Joey DeFracesco's Grammy Nomination

I'm pleased to see Joey DeFrancesco's Project Freedom nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album. I might not be able to pick the Album or Song of the Year nominees out of a lineup and it makes me feel old and out of touch. But when I scroll way down the list of nominees, I see Joey, an artist a recently saw perform.

Yamaha P-255 Stand and Pedal Unit Review

For most of my first year with my Yamaha P-255 digital piano, I played it on an X stand and used the included sustain pedal. The sand was a little wobbly and the pedal, as high quality as it is, would never stay in its place. I put a box between it at the wall so it wouldn't move away from me, but it would still move side to side. So I made the leap and bought the P-255's wooden stand and pedal unit.

The stand (L-255) has a sleek and solid appearance, making the P-255 look more like a digital piano than a portable keyboard. It eliminated the wobble, of course, as I would expect no less. The actual materials are cheaper than I had expected. The feet are plastic and everything else is particle board. In fact, my stand first arrived damaged--the back board split in two--and had to be returned. However, for its intended use, the materials are probably adequate. And the connecting hardware between the stand's pieces and securing the P-255 to the stand is higher quality and fits together nicely.

I bought the stand together with the tripple pedal unit (LP-255). The pedal unit comes with a wooden baseboard that the stand looks incomplete without. The pedal unit is all plastic and felt cheap as the whole thing flexed when a pedal was depressed before I knew to loosen the screws and tighten them again when the unit rested soundly against the floor--problem solved. Still, I don't understand why the whole unit is toy-style plastic when the sustain pedal included with the P-255 is metal with a robust plastic housing, and the piano itself feels better quality that the pedal unit.

Despite its plastic composition, the pedal unit functions well. The FC4A pedal that came with the piano is really only a binary switch. The pedal unit's sustain pedal, on the other hand, allows half pedaling like on an acoustic piano, where notes sustain briefly with the dampers still making light contact with the strings. I don't remember knowing about this technique all the years I played an acoustic piano. Learning it now is a pleasure that makes the pedal unit feel worthwhile. This capability, as well as the middle sostenuto pedal and the left soft pedal, elevate to P-255 to a more precise emulation of the experience of playing an acoustic piano.

The left pedal also brings more out of the Hammond organ sounds by functioning as a slow/fast switch for the rotary speaker effect. And this is just neat because it doesn't just alternate between two discrete speeds, but accelerates and decelerates on a continuum between the two speeds, as I imagine a real rotary speaker would behave. While a digital piano with weighted keys and no drawbars will never be quite like a true organ experience, this is a nice step toward it.

There is also a pedal-activated start/stop feature that I haven't tried yet. But overall I am pleased to have full access to all the P-255's features now that I have the pedal unit and stand and I recommend these accessories to any P-255 user.

Edward Scissorhands

In a 1990 movie, are depictions of mid-century neighborhood and interior design a mockery? I remember being in a kitchen in the late 1980s that still had the 60s design. It looked awfully out of date then. Now the mid-century stuff is appreciated again. I don't understand the cycles of style. If something is aesthetically good, wouldn't it be timeless? Perhaps some elements of mid-century design have overcome the ebb and flow of fashionability to achieve a more timeless respect. 

In what time period is Edward Scissorhands set? The houses, inside and out, are mid-century. But I spotted a few late-70s Fords. A cassette player appears, as do other late 20th century electronics. The mid-centuryism is the film's dominant style and it is beautiful. Mockery or not, I enjoy seeing the mid-century imagery in a 2017 rewatch.

What the hell is the title character? Is he an allegory for a psychologically damaged refugee? Maybe there is no metaphor there. It doesn't matter. To me, the character is brilliantly imagined: A man with scissors for hands, but not horror movie style. A timid and sensitive being who is nothing like us or everything like us.

I adore the flavor of Tim Burton's films. And Vincent Price made me happy in his perfectly suited minor role.

The Splendor of Billy Joel

I listened to all thirteen episodes of "We Didn't Start the Podcast", a snarky and irreverent review of the the Billy Joel catalog. The podcasters begin split--Meg Donahue is a Billy Joel fan, and Adam Ragusea is determinely not.

SPOILER: At the end of the podcast, Ragusea reveals that he does now like Billy Joel because too many of his songs are undeniably good.

The hosts are tough on Joel. They pull no punches with Joel's many false starts, imitations, and dull filler songs. They are no easier on his personal life, ridiculing the highly publicized car accidents and alcohol abuse. They spare no target, including the artist's deepening voice and widening girth.

But both fan and critic acknowledge his talents as a composer and performer that comes through in the countless songs that have become American standards. Meg says the song "Lullabye" alone would put Joel into her top five artists.

Hearing all this, I feel compelled to celebrate my hardcore admiration of Billy Joel's music that began when I was just ten years old. He is a master songwriter who created grade-A music consistently, even when it was interspersed among weaker songs. And he is the master of the lead instrument that drives his songs. Even as he slows down, his live performances continue to be magnificent while he leads his live shows at the piano.

Some of their criticism I think is especially off target. They hear New York State of Mind not as a passionate declaration of Joel's love for a city, but as a young man's pompous belief that he alone can save a metropolis in decline. And they fail to appreciate his masterful ability to tell the stories of our weakest brothers--American solders fighting in Vietnam ("Goodnight Saigon"), factory workers suffering in the face of deindustrialization ("Allentown"), and struggling fishermen ("Downeaster Alexa"). These are three great Billy Joel songs. In fact, they introduced very serious topics to me as an adolescent. Ragusea accept's Billy Joel's critique against suburban sprawl as authentic, because his father grew up in the same town and seconds Joel's impressions.

Most of all, I wish they recognized how Billy Joel doesn't take himself too seriously. In an interview, he mocked how Piano Man is just limericks over a repeating melody. He has always said We Didn't Start the Fire is bad music. And he owns the fact that out of a dislike of his own voice, he is always trying to sound like other musicians.

Joel's personal life has been very publicly messy. But I have to defend him on this charge. If he were a regular schlub, his personal failings would be uninteresting. I know quite a few overweight people with a drinking problem and string of failed relationships. These common cases may be sad, but I don't feel compelled to ridicule them.

When Joel released his last pop album, I was twenty-four years younger. It is interesting to see a highly successful artist stop creating music. I was disappointed as a fan realizing that there would be no more albums. But the alternative might have been worse. What if he continued making pop music, but it were awful. We'll never know what the music could have been like. He has actually given two original pop songs to the world since his last album, perhaps as our only clue to whether he still has it. One is trash ("Christmas in Fallujah") and the other is lovely ("All My Life"). Heck, seeing that one of these songs is any good convinces me that he could very well create a quality album today.

 

Some Kind of Wonderful

SPOILER BELOW

I very randomly watched this 1987 John Hughes teen drama again and it wasn't stupid like I worried it might seem now that I am an adult. Some Kind of Wonderful is a solid story and is decently acted. And now that the 1980s are so far behind us, it feels like a period drama.

I worried I might experience painful nostalgia watching this, but it didn't happen. I simply enjoyed the underdog story: A high school outcast who heroically scores a date with the most popular girl only to realize his true love is a fellow misfit. All three overcome the awkward social restraints of high school to embrace their desires and vulnerabilities.

It pleases me that the movie doesn't try to be funny. And I like how very 1980s the movie is. I don't care if younger people will never know how lovely the teen films of that decade were.

Yamaha P-255 Digital Piano: 6 Month Review

I first reviewed the Yamaha P-255 digital piano in December just a couple weeks after buying it following a long and systematic search for the right piano in my price range. I've been playing it frequently over the last six months and have more thoughts to offer.

Everything works right and I have found no defects. Despite giant leaps forward, I feel like electronic devices aren't built like they used to be. But the P-255 is solid.

I continue to enjoy the built-in sounds. The acoustic piano is perfect with headphones and pretty good through the speakers. The Wurlitzer and Rhodes pianos, and the Hammond B3 organ have opened new musical doors for me. I've come to like the Rhodes sound best with the mid and high equalizer sliders up and the Sound Boost function on. So I'm pleased to be able to adjust the tone like that. I know that upgrading to a product like the Korg SV-1 or the Nord Piano 3 would give me fuller flexibility to produce the exact Wurlitzer and Rhodes sounds I want. And the Studiologic Numa Organ 2, with its drawbars and waterfall keys could eventually be my entry into the organ world. But I chose the P-255 in order have the sound and feel of an acoustic piano, and it has delivered. The other sounds are a lovely additional sampling of keyboard possibilities.

The action is good. I've since fiddled more with the Yamaha P-115 and DGX-660 and the superiority of the P-255's action couldn't be clearer. It remains a joy to have the delightful bounce of the action at my fingertips.

I still don't use the 10 built-in rhythms, since my faithful PSR-292 has 130 and they are easier to control. I suppose the metronome is fine, but to add a ding at every measure, you have to go a couple layers into the iPad app. However, I think I like the app more now as I use it, since it just isn't easy to access the P-255's advanced features with its minimalist controls. I would again look to the Korg SV-1 or Nord Piano 3 if I wanted more convenient access to every feature.

Overall I am very happy with the product. I would not have been happy with the action and speakers on the less expensive Yamahas. On the other hand, I would probably be very happy with a Kawai ES8 or Roland FP-90, but I they were just a little beyond what I was willing to pay.

The difference between losing and being a loser

I have an acquaintance I've been watching from afar. He is an aspiring entrepreneur with a business idea that hasn't gotten off the ground yet. From his social media posts, I know that this has been a challenge for him. His proposal has been rejected again and again and this clearly wears on him.

Now as I continue to observe him online, I see that some of his words and actions are self-defeating. For example, when he was rejected for a grant, he publicly shamed the organization. I know from my experience that it is never fun to endure a defeat like that. But I also know that applying for a grant, or a job, or anything where you have to market yourself, can still yield dividends even when unsuccessful. These failures can still result in making new connections and finding other opportunities for success. But by publicly shaming the organization that denied him, he made sure his failure would have no positive side to it.

I have also seen him refer to his own genius many times. He might be extremely intelligent. The writing he posts online is certainly eloquent. But I deal with many extremely intelligent professionals. You know what they don't do? They never tell you how smart they are. They just thrive at what they do and that speaks for itself.

I recently read a post where he says something about how he couldn't get hired for a certain job in his community due to politics. It was an odd statement, since I know he doesn't have experience in that particular field, and that is why he couldn't get that job. I would think people with experience in that field might find this post a little insulting.

All in all, I worry that despite his years of dedication and hard work, his approach is that of a loser.

What is America's Future?

This post is full of spoilers from The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047 by Lionel Shriver.

The election of Donald Trump sucked away my optimism for the country's future. It isn't just his election that did this to me, but the spotlight it shines on the fact that we have an electorate willing to accept him as president. If not Trump in 2016, what kind of person might be elected in 2020 or 2014?

Chuck Marohn's mention of The Mandibles in his Strong Towns podcast pulled me in: In the near future, the United States defaults on its debt and the economy collapses. The Mandible family fortune, along with any members' expectation of a big inheritance, is wiped out.

Increasing poverty hits the Mandible family hard. Several units of the extended family are forced to live under one roof with scarce food. Willing Darkly-Mandible, a precocious scion, is wired for these times, foreseeing the increasing hardships and creatively supporting his family's difficult adaptations. When the cramped household is removed from the house by gun-wielding squatters, Willing guides the family hundreds of miles out of the city to an uncles farm.

The United States becomes too poor to continue asserting itself internationally. China reclaims Taiwan and annexes Japan. Indonesia invades Australia. There is genocide in Madagascar. But America is impotent to intervene.

There a history between present day and the novel's opening in 2029. America was involved at some point in a military quagmire in New Zealand of the likes of Vietnam and Iraq. The United States is temporarily hacked back to the stone age, with an uncertain foreign entity shutting down all electronic devices and communications for an extended period. And with the US over-leveraged in debt, Russia, China, and other collaborators establish a new world currency that knocks the legs out from under the US dollar.

I've never been much of a doomer before. I suppose I've always understood that things could go very wrong and our complex society could fall apart. Some kind of nuclear mess is always a possibility, but I've always thought enough cool heads in charge will steer us away from such a calamity. But after the recent election I have no confidence that our federal government will be wisely managed. I worry that the economic collapse described in The Mandibles is possible.

I suppose I'm not going to worry about this enough to prepare. In the novel's scenario, cash, savings, and abstract investments become worthless. Tangibles, especially property, remain valuable. The nation doesn't fall as far as it does in Kunstler's World Made by Hand series. American civilization endures in The Mandibles, only much poorer. Cities are destitute, but livable--perhaps more so with fewer cars.

I've gone digital

I'm fully acclimated to my digital piano now. I played my old acoustic upright at my parents' house this weekend and it didn't feel right to me. The piano is about 25 years old and was never maintained well. The keys are sticky and sit low, as though they no long bounce back to their full resting position. I did have the soft pedal locked and played lightly, but it felt impotent. My digital piano feels perfect. That is my home base now.

I wonder if the piano can be returned to life with a little service.

Keyboard versus Guitar

Hearing Billy Joel's music starting around age ten hooked me on piano for life. I dabbled with guitar in my teens, but I've always been much more of a pianist than a guitarist.

I've always thought of the piano as the mother instrument at the center of all music with its spread of 88 keys perfectly laid out as a reference point for all instruments. As a player, the bing of a key strike mesmerizes me. I understand it is simply a hammer hitting a string, but it sounds like something above and beyond that--something unique.

But that hammer strike separates that pianist from the strings. The many moving parts between the keys and the strings result in the player only being able to manipulate the strings indirectly. This results in an instrument with limited dynamics.

The guitar, on the other hand, is just about opposite the piano in this regard. A guitar player directly manipulates the guitar strings with both hands simultaneously. With one hand, he can bend notes, slide down the strings, hammer on, and pull off. With the other hand, he can strike the strings with a single pick, a pick attached to each finger, his fingernails, or his fingertips themselves. He might slap the strings rhythmically. Because of these possibilities, the guitar is an extremely dynamic and versatile musical instrument.

But there are hot sounds to be produced by piano keys too. The 1960s to the 1980s gave us some lovely electric pianos. The Fender Rhodes electric piano may be the most dynamic of these new instruments. More than just the pitch changes as one moves up or down the keyboard and more than the volume changes when you hit a key lighter or harder. Herbie Hancock describes the Rhodes as having many colors that can be brought out. The Wurlitzer electric pianos, too, have a color all their own. Yamaha CP models also expanded the range of sounds a keyboardist could produce. And throughout, organs evolved--particularly the Hammond, which became a fixture of much of the rich music being produced as the century wrapped up with synthesizers able to create any sound imaginable.

Now every keyboard sound ever produced is available through relatively affordable digital pianos and keyboards. I don't think you can have one electronic keyboard for everything, though. A piano, for example, needs to have key action that is vastly different from what you would want for a Hammond organ.

But the rich evolution of keyed instruments still doesn't result in parity with the guitar, because the directly string manipulation, to me, can't be surpassed by any keyboard. In addition, the guitar is simply a friendly instrument. A teenager can buy a guitar for a hundred bucks, learn to play, and bring it to college with him. Pianos are expensive. Often they are just there, already in the household. College is a prefect time to let one's piano skills atrophy because the instrument stays with mom and dad.

Sure, you can bring a portable keyboard to college, as I did, but it wasn't the same as the piano I left back home. And there never was a good way to set it up in my dorm. My guitar traveled several times between my dorm and my parents' house, no problem.

Another advantage of the guitar is that it can be enjoyed by players with a huge range of skill levels. You can learn a handful of chords and strum your way to years of enjoyment while the next guy is a virtuoso. There is a larger hill to climb before getting anywhere on the piano.

But I love the piano because I am a pianist, while I recognize the magic of the guitar.

The Korg SV-1 is Kewl

I'm in love with the look of the Korg SV-1. It looks like a replica of a 1970s electric piano that never existed in the 1970s. Someone online described it as very Jetsons in appearance. And that fits, because it has all the computery insides, but only analog controls.

I didn't research the SV-1 when I was preparing to purchase a digital piano because I knew I wanted internal speakers. But after falling in love with the Fender Rhodes and Wurlitzer electric piano sounds on my new Yamaha P-255, the Korg appeals to me. The Korg has 12 electric piano sounds and a lot of variables to play with to get the sound you want. And it just looks awesome.

I know that there are a lot of different stage pianos available. So if I ever started looking seriously at the Korg, I would do the same kind of extensive research that resulted in my Yamaha P-255 purchase. I know I love the look of it, but I would want to know more about the quality of the sounds. And I would ask myself whether there are electric piano sounds I want that it doesn't have. And I would learn a little about whether the features controlled by the knobs would suit me.

The Korg has a vacuum tube that it runs amp effects through. I call it a Flux Capacitor because that is what it looks like to me. But I have heard online that the tube is quite an ordeal to replace. It looks like an unnecessary gimmick.

So, yeah, I would take a good look at a range of stage piano models before buying one.

Guitar Center haggling

There are times when I am playing my new digital piano (review here) and the piano sounds and feels simply delightful. And when I put on my headphones to play, I realize that option is a luxury, since there is no way I could play an acoustic piano in this house except during very limited hours.

Besides the joy of finally bringing home a new toy, it was a relief to put behind me the experience of dealing with that bullshit of salesmanship. I want to recount some of that experience here because it was an interesting sort of roller coaster ride for me.

I began my search for a digital piano at a local Guitar Center on Black Friday weekend. One of the employees was aggressive in trying to make a sale, yet completely professional and pleasant. She quizzed me on what I was looking for and pulled up a piano on her computer that she had in stock and offered me 15%, and then 20% off the store's list price. I felt that I had more research ahead of me, so I couldn't buy it that day.

After doing some research, I saw a used model at Guitar Center that I know I would be happy to buy at a lower price than shown on the tag. I approached an employee and asked what the history of the item was. He explained that it is a consignment item and they don't ask the owner for any history. They only screen the serial number to try to make sure it is not stolen. I asked what kind of guarantee the store has for the product. I think he told me it is 45 days and then pitched the protection plan that comes at an extra cost. I hear that Guitar Center employees have a lot of pressure on them to sell the protection plan, and its value is questionable for a solid new product with a manufacturer's warranty. But I suppose such extra protection might make sense for a used item with an unknown history.

Inspired by the Guitar Center employee who earlier offered 20% of the store's list price for a new item, I offered about 40% under list for the used piano, thinking we might negotiate to a higher, but fair price. I felt like and asshole when he told me my offer "wasn't even in the ballpark." I asked what then could he do for me for a price, and he stated the list price. That to me isn't a ballpark, or even a strike zone, but a tiny bulls-eye. I felt burned, after being set up by the other employee's aggressive discounting. But I thanked this employee politely and left.

My later interactions with digital piano salespeople at other stores made me wonder about my failed Guitar Center haggling. By making an offer on an item, I was clearly ready to make a big purchase. He should have shown me some other options that he could sell me for what I could pay (there were several such products at that store). Also, with subsequent research, I now think the store's list price on the used piano was probably a good value. He might have been able to convince me of that with straightforward information about the product.

But I do take responsibility for how sour my failed Guitar Center experience felt to me. My offer was very low. I didn't know what to expect and I wasn't really ready for the haggling experience. But I decided to do my best to have a good experience with any haggling that followed. Though I still disliked the salesiness of the experience that followed. With one store, I disliked how obsessively they link you to one particular sales associate, and I worried I was offending them if I talked to another associate. But my experience after Guitar Center was generally pleasant, even though my purchase occurred after several additional unsuccessful, but very human and respectful, price negotiations.

Weeks after my purchase, I walked around a Yamaha digital piano kiosk at a mall for a fast look for the fun of it. I did not want to engage with a piano salesman, but my partner did not know this. When the salesman approached, my partner said, "He just got one." The salesman asked what I bought and I told him, a P-255. He replied, "That's different. That's a keyboard. These are Clavinovas." I said "uh huh", thanked him and we went on our way. I felt like he had disparaged my purchase. Yes, the P-255 is a portable slab, but it has 88 full-sized weighted and graded keys. Most, including Yamaha, seem to refer to it as a digital piano. I understand that Clavinovas are great, but they are also furniture style (which I didn't want), and expensive beyond my means. And I question whether it is appropriate to spend thousands on an electronic product that could be very much obsolete in a few years and may have a functional life expectancy of 10 years.

So there you have it. I enjoyed reading other people's Guitar Center experiences that helped me fell justified in my feelings after my sour experience. I was once a retail employee and the experience made me intent on treating these people respectfully, even if I am not pleased with my experience. That is because they are human beings who are more than their retail job and they deserve to have their humanity respected.