Customer Review: Where was this when I got married???!!!!OMG... I was trying to find something unique to play walking down the aisle (even though I found something else-"Barcarolle from La Vita E Bella Soundtrack :-D) in Feb of 2008. I'm a HUUUUGE fan of Coldplay (hate Viva la Vida, ick!), and this is AMAZING :-D!!!! Had I HAD the chance to walk down to this CD, it woulda been Shiver, Clocks, or Trouble :-D I'm soo kicking myself in the you-know-what!!!! I'm buying this ASAP!!! Can't wait to see them next month in Philly!!!! Sincerely, Jessica R (dorkyj2002)
Customer Review: Strings sound good on Coldplay
I'm giving this a 5 when I really think it deserves a 4.5. I think it deserves many listening ears and I don't want to undercut it by giving it a 4. In my opinion the genre of string tributes to pop/alternative albums is a bit dicey. They tend toward the cheesy (you can almost hear the elevator climbing floors as you listen) or the bizarre (you hear cellos and violins but hear Isaac sloane's voice in your head as the songs play). This album, however, manages to forge out its own identity--it's Coldplay but it's not Coldplay in an elevator or in a bizarre dream. Instead it's a beautiful manifestation of an already cool band and great album. Not that Coldplay needs a lot of improvement mind you, but this album adds art--and value--to what the band originally created. If you don't like a classical music vibe and you don't like strings, then I don't think you will like this, but if you do and you like Coldplay, then give it a try.
Have you ever wondered how piano tuners learn their trade? Most tuners learn the business from a family member. In fact, piano tuning often spans several generations in a family, handed down from father to son.
There are good tuners and great tuners, but in any case they have to learn a craft that is several hundred years old and has changed little.
There are three distinct types of tuners: tuners, repairmen and rebuilders. Usually a tuner works their way up from simple tuning to the more difficult task of repair and then rebuilding.
A tuner can expect $100 per tuning, but if they work for someone else they may take home only half of that. Still, it is a job much in demand.
The average tuning takes at least an hour, and requires quiet and solitude, although the very best tuners, usually working for a large firm like Steinway, can expect to be on call for the most famous concert pianists.
These superstars of the piano business hover backstage at major concerts, waiting for the occasional string to break so they can vault out onto the stage and fix it in front of thousands of people.
One such tuner superstar is Franz Mohr, who was tuner and repairman for two legendary pianists, Vladimir Horowitz and Artur Rubinstein. As an employee of the Steinway Company, he was delegated to accompany either of these two great artists on their world travels, tuning hammer and pliers at the ready, in case something should go wrong, \he most dramatic being a string breaking during a concert.
Mohr became a personal friend of both Rubinstein and Horowitz, was part of their international entourage.
Mohr selected pianos for Horowitz, for Horowitz never took a "company" piano. By this you must understand that great concert pianists are sometimes forced to play on a variety of instruments in their travels. The only solution to this problem of inconsistency is to take a piano with you, and this is very, very expensive, requiring genuine superstar status.
Horowitz had his favorite Steinway 9 foot concert grand, and he kept it at home. When a concert tour came, the neighbors of his New York City Upper East Side townhouse were used to the sight of the immense piano being lowered slowly out the window and onto a waiting truck.
Mohr and other great tuners I have known like Steinway's Heinz Zimmerman were artists in their own right. To tune and repair a piano for a professional pianist is an extremely demanding job, for the results must in fact be perfect. Every key must feel exactly the same. Every key must feel, to the artist, as if they have the same weight, the same feel, the same speed. The process that achieves this at the piano is called "regulation," and may take several days to adjust the thousands of tiny moving parts
There is no better feeling to a great pianist than a great piano, perfectly tuned and regulated, waiting for beautiful music to be played.
By John Aschenbrenner Copyright 2000 Walden Pond Press. Visit http://www.pianoiseasy.com to see the fun PIANO BY NUMBER method for kids.
John Aschenbrenner is a leading children's music educator and book publisher, and the author of numerous piano method books in the series PIANO BY NUMBER.
music on so you think you can dance
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