Piano music
Where to start? Listen to some of my favorites: Top tracks. Then try an album or two below.
Covers - Tracks by other composers
Original compositions: - Tracks composed by me
Available for download
Below are the collections of piano music I have recorded in chronological order. Most are my own compositions though many are my favourite pieces from other composers. I'm adding more regularly so check back and listen. Let me know if you enjoy them.
Click on a cover to listen and download the tracks (I'm still adding the earlier albums)
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Available on CD
Lovingly handmade by me.
If you like the music feel free to
The story
It's a happy accident that I'm still playing the piano. When I was fourteen I had planned for ages to ask my mum (not Dad as he'd say no) if I could finally give up learning both the clarinet and the piano. At the last minute, feeling like a let-down, I wimped out and just asked if I could stop playing the clarinet. Those little decisions always turn out to have such big consequences. In this case very happy ones.
Our next door neighbour when I was younger was a piano teacher. He was a great teacher, the sort who bred concert pianists. Happily I wasn't a concert pianist - maybe it's because running next door two minutes before a lesson never gave the impression this was a noble pursuit. As a consequence I never really enjoyed playing the piano. I'd practice scales half an hour before my lesson, turn up, play terribly, get told-off, then go home and do the same next week.
At some point, a low one, I changed teachers to a Mrs. Griffiths who was much more sympathetic to me playing badly and who helped me play pieces that I actually wanted to play. From then on I didn't need any more forcing. And now, if I was to pick the one activity that I enjoy the most it would have to be playing the piano. I could do it all week.
The technical details
All tracks are recorded on my Yamaha P-140 Electronic Piano. Honestly, it's as good or better than a real piano. It's the piano who's keys adorn the top of this page.
My recording process is somewhat convoluted but it seems to work well:
- I record direct from speaker output to Minidisc (I still have an original Minidisc)
- I record from minidisc to my Thinkpad X41 laptop through a Soundblaster Audigy2 ZS Notebook sound card
- I use the Smart Recorder program bundled with the Audigy2 card as it helps easily separate the tracks
- I save as stereo wav files at 44.1k and 16 bit - they are huge files
- I use the free, and awesome, Audiograbber software to both normalize the tracks and create mp3 files at the same time
- I edit the metadata in the Zune mediaplayer
