A Honeymoon at Troldhagen

In the previous century (1999), Doug and I were married and flew off to Norway for our honeymoon. Since we were all consumed with wedding preparations, I just booked a 10 day tour and let them decide which cities and sights to see. Edvard Grieg is a national treasure in Norway and thankfully, the tour included a visit to his former home, Troldhaugen. This statue of Grieg looks like a miniature, but I looked up his height and he was only 5 feet tall, so it's probably life-size, a tiny man!

Troldhaugen is a modest house, but you can feel the presence of the musical genius. A concert hall was built on the site, complete with a grass roof, one of my favorite things about Norway.

No chance of me trying the piano in the concert hall, but at least I got a photo.

I hunted down these photos in our photo album, but then I remembered that I had ScanCafe scan all my negatives a few years ago. Sure enough, I found these high quality images on my hard drive that I had forgotten about.

Twenty-six years and a pandemic later, I finally learned my favorite Grieg Lyric Piece, Wedding Day at Troldhaugen (as opposed to this post, A Honeymoon at Troldhaugen). 

For an authentic recording of all the Lyric Pieces, check out Leif Ove Andsnes playing them on Grieg's 1892 Steinway at Troldhaugen.

Looking forward to traveling again after the pandemic!

Half Page Turns for Digital Sheet Music

Performing with one of my favorite page turners, Adam.

In 2012, we watched Christopher O'Riley perform on From the Top with a laptop folded back on the piano. This was before tablets were widely used, and certainly before the full-size iPad Pro came out.

Christopher O'Riley with Gordon Neidinger, mandolin, From the Top 2012

From the Top Photo by Neale Eckstein, 2017

Shortly afterward, Mr. O'Reilly switched to an iPad as seen here with Ifetayo Ali-Landing in 2017. Being a software geek through and through, I had to jump on the bandwagon. I didn't want to invest in an iPad Pro in case my efforts fell flat. I opted for a used (unfortunately discontinued) Samsung Galaxy Pro Tablet 12.2" and a Donner Bluetooth Pedal. At around $350 total, this is a much smaller investment than an iPad Pro 13" at $1000 and top off the line Page Flip Firefly Bluetooth Page Turner Pedal at $110.

Cheapness does come with a price. I lost 0.8" on the diagonal screen dimension (12.2" vs 13"), but because of the aspect ratio, this becomes even more in the horizontal direction in portrait mode. The width of the page determines how large the sheet music appears on the screen. Full-size sheet music is 9"x12" which is the same 4:3 aspect ratio as the iPad, or 1.333. Even 8.5"x11" pages have a similar 1.29 ratio. By comparison, a 16:9 ratio is 1.778. Here's a little math to determine the difference in the width of the two screens.

So the width of my 16:9 12.2" tablet screen is 6" versus the iPad at 7.8". That's a huge difference in width! So how does 6" look against the same music on a 9x12" page?

Actually, not that bad since music apps crop the white space of the page. At first, I was bothered by the bluish hue of the white background but I finally found the sepia tone to be more like sheet music paper.

The first thing I realized about using digital sheet music is that you have to turn the pages twice as often as paper sheet music. Paper sheet music in books or binders always show two pages at a time. This is fine when the music is not very complex, but when you in a complicated passage near the page turn this can be quite stressful. If you stomp the pedal too many times or press both pedals at once, the on-screen keyboard may pop up by accident or worse the program crashes. This would be disastrous in a performance!

My initial app for sheet music was Orpheus, but then I moved to MobileSheets for this feature: half page turns! I watched a fellow chamber music pianists effortless play a piano trio with his iPad Pro and asked him how he became comfortable turning pages with the pedal. He showed me his nifty forScore app (iOS only at a pricey $14.99!!) and how he uses half-page turns. Wait - doesn't that mean you have to turn pages twice as often, or 4 times the number paper sheet music turns?

With half-page turns, you press the pedal somewhere in the bottom half of the page and half of the next page pops on top of the screen. Then you seamlessly play from the bottom of the screen to the top of the screen without having to worry about pressing the pedal at exactly the right time. After you get to the next page at the top of the screen, you press the pedal again when it's convenient to fill down the rest of the page. So page turns are essentially decoupled from the actual playing and don't have to be timed perfectly right. Even though it's more presses, it's far less stressful.

But I didn't have an iPad Pro with the forScore app! With some searching, I found that the free version of MobileSheets also had half-page turns. It's a little tricky to enable, so here are the instructions (note the sepia tone which is easier on the eyes):

Tap and hold the screen to get the bottom toolbar.

Tap the page button (4th icon circled in green).

Under Display mode, select "Half Page". Also, you can set the Sepia tone lower on this settings page. Another setting I found invaluable was the page scaling mode (next button on the bottom toolbar). When you set to full screen, it stretches the page so that you don't get the letterbox wasted space you can see with the Orpheus screenshots at the beginning of this post.

Here is a half-page turn for a tricky passage in Beethoven's Archduke trio. You simply play from the bottom to the top of the page. In fact, this is a better way to learn the music through a paper page turn because you can see it all at once.

My first performance with digital sheet music was with Claude Bolling's Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano. My sheet music copy was purchased back in 1980 and is completely falling apart. Every time I practiced, more pages would opt to leave the binding and the scotch tape everywhere was getting ridiculous. The performance was definitely a bit more stressful with the digital page-turning, but it wasn't disastrous.

Still, I feel more comfortable with paper sheet music for performances. I mostly use digital sheet music to try out pieces before I decide to print them. Maybe someday I'll become more comfortable with it, but in the end, I'm still an old-fashioned paper sheet music gal. Thank goodness I didn't plunk down the money for the iPad Pro (although I'm sure I could find other uses for one)!

Jumping into Mechanics Hall

People swear by visualization as a technique to achieve your dreams. As a parent, I always wanted my kids to succeed in music. Six years ago in 2012, we went to a concert at Mechanics Hall in Worcester. It was the first time the kids experienced this magnificent space. Adam was 11 and Dova was 8 years old.

I wanted them to feel comfortable in this space so we explored the stage a bit during intermission.

Of course, I made sure they "didn't go too far".

I mentioned, "Wouldn't it be nice if you could perform here one day?"

I took the first photo of the bustling hall, framed it and put it on the landing of the stairs to the second floor of our house so they would see it each time they went upstairs. Imagine yourself performing here...

Only three years later, Adam performed at Mechanics Hall with his school band as part of the MICCA Gold Medal Showcase. Woohoo! Visualization paid off! He's actually performed there six times since with various groups. In the last performance, I decided to capture the same shot but with Adam in the photo this time. He always stands out playing the bass.

And then I replaced the photo in the stairwell. Way to jump into the photo!

Living the Chamber Music Life

Chamber music has always been part of my life, starting with piano duets with fellow students as a child and moving to larger groups as an adult. Because what’s better than playing music by yourself? Playing in a group of course. There’s nothing so magical as playing completely in sync with other musicians, playing in harmony, breathing as one, passing themes back and forth. During rehearsals, we always laugh at funny mistakes and cheer at perfect endings.

Every once in a while, in rehearsal with really good players, the music is so overwhelmingly beautiful that you feel you’ve just touched the divine. You can close your eyes for a split second and everything is completely right with the world. You breathe in and hold your breath hoping to hang onto the sense of euphoria. It must be like an opioid high, but ever so brief. Then the music will carry you back to reality, as it is inherently rooted in the present time. Listen to this spot in the Schubert Trio Op. 99 for a minute as an example.

When Adam played the violin as his main instrument, we played several sonatas for violin and piano by Mozart and Beethoven. These are not violin sonatas with piano accompaniment but really chamber works as both instruments are equally important. It's a pet peeve when someone compliments my "piano accompaniment". If the music is specifically written as chamber music for piano and not a symphonic reduction for a concerto, it is not accompaniment! (Now stepping down from the soapbox...) I had always hoped to play chamber music with Adam in larger groups but he had moved on to playing the bass where there is a lot less chamber music and he had also become a busy high schooler.

One of my lifelong dreams is to play the Schubert Trout quintet. After playing in piano trios for years, I joined a string quartet at my music school and suggested the Trout. I had the Music Minus One version and was never able to play it up to tempo with the CD, but thought I could handle it with real people. Little did I know that this quintet was scored for violin, viola, cello, and bass. The coach (a cellist) expressed her concern about trying to combine the cello and bass parts or shifting everyone to play a lower part (2nd violin to viola, viola to cello) which would be a lot of work. When I heard this, I suggested that Adam play the bass part especially since he was already at the music school for his lesson. Just a few minutes later, he was playing with our group. It was a double dream come true for me, playing the Trout quintet and playing it with my son! I was in chamber music heaven. It was such a thrill!

A couple months later, we were at a party of another chamber coach, a professional musician, who specifically asked everyone to bring instruments and music to play. On the drive over, I was so excited to have Adam possibly play with us. I kept exclaiming, "This is it! This is living the life before technology, where people could only entertain themselves by playing music together. This is my dream to be able to play like this for fun with professional musicians!" Adam was not so keen on this "ultimate party". When we arrived, he was extremely reluctant to take his bass out and I had to have a student cellist in the Boston Conservatory who he knew give him a pep talk. When one of the hosts asked who was available to play with which instruments, I mentioned that Adam played the bass, and his eyes immediately lit up and he said, "Trout!"

Moments later, here we are living the dream (doubled up violins). And we got to perform the Trout again in a lovely bucolic setting in Harvard MA (with even more varied instruments). The A and A-flat keys were sticky on this not-so-lovely electric Roland piano, but at least the pedal didn't wander away.

We also played the Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 (had to hunt for the harpsichord voice, number 66 on the Roland).

Over the summer I convinced Adam to enroll in a chamber music camp, where he was really in his element. They played movements from the Dvorak Bass Quintet and Hummel Piano Quintet.

I love this photo because you can actually feel the collaboration going on.

Camp photos courtesy of coach extraordinaire Amy Lee

The performances were magnificent! I was so glad that Adam got his own taste of the chamber music life.

Living the Jazz Life

At my music school, my chamber group was invited to perform in an art gallery opening in the concert hall. We were asked only a week in advance but thought we could pull off a few movements of the Trout Quintet. We had a 45-minute time slot so we’d have to play some easy filler pieces as well. The violinist in our group suggested that her two sons could play some jazz on trumpet and piano instead having us scramble to fill the time. I immediately offered Adam to play the bass with them. Adam, who was present in the room, nodded and said he could do it. The violinist said that her sons would be in contact with Adam to discuss songs. Sounds good, no problem!

At this point, Adam’s jazz experience was mostly in the high school jazz band where they learn and rehearse a select few songs to perfection every year (he also racks up a bunch of Outstanding Musicianship awards for these). The only pickup jazz experience he had was several weeks of jazz ensemble in music school and a pickup jazz combo in summer camp the previous summer. When the boys gave him a list of songs to look from the Real Book, Adam started to panic because he had not heard of them. I said we’d just listen to them on YouTube. We started to listen while Adam followed along in the Real Book. Immediately the performances veered off the sheet music and Adam said he couldn’t do it. “Why are you making me do this?” I started to doubt myself in volunteering him, although he was in the room and never once seemed unsure of it when we said yes. Before the art opening, he never tried playing the songs by himself and keep dreading the day. On the day or the art opening, the boys were going to meet and rehearse the songs for a half hour before going on. When the day came, Adam had to rehearse with our chamber group first and then bow out to meet the brothers. After introductions, they actually only got 15 minutes of actual rehearsal before playing in public for 25 minutes. We played the chamber music first which was mediocre at best since one of the movements was fairly new.

Click play!

Then the jazz trio took up residence and the whole atmosphere changed. It was easy going, mellow and smooth, as if Adam had been playing with the brothers for a long time. The whole room relaxed as the audience chatted quietly while viewing the artwork. Adam looked completely natural without a hint of nerves. Whew, I knew he could do it! To be honest, there was no way I could ever pull something like that off and I was beaming with pride that Adam could. There were a couple of spots where I noticed Adam got a little lost, but he played right through as if nothing happened. No one else could tell. I asked him about it afterward and how he recovered. He said he just he just played two chords until he figured out where he was. In fact, you can always tell if he’s made a mistake when you see him smiling. Like it’s simply amusing to be lost, no panic whatsoever. Now that’s living the jazz life!

At a jazz jam at the other music school Adam attends (which has a much larger jazz program), I was amazed at how versatile the musicians were. During the course of the jam, a trombone instructor scatted for a song. In another song, she sat down and played the drums. Then she switched it up and played the piano! Adam arrived in the middle where there was another bass player student already playing. The other bassist set down his bass, gave Adam the amplifier plug and then picked up the electric guitar while Adam played the bass. The leader was also a trombonist but spent most of the time playing the piano and drums (but didn’t sing as well). Even the saxophonist put down his horn and played the piano and drums for several songs! Wow, that’s some real musicianship! Adam, who plays only the violin and bass, clearly needs to pick up a few more instruments! We already have the piano at home, although I am completely useless at helping with anything jazz related unless the music is completely written out.

Jammin' - play me!

It appears so effortless when jazz players jam. There’s usually just a skeleton of the music written out in the Real Book but instinctively everyone knows where the changes and the handoff to soloists. The handoff could be just a look or a nod, and it is also completely OK just to talk to each other in the middle. No one ever gets lost or if they do can recover without anyone noticing. This concept is completely foreign to this completely classical pianist. In chamber music, when things fall apart, it’s usually full stop and then announcing let’s start at measure 132. In one performance of the Trout Quintet second movement, I sensed that we were getting out of sync and started to panic. Eight measures before the cadence I started the harmonic descent and miraculously we all arrived at the end at the same time. It was truly a miracle that we saved it. Even Adam thought it was a miracle. But this sort of miracle happens all the time in jazz.

Adam solos - play me!

A unique thing about jazz is probably the most frightening for beginners - solo improvisations. Adam had always refused to do solos, but thankfully this instructor makes him do it. And again, it sounds so effortless and fun. The best thing about being a jazz musician is being able to drop into a group and simply play without having hours of rehearsals together ahead of time. You can just go and make music together. So happy that Adam can live the jazz life!

Solution for Wandering Keyboard Pedal

If you've spent any time with an electronic keyboard and sustain pedal, you've definitely run into the problem of the pedal wandering off. There are a few commercial products out there which don't have a good track record with keyboard pedals. Here is a solution that I came up with that really works. It's so simple that it's not worth trying to market, but please click through the affiliate links!

FORITO Large High Precise Gaming Mouse Pad

VELCRO Brand - Extreme Outdoor - 4" x 2" Strips

In this setup, the pedal is attached to one end of a gaming mouse pad (basically an extra large mouse pad) using sticky back velcro. The pedal won't move away from your foot because your foot also is also on the same gaming pad surface.  The gaming pad has a rubbery bottom, but that also won't move because the bench anchors the other end of the gaming pad and your weight keeps the whole thing in place.  It really works! For gigs, it's easy to wrap up the pedal in your gaming pad and off you go.

The issue with other systems shown below is that the whole thing will move around with your foot and both the pad and the pedal end up moving away without control. Don't bother with these!

CreepNoMore - has a lousy review for a reason!

Pedal-Stay II - for sewing machine pedals, not any better for keyboards

A Tale of Two Auditions

"Auditions are challenging, but they will always be part of your life as a musician."

We read this quote from a high school music camp brochure. "Challenging" doesn't even begin to describe the levels of anxiety and dread that both my children experience when they have to audition for a musical activity. Both kids are talented in music in their own way, but auditions are the one thing that completely demolish their confidence in life itself.

With Adam, you would think he would be a pro at auditions, having auditioned for two orchestras on violin, with seating auditions every year (every time he would say that he got last seat, but always ended up near the front) as well as two stints in the Junior District festivals. Lots of auditions, but he dreaded every one. For the first district festival, he auditioned on both mallet percussion and jazz bass and made 2nd seat in mallet percussion for the concert band. For the second festival, he auditioned for both again, and he made the one and only bass seat for the jazz band. He had auditioned with the electric bass guitar in January of that year, and at the same time started lessons on the upright bass. By April, he was able to switch to the upright bass for the rehearsals and performance. Woo hoo!



Each time, Adam refused to audition for the junior district orchestra on violin (two auditions are enough, mom!). Last year, we were traveling during the senior district performance, so he managed to avoid auditioning for his first shot at the senior district festival as a Freshman. This year, we were not going to let him slide on district auditions!

As a change from the junior festivals, he auditioned on the double bass for the orchestra, and not the jazz band, because he wanted the experience of playing in a big orchestra with other basses (usually being a section of one or two). Also, one audition is enough! Do you think he has a pushy mom? Adam had months to prepare a relatively simple Bach Gavotte (which he played on violin years ago from Suzuki book 3), and obtained the 2nd highest score. The senior district festival performance was in the grand venue of Worcester's Mechanics Hall (he is under the middle pillar on the right side). One of the pieces, Glinka's Russian and Ludmilla Overture, was so fast and difficult that he actually had to practice it and still had to fake his way through it.



The top three out of seven basses from the district festival were recommended to audition for the Massachusetts All-State Orchestra. With all his other commitments, Adam only had about a month to prepare for this audition. The piece required, Handel's Sonata in G minor, was a bear of a piece in high registers, and he had to learn all four movements. Plus a lot of it was written in tenor clef, so he had to learn to read a whole new clef! Through the holiday season, he also only had three lessons to work on this piece with his instructor, so I took it upon myself to help him learn the piece, writing in the notes for tenor clef.  I also accompanied each practice session on the piano, pushing him to practice every possible day (like a good tiger mom should). In the beginning, it was really rough and looked pretty hopeless. But by the end, it was definitely presentable, although the fast movements were not up to tempo. I also helped him with musical phrase shaping, an area where he had gotten lower marks in the district audition.

By the day of the audition, Adam was complete wreck. He felt that he hadn't gotten enough time to prepare the piece, and he didn't have all his melodic minor scales memorized. He wanted to back out of the audition and didn't understand why I signed him up in the first place. I tried to calm him down on the drive over, saying that if anything, it would be a learning experience (the adult's consolation prize for everything!) and that it would help prepare him for next year.

Adam auditioned alongside about 10 instrumentalists from his school. Some were nervous, some were confident. Adam was in the new low category of nervous AND despondent. His band director was helping to tabulate scores, and he stopped by before the audition and asked Adam if he was ready because there were a "lot of low scores in the basses". Hmm, that could mean two things, either the other bassists were completely bombing, or the judges were super tough. I took it as the first, that Adam would have a better chance because other bassists weren't doing well. I'm sure Adam took it as the second. During the warm-ups and audition, I had another conversation with his director.

Director: Do you think Adam is ready?
Me: Yes, I've been whipping him.
Director: What?
Me: I've been working extensively with him, accompanying on the piano and stuff.
Director: Well, Adam's very good, but All-State requires a much higher level of performance. I'm not sure if he realizes that and whether he's up for it.
Me: We'll see!

Behind my cocky attitude, I was a totally nervous stage mom. I was more nervous for this audition than I've ever been for any of my kids events, even Dova's state gymnastics meets. I was pacing with cold sweaty armpits and nervously chatting with the other parents. One by one students emerged, some said they did very well, others said they did poorly, and one even said "I think I nailed it!" Adam came back finally and said he did badly (as expected). But he did say that he did well on sight-reading, thanks to me (he thinks I passed on my sight-reading ability genetically). Here's his conversation with his director afterward:

Director: How did you do?
Adam: I did badly. My tone was bad and I messed up my minor scale. Also I messed up counting the rests in my piece because the clock ticking on the wall distracted me.
Director: How was your tone bad?
Adam: My hand was shaking too much and I ran out of bow on the long notes.
Director: But how was your intonation? (probably what got a lot of low scores with all those high notes)
Adam: Oh, that was fine.

That evening, we learned that Adam was accepted into the All-State Orchestra. He was 6th out of the 10 basses accepted, well above the cutoff! He was only one of two instrumentalists accepted from his school, all the ones that said they had done well didn't get in. And when Adam mentioned he did well at sight-reading, he did spectacularly, getting a nearly perfect score:

I don't think I could even manage all perfect notes, rhythm, articulation and dynamics! I joked with Adam asking why he didn't get a perfect score on tempo. He said that it was marked at 72 beats per quarter note, how was he supposed to know how fast that was, was he supposed to be a human metronome? I was impressed that he remembered the tempo marking, a lot of performers wouldn't even notice it under the circumstances. Human metronome training next (just kidding)!

Adam's All-State experience was great, although the only response we got from him was that he was really tired. They performed at Boston's Symphony Hall. Adam is under the pillar again (mixed pair seating order).

Did I mention that it was at Symphony Hall? Consistently ranked as one of the top 5 acoustic concert halls in the world?



Yes, Symphony Hall to a packed house!



Dova, on the other hand, has been doing less and less music, opting to focus on gymnastics. She quit the concert band and jazz band this year, but remained in the chorus. We've never fostered Dova's singing, as she never expressed any real interest in it. I offered her private singing lessons in the past so that she could get into the Select Chorus at school, but she declined and managed to get in on her own. That came as an offhand remark from Dova earlier this year, "Oh by the way, I auditioned for Select Chorus and I got in". Every time she sings at home, it's usually one of those unpleasant repetitive pop songs, so we ask her to stop. But we do let her sing away in the shower.

This is the first year she was eligible to audition for the junior district festival, and her choir director basically required everyone old enough in select chorus to audition. They worked on the audition piece and other requirements outside of school several times a weeks leading up to the audition, so Dova didn't prepare beyond that.

On the morning of the audition, Dova was completely out of sorts because she claimed that she had no nice clothes to wear. I tried to pick out a pretty sweater and blouse with pants, but she insisted that she had to wear a dress which she didn't have. All this fuss was just to cover the fact that she was petrified of the audition. After finally getting her to wear clothes that she would accept, she started crying about audition, how she wasn't any good and that she never practiced. I tried to calm her down reminding her about all the rehearsals that she had with her choir teacher. She always came back with, "But you know I can't sing!" I brought up the fact that she was in select chorus, so she had to be able to sing. She thinks that she got in only because the choir director was super cool and let her show off her piano skills during the audition.

At this point, we had to drive to school for the bus taking the students to the audition site. In the car, she wailed and screamed. I thought to myself that I just needed to stay calm, not say anything that would make it worse, and get her on the bus. Her eyes were swollen and face was tear-streaked and I was afraid that she wouldn't go. She brought up the time she auditioned for a music camp placement years ago and how she cried at the audition because she played the first note wrong in sight-reading. I had forgotten about that. It's amazing what horrors kids can dredge up when they are upset! When we arrived at school, I asked whether she wanted me to walk her to the bus, but she went by herself, red teary-eyes and all. Whew, my job done!

You would never know from this picture taken at the audition that Dova (2nd from left) was completely distraught an hour before. And her choice of clothes are just fine! When we picked her up, she said that she did poorly (just like Adam), but she did do well on her intervals. She said her voice was really shaky during the whole audition. I can imagine that most kids would sound shaky under the circumstances, so judges must take that into consideration!

We learned a few days later that Dova was accepted into the district chorus, with a perfect score in "tonal accuracy". Wow! That's a testament to innate musical ability!

In the end, Dova wasn't able to attend the junior district festival because the performance date conflicted with her gymnastics state meet. She attended the first rehearsal, because at the time, we didn't know for certain whether the gymnastics meet would conflict (50% chance of falling on the same day). We then learned that she would be disqualified from participating next year's festival if she went to a rehearsal and didn't attend the concert. I put in a request for an exception in her case because, "The rules as they stand are not flexible enough to allow for an elite athlete to participate in this festival."

In the end, the audition experience has given Dova new confidence in her singing. She had an amazing experience singing alongside other talented singers at the first rehearsal. Even if she can't participate next year, she felt it was worth that one rehearsal. Let's cross our fingers for next year!