 'comma travel' so the piece moves sharp or flat in frequency. To fix this second issue, the commas can be normalised by dividing out by a local moving average of the accumulated commas.

By comparing this normalised version to the 'comma travel' version, it is easy to detect this movement in pitch. The commas on this track were normalised over 48 beats (8 bars).

Accumulation of commas, normalised or unnormalised, will be explained further in my second JI maths/music paper - pending! The theme of it is how to take any sheet music and retune it into JI using comma alterations, mainly of 5th and 7th harmonics. However, as always, in this track I've snuk in some 11th and 13th harmonics which you might be able to locate by ear or by examining the code blocks in Github (upload pending as of 9th Nov 2015).

Enjoy!

Dave

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Bach number of this track: BWV848 or BWV 848

See also:
- https://arxiv.org/a/ryan_d_1 (arXiv) for a list of my academic paper pre-prints, including my writing on music theory and Just Intonation
- http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4785-9766 (ORC ID) for my academic profile
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidryan59 for my LinkedIn profile

Bach BWV848 Prelude in C Sharp Major - Chip Synth, Justly Intoned, Normalised Commas

Fund/preorder here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/alex-kozobolis-weightless#/

Weightless is an EP of intricate original piano compositions by UK artist Alex Kozobolis. With a series of solo releases over the past few years and collaborations with artists such as Lee Chapman, Harry Edwards, and Anna Rose Carter, Weightless represents Alex's unique approach to composition and melody. 

His touch on the piano is light and fluid; moving between dense sustained runs, which evaporate as soon as they are heard, to spaciously plotted notes. Weightless is the sound of weight itself lifting, of the earthly effect of gravity removed and allowing the listener to be suspended within mid-air, uninterrupted by pressures and restrains of the physical world. Coursing with energy, and running to take flight.

Each of the four tracks have been remixed by Siavash Amini, Tom Adams, Trnspt and Hedia, with very different, but cohesive results, expanding the tone of the EP into new areas.  

Weightless will be available on limited clear vinyl, digipack CD and digital editions.

Tracklist 

Side A
1. Unravel
2. Closure
3. And Find Yourself
4. Weightless

Side B
1. Weightless (Tom Adams Remix)
2. And Find Yourself (Siavash Amini Remix)
3. Closure (Hedia Remix)
4. Unravel (Transept Remix)

Closure by Alex Kozobolis

Piano Textures 4 III from the album Piano Textures 4.
Date release Single: 22 November 2016.
Date release CD album: 2nd. December 2016.
Date release LP album: mid January 2017.
Orders: https://brunosanfilippo.bandcamp.com/album/piano-textures-4

Format: LP (Clear 180g) ~ CD (Digipack) ~ Digital (iTunes, Spotify, bandcamp)

www.bruno-sanfilippo.com
www.facebook.com/brunosanfilippo.music
twitter.com/BrunoSanfilippo
instagram.com/brunosanfilippo

Piano Textures 4

Spotify

Piano Textures 4 III  - free download

This track is an example of a simple twelve bar backing track accompanying a solo melody written in free Just Intonation (JI).

JI allows access to all the frequencies, not just the ones on the piano keyboard or guitar frets. Often musicians when playing the blues, jazz, or guitar solos, bend the string to produce a higher pitch. In this track, there are no 'bent' notes, only precisely specified notes which are often noticeably different to the standard notes from 12-EDO.

Some devices used include:
- No scale - only addressing frequencies (in Hz) directly via whole numbers. E.g. 4, 5, 6 multiplied by 60 Hz would give 240Hz, 300Hz, 360Hz directly.
- Descending harmonic series, e.g. 32, 31, 30, 29, 28, 27, 26, 25, 24, 23, 22, 21, 20, 19, 18, 17, 16
- What sounds like vibrato, but is actually a combination of holding and sliding pitches several times a beat
- Rapid switching of frequency several times a beat, this is a common chip tune device.
- Descending shifting triads, e.g. 61, 54, 47, 56, 49, 42, 51, 44, 37, 46, 39, 32...

Just Intonation is the future for those of us who like both maths and music! I understand that not everyone wants numbers in their music composition. However, that's fundamentally what frequencies are, thats what harmony is, a combination of whole numbers. And you get more interesting results when using the numbers for what they are, which is unique chords well outside of traditional harmony. I am particularly enjoying the sound of the prime numbers 11, 13, 23, 29, 31, 41, 43 and 61 in this composition.

May the prime numbers be with you! Enjoy - Dave

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See also:
- https://arxiv.org/a/ryan_d_1 (arXiv) for a list of my academic paper pre-prints, including my writing on music theory and Just Intonation
- http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4785-9766 (ORC ID) for my academic profile
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidryan59 for my LinkedIn profile

Example of the Twelve Bar Blues with crazy Solo in Just Intonation

This track is an example of a simple twelve bar backing track accompanying 3-note block harmony written in free Just Intonation (JI) with added sliding chords.

For example, one transition used is between a major triad 1st inversion (5 6 8) to a major triad root position (4 5 6), with 1 and then 2 different intermediate chords on the 1st and 2nd repetitions respectively:

1 intermediate chord on 1st repetition:
16   14   12
12   11   10
10    9     8

2 intermediate chords on 2nd repetition:
24   22   20   18
18   17   16   15
15   14   13   12

You could call these types of transition a ‘linear step’ since the frequencies of each note in the harmony undergo linear steps from the starting point to the end point. They are otonal, operating on the upper harmonics (the set of whole-number N, as opposed to utonal which operate on 1/N).

These types of transitions give access to higher prime numbers such as 11, 13, 17 in the examples above. In Just Intonation, hearing the higher prime numbers is the coolest thing of all and I fully anticipate this being as interesting and widespread a hobby as trainspotting or stamp collecting in the decades ahead. Imagine listening to all the prime numbers between 1 and 500! The sheer joy!! No doubt this type of thing will have a high frequency in the future.

If prime numbers wasn’t enough, some chords undergo continuous linear slides instead of linear steps. In the track icon, it is a screenshot of the spectrogram of this track, and a linear step looks like a ladder, but a linear slide looks like a slope of constant gradient. The great thing about a linear slide is that at any rational point during the slide, the notes are in a whole number ratio, but that ratio is changing constantly. So I guess it counts as some kind of extension of Just Intonation.

May your musical listening frequently slide into Just Intonation :) Dave

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See also:
- https://arxiv.org/a/ryan_d_1 (arXiv) for a list of my academic paper pre-prints, including my writing on music theory and Just Intonation
- http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4785-9766 (ORC ID) for my academic profile
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidryan59 for my LinkedIn profile

Example of the Twelve Bar Blues with 3-note harmony using linear steps and slides in Just Intonation

This is a justly intoned arrangement of J. S. Bach's Invention 1 in C Major, the first of his 2 Part Inventions.

It was made using a custom sequencer in Excel+Octave which allowed exact frequencies to be specified, with plenty of post-processing in Audacity.

The prime limit for this track is 2029. The highest primes used were 2029, 521, 61, 29, 19, 13 and 11. However most of the notes were on the 7-limit JI lattice. I only added higher primes to spice things up! Also I put in a whole stack of pitch bends and special effects which weren't in the original. Hopefully to improve on Bach's work! To be honest, even if its worse, I had fun :) and when musicians originally played this they would have ornamented and embellished it, in my defence. It now has features, its definitely not ruined/buggy, its now full of art and soul.

When arranging this music, a few 'commas' were used, which is where the key has travelled from say C4=1/1 to C[5]4=80/81. The commas were normalised out over 3 seconds, which means the base frequency was smoothed out so that the music was not away from 1/1 for more than around 3 seconds. If this had not been done then the ending key would have been out from the starting key by the product of all the commas encountered along the way.

If anyone is bothering to follow the development of my sequencers and general mixing ability (or is still reading) then I have just discovered Reverb in Audacity. Reverb reverb reverb! Its awesome! I am definitely going to binge and misuse that for the next few tracks. Apologies in advance. I wish I could go back in Time using a Time travelling device and put More Reverb on all my previous tracks (a friend commented they were 'too dry' and I now know what they mean). But SoundCloud has not this feature to modify an Existing Track. They are Set In Stone. So I won't and can't add reverb to my previous tracks. But I would if I could. Reverb rocks! wow

Enjoy!

Dave

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Bach number of this track: BWV772 or BWV 772

See also:
- https://arxiv.org/a/ryan_d_1 (arXiv) for a list of my academic paper pre-prints, including my writing on music theory and Just Intonation
- http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4785-9766 (ORC ID) for my academic profile
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidryan59 for my LinkedIn profile

Bach BWV772 Invention 1 in C Major using 2029-limit Just Intonation

This track was created as a homage to Piano Day 2017 and was recorded on the day storm Doris hit the UK. I wanted to write a track that felt affirming in the midst of a turbulent beginning to the year. The track was recorded during the later hours of the day when the storm was receding but a drop or two of rain can still be heard. It's available to download across digital platforms from 24.03.17 xx

You'll Be Okay

Pas À Pas (Piano Day 29th March)

A couple of things I recorded last night at home, warts and all.

Forgotten Postcards

Préludes - Avant le Jeu

2021

Prélude No. 3

BORN is the title track from the Swedish pianist Carl Liungman's solo piano debut album BORN (2020). 
This is minimalistic piano music, burgeoning, searching and hopeful, that opens up both the living room and inner room of the listeners heart. Neither major nor minor chords are dominating, transforming the music into a quaint soundscape with the naivety, self-assurance and wonder of a child.
BORN is piano music devoted to its simplicity and intimacy, as understated as it is energetic, like the melancholy of reflection, in the light of life.

Carl Liungman’s album Born was released worldwide on all major digital music platforms on May 22 2020.

All rights reserved.
Copyright: CARL LIUNGMAN 2022
ISRC: SE3DA2001701
Photo by Gabriel Flores Jair, Malmo, Sweden

Born

Second single 'Dance' from Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres' debut album 2 YEARS STRANGER releasing Nov 20th 2020

All tracks written and produced by Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres
Mastering | Freddie Prest
Publishing | Manners McDade
Distribution | The Orchard
Artwork | SABR Mask by Tim Hamilton

Dance

Shifting Visions

When I needed space, I needed you

Venus

2021-01-02

a waterman was sitting in  the willow

Piano Day 2021 sees Nils Frahm surprise the world with his Erased Tapes debut. Wait, what? How? Anyone who has seen the trail blazing sonic pioneer live will know Nils likes to deadpan a joke. Graz is in fact the first studio album he recorded for the label back in 2009, that somehow remained a secret… until now.

Stream, download & pre-order Graz now (CD & LP shipping on May 21): https://idol.lnk.to/Graz 

"A grand piano is a particular kind of beast to play, which will only sound refined and beautiful if you command a strong control over the keyboard. Each slight change in touch results in a different timbre, which will be rewarded when used wisely and will be your trapdoor when you fail to hold the horses. I remember how I had to squeeze the music out of the grand piano in the Graz sessions, and while I enjoy listening to it now, I kept these recordings secret for a good while – they sound like a much younger version of myself to me, and a lot of the musical expressions from that time would be impossible for me to replicate today. Close friends whom I had shared the record with reminded me of it once in a while, and some of the pieces got released in other versions on the album Spaces in the meantime. But somehow, any piece of music you create wants to get out there in order to find you, which is why I’m glad to share this beast with you and do hope you enjoy listening to it too!
Love, Nils"

Graz

Hammers (ft. Peter Broderick)

Stream & pre-order

Nils Frahm - Hammers (ft. Peter Broderick)

A little improv in Pythagorean tuning by Stacy Fahrion. I'm currently using the free trial version of Pianoteq. It's an amazing program, and so far I actually love the creative limitations it imposes by leaving certain black keys out.

D Phrygian improvisation in 5/4 with 3-limit tuning by Stacy Fahrion

The cycle in the LH is 5+6+7+6+5, and the RH is playing a 3 over 5 polyrhythm.

Meditation on Time (29-beat pattern In G Dorian)

Now that I'm exploring microtonality I spend time deciding new things like whether or not the 2nd should be 10/9 or 9/8. 10/9 seemed a bit too mellow, so I went for 9/8.

D Minor 5-limit miniature with 9:8 E

5:4 with some 7-limit cubes

Exuberance is beauty." ~William Blake (one of the more perplexing phrases from Proverbs of Hell)

A few days ago, I programmed Michael Harrison's 7-limit Revelation tuning into Pianoteq using Scala, and I feel like I could spend years just experimenting with this particular tuning. I began by playing excerpts of his gorgeous, mind-blowing piece, Revelation, and then veered off into improvising with the tuning a bit. This is the first thing I came up with, and Michael Harrison's tuning is really what makes it sound cool. At the very least, it's fun to play. 

Find out more about Michael Harrison and his music here: https://www.michaelharrison.com/
Find out more about Michael Harrison and his music here: https://www.michaelharrison.com/

Connect with Whimsically Macabre on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WhimsicallyMacabreMusic/

Whimsically Macabre Sheet music, including my recent book, Polyrhythms for Pianists: https://pianopronto.com/composers-community/stacy-fahrion/

Whimsically Macabre recordings: https://whimsicallymacabre.bandcamp.com/
(Watch for my album, Polyrhythmic Pieces for Piano, coming very soon!)

Exuberance (7-limit Revelation tuning)

This piece is loosely based on a korvai that BC Manjunath taught in the 2020 International Rhythm Course. The left hand is consistently a 5-beat pattern, while the right hand is doing its own thing. 

The tuning is The Janus Scale, the same 11-limit tuning from Paul Johnson that I used for my last piece, Floating, but this piece is centered a tritone away on B-flat instead of E. Since it's called The Janus Scale, I wanted to write a contrasting piece to pair with Floating. 

During this pandemic, I've been very fortunate to be able to study with teachers like BC Manjunath, Jacob Adler, Michael Harrison, and Ned McGowan, who all encourage their students to explore. I wrote this piece as a final project for Jacob Adler's microtonality crash course, and also in preparation for taking part in the continuation of the International Rhythm Course.

Connect with Whimsically Macabre on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WhimsicallyMacabreMusic/

Whimsically Macabre Sheet music: https://pianopronto.com/composers-community/stacy-fahrion/

Polyrhythms for Pianists book: https://pianopronto.com/composers-community/stacy-fahrion/stacy-fahrion-polyrhythms-for-pianists/

Whimsically Macabre recordings: https://whimsicallymacabre.bandcamp.com/
(Polyrhythmic Pieces for Pianists album coming soon!)

Khanda Etude in 11-limit Janus tuning

Stacy Fahrion is a composer-pianist and educator based in Colorado, and is currently creating music in just intonation that frequently features polyrhythms, polymeters, and isorhythm.