Bring back the piano in pubs...please

Subject: RE: Bring back the piano in pubs...please
From: Purple Foxx
Date: 24 Feb 06 - 12:55 PM

A Piano in a pub always puts me in mind of the Les Dawson line "Those marvellous evening get togethers...all gathered 'round the piano wishing one of us could play."

Subject: RE: Bring back the piano in pubs...please
From: Rasener
Date: 24 Feb 06 - 01:34 PM

I know Richard. I did those in the hope that mudcatters would start posting folkie piano players, but it didn't work. :-) Do most folkies not like piano then. I think it makes a very nice change to the evening.

Subject: RE: Bring back the piano in pubs...please
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 24 Feb 06 - 06:03 PM

I think folkie type music players are like gypsies - they prefer portable instruments.

Subject: RE: Bring back the piano in pubs...please
From: Stewart
Date: 24 Feb 06 - 08:32 PM

Who says a piano isn't portable. This guy regularly plays his piano (on wheels) on the street by the Pike Place Market in Seattle.

Cheers, S. in Seattle

Subject: RE: Bring back the piano in pubs...please
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Feb 06 - 09:09 PM

Hmmmm...just off to buy heavy duty castors for my 'proper' piano....then I'll only have to push it 12 miles to the nearest acoustic night...lol!
Mind u , there are some downhill bits..!

Subject: RE: Bring back the piano in pubs...please
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 24 Feb 06 - 09:29 PM

I have fond memories of piano-led sing-songs in pubs; I caught the tail-end of it in the 1970s, before the separate rooms were knocked into one and the pianos were replaced with jukeboxes and televisions.

Piano (electric or acoustic) is an asset to a session, whether instrumental or song-based, if played in tune by somebody who knows what they're doing (the same is true of banjo and bodhran/tambourine, if it comes to that). Always welcome from my point of view.

Subject: RE: Bring back the piano in pubs...please
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Feb 06 - 06:18 AM

piano music is great! but is it that the sound you get out of one isnt very human?
Whistles and stringy things have a more human quality.
Piano's dont seem to have that living thing quality in the same way.
Unless you get the lid off and play with the insides!
You cant bend,hammer on pull off,cant breath up and slip into a higher octave cant slide to or blend the sound
I think it is probably too pure and mechanistic to to have a folky feel.
Lot of english folk music I hear is suited to piano beause it lacks the intuative played in the pub feel anyway.
Because it is not actuslly folk music.
It is music gathered in from the "folk" and decreed fit to be played on safe conformist instruments (piano)in middle/Upper class parlour's by genteel folk. Or modern stuff written about real labouring accidents and incidents,like cycling tragedies in the pyrenees for example.
Maybe considering the make up of FC audiences,the traditional music of today should be about staff room romances,irksome red tape and how the workers are bleeding the poor bosses dry with unending unreasonable demands for more pay ,time off,holidays etc.
I am a great admirer of RH's playing and love her music,but she is writing music for the piano and in a way that makes the instrument part of the emotion and feeling she puts into it.
Traditional stuff doesnt seem to work in the same way for piano.
Also I have had the pleasure of listening to some very well know and brilliant musicians, and you know what?
It is more fun to hear a less than perfect performance by someone who loves the music they are playing,than the cd quality,but somehow strangely lacking emotionaly, genius.
Hey did you all see the kiddy on telly who just passed his grade 8 piano exam,and still spoke like a child,
Grade 8 is v good isnt it?

Subject: RE: Bring back the piano in pubs...please
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 25 Feb 06 - 06:44 AM

Very well said GUEST, and I tend to not disagree with most of what you said.

"Maybe considering the make up of FC audiences,the traditional music of today should be about staff room romances,irksome red tape and how the workers are bleeding the poor bosses dry with unending unreasonable demands for more pay ,time off,holidays etc."

OK 'Shiny Bums'### - where are you?

### a bunch of aussie folkies... public servants, you see...

Subject: RE: Bring back the piano in pubs...please
From: DMcG
Date: 25 Feb 06 - 07:47 AM

Richard Bridges asked "Have we had a pianist mentioned here that played folk music?"

Ralph Vaughan Williams, perhaps? Or any of that august group (Frank Kidson, the Broadwoods, and so on)?

Subject: RE: Bring back the piano in pubs...please
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Feb 06 - 08:05 AM

Whatever else my piano playing may or may not be...if I thought I played in a mechanical way( see Guest...above, why no identity BTW?)...I would give up...there is a place for that sort of technical playing but it is not my way and my piano and my keyboards are special living creatures with feelings so please whisper next time you suggest they are not...

There, there my precious, the guest didn't mean it really...
LOL

Subject: RE: Bring back the piano in pubs...please
From: Tim theTwangler
Date: 25 Feb 06 - 08:54 AM

Sorry,I was the mystery guest. The diatribe was mine, I was without cookie again.
I was not meaning to say that the pianist plays in a mechanicl way but that the instrument is a mechanial marvel and can only function as such.
And as a useful extra beer standing device in ye pub.
Also handy as a lovers seat but remember to take the key out first.
Piano can deliver truly breathtaking performance but when it is used to play folk music I am afraid it is as successful as opera singers performing heavy metal.

Subject: RE: Bring back the piano in pubs...please
From: Rockhen
Date: 25 Feb 06 - 09:39 AM

In your opinion...ok I accept that as such

Subject: RE: Bring back the piano in pubs...please
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Feb 06 - 10:24 AM

what about smaller harpsichords

and lightweight portable
old salvation army / colonial missionary style *travel harmoniums* ?


.. but then, i'd be tempted to use a sampler/laptop,
midi controller keyboard,
and small low-powered keyboard combo amp..



[*i've got one, but previous owner stored it in a damp garage
so its now too badly infested with mould and probably not worth restoring]

Subject: RE: Bring back the piano in pubs...please
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 25 Feb 06 - 06:51 PM

A few years ago, I saw a small piano like the one pictured above. At $800 AUD, I was very tempted, but really didn't have the spare space at home. And I personally prefer a 'pipe organ' or even 'harpsichord' sound myself to a piano.

Subject: RE: Bring back the piano in pubs...please
From: Tim theTwangler
Date: 26 Feb 06 - 11:03 AM

Hye in days of yore at the Grimsby Fc wich did meete at the Darleys Hotel in Cleesthorpes. AA you young lady did play upon an folding and very portable Harmonium.
It sounded great to my untrained ears and was great fun especially on the polishe wooden floor of the place.
It did slide away across said floor quite merrily.
But at least it wasnt just another guitar.
you should take yer pianee t'pub and stuff em.

Subject: RE: Bring back the piano in pubs...please
From: Saro
Date: 27 Feb 06 - 09:31 AM

I used to play my harmonium (yes, it was the folding up variety)and had much fun with it sliding about across the floor - occasionally had members of the audience leaning on it to stop it escaping! However,since I fell in love with the english concertina, the harmonium doesn't get out much (sigh). But going back to pianos, have you heard Beryl Marriot? She is quite brilliant, and I believe she is the lady who encouraged Dave swarbrick to take up the fiddle.
Sarah