Piano No Mori Songs

[Salvator Grimard]

DearDr. Trochimczyk,

I really enjoyed reading you words and felt them very close to my heart. I stumbled upon Piano no Mori one sleepless night, compelled by the name I decided to give it a go. I have never followed anime before, but this story and the gentle way it was presented captured me under its spell, making me almost an addict! I keep watching it over and over again and finding little treasures. As a musician I understand the "drama" around performance, competitions, styles and craft. But most of all, I acknowledge the long, and sometimes painful journey to finding our unique voice, to "play your own piano," touch hearts and souls and allow music to transform the world around us. Because I am not an anime follower, the technicalities did not bother me. I would have preferred to have the same approach to "physical movement" of hands and the gestures of season one, in the second season, to follow and match the score in our heads. Nevertheless, the music, performances and the insightful lessons offered by Mr. Ajino, Kai and the other characters are blissful pearls in an ocean of memories and wisdom. Piano no Mori warms my heart, inspires me to be a better artist, to remember what really matters and to put forward my best effort and express what's deeply within and in need to be shared.

I also loved the way it presented Poland, its landscapes, the people and the memories, the reverence to the land and to an incredible music poet, Chopin.

Thank you for sharing Rilke's poem, for your own Chopin with Cherries and this emotive and appreciative insight into the Series. I love it! It's a balm for darker days and an inspiration for challenging practice times. I appreciate learning that Piano no Mori's has left a deep impression in other pianist as well. I feel accompanied now.

All the best.

Dear Dr. Trochimczyk,

Thank you for your article. I am also a great fan of the uplifting Forest of Piano anime series. The playing, in particular, is really inspiring, but it is not, I have to point out, by Ashkenazy. Although he was the pianist for the film, the anime series has different pianists as the models for the various characters in the story and Competition. The pianist behind Kai's creative interpretations and beautiful sound has never been revealed; rumor has it that he may turn out to be an entrant in this year's Chopin Competition. The other pianists are: Niu Niu (Wei Pang), Juliette Journaux (Sophie Ormesson), Szymon Nehring (Lech Szymanowski), Kyohei Sorita (Sosuke Ajino) and Takagi Ryoma (Shuhei Amamiya). The performances by younger versions of the characters are by "junior" pianists. I thought you'd like to know so that you can follow these fine artists.

All the best.

One follow-up to my comment-- I just learned that two of the Forest of Piano pianists are slated to be in the Chopin Competition this fall. They are Szymon Nehring (Lech Szymanowski) and Kyohei Sorita (Ajino). Hoping against hope for the Kai reveal.

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My newest record Artemisia is coming out on April 13th. To celebrate, there will be an album release show on April 11th - 7:30pm at Dixon Place. I'll be playing with my band "Throw a Glass," who's amazing performances are captured on Artemisia. It's gonna be a great show, and don't forget to listen to Artemisia, coming out on April 13th!

My free track for March is a new one called "It's Our Time MF." It was composed to celebrate the release of "Thoroughbreds," which is out now in theaters everywhere! "It's Our Time MF" is a line of dialogue spoken in the movie, and the track is inspired by some of themes from my score for the film. Download it for free right here! Also check out the short "making of" video above.

This Friday, Focus Features is releasing "Thoroughbreds," a psychological thriller directed by Corey Finley. I composed the soundtrack for the film, and am very excited to share that my score - along with a few pop songs featured in the film - will be released digitally on March 9th! This project was so great to work on, and I think that audiences will be surprised by some of the musical directions this film goes into. Sylvie Courvoisier played prepared piano on a few tracks, and Satoshi Takeishi added all kinds of percussion. Look for the soundtrack this Friday, and don't miss "Thoroughbreds," it's a really fantastic film!

I've recently finished up my newest album Artemisia, a project inspired by the murky history of absinthe as a brain bending, revelation inspiring substance. The album is recorded with my new band Throw A Glass, featuring Uri Caine on piano, Mark Helias on bass, Ches Smith on drums and me on cello. The record is already mixed and mastered and I recently previewed some of the material at The Stone. I truly believe that this album is one of the best of my career and I'm so excited for you all to hear it.

I want to do something special with this project so I'm trying to raise the funds to create a beautiful deluxe vinyl box set to house the recording. I've never tried crowd sourcing before, but I've set up an Indiegogo campaign and would like to ask for your help in supporting this endeavor. I've already paid for the majority of the project - the musician and studio fees, mixing and mastering costs - but need help creating the final physical product. The box set I've designed includes the album on 3 10" LPs, with artwork by Akino Kondoh, and an 8 page booklet with additional writings and artwork. The box set will be a beautiful addition to anyone's collection.

You can check out more details on the campaign at the link below - there are some really great perks that come with donating. If you don't feel as if you can donate, you can still greatly help me out by sharing this link with your friends and followers!

-boxset

Thank you so much for your time and support!

As part of Ikue Mori's residency at The Stone (November 14th-19th), I'm performing tonight in a quartet she has put together. Along with Mori on electronics and me on cello, Satoko Fujii on piano and Kappa Maki on trumpet will also be joining us. This should be an amazing show, I hope to see you there!

Tomorrow, I'm taking part in "John Zorn In 'S-Hertogenbosch", an all day festival comprising film scores, string quartets, chamber music, ensemble compositions and improvisations. This concert series takes place in various venues throughout Den Bosch on November 4th. The full schedule follows.

As some of you may be aware, The Stone is in the process of moving from Avenue C to its new location at The New School. I recently played my first shows at the new space and had an amazing time. The Stone runs at a deficit as they give all of their proceeds to the artists that play there, and this move will incur more costs. Therefore, they are now asking for support so that the move can go as smoothly as possible. If you're interested in giving, the link is below, and you can check out the great perks that come along with donating as well!

Hey I'll be performing this Friday as part of a two day marathon of John Zorn's Bagatelles at NYU's Skirball Center. The whole performance will feature 20 ensembles and over 100 pieces of music. This will be the only New York presentation of The Bagatelles this year, make sure you don't miss it!

I have played keyboard quite a while and now I'm starting to practice some classical music like Fur Elise. When I see a live performance of any musical instrument, there seem to be no errors at all. Perhaps I just can't notice them due to my lack of experience and knowledge.

With both of these the idea is practice makes permanent, not perfect. If you just keep hammering mindlessly away at a passage and playing it wrong, you get get better at playing it wrong. That is why you want to think before you play, and start slow. When you do this, you basically never or rarely actually play it wrong.

Remember this stuff takes time, playing the same section over and over and over again for an hour in one day is a waste of time. Play a section slowly maybe 2-5 times, then speed it up. When you hit your speed limit for the day, just move on to the next section. The reason is that these skills actually develop while you sleep, so you can't really force it.

Practice or practise (see spelling differences) is the act of rehearsing a behavior over and over, or engaging in an activity again and again, for the purpose of improving or mastering it, as in the phrase "practice makes perfect".

Unrelated to the piano, I've seen one of my favorite singers starting to sing the wrong verse live on stage.Halfway the first sentence, it was corrected by saying the other half of the right sentence. Nobody cared...

Start with small chunks and gradually add to them. I sometimes start at the end of the piece, learning the last 4 bars, then the last 8, last 12 and so on so when I come to perform the full piece, I'm always moving towards the more practised part of the piece.

After introducing your fingers to the chunk, play with a metronome as slowly as you need to to play the chunk perfectly (including the fingering). Don't increase the tempo until it's perfect and if you make a mistake, decrease the tempo until you get it right.

This also requires something else: Self confidence and experience. The first time(s) you play before an audience, you will most likely make mistakes, even if you have rehearsed to the extent that you never make mistakes when playing by yourself.

So you will have to go through some performances where you don't play perfect, but in the beginning, you won't be playing at prestigious concerts like in Carnegie Hall anyway, so your audience will most likely not hear the mistakes you do (because they are not likely music experts).

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