The ancient art of Indian raags freshly reinvented for piano
"…a wholly new way of making music…"
After requests for some specific raags, I've done two more easy piano adaptations - Raag Malhar and Raag Chayanat - done in the format of the ‘easy’ book (“Indian Raags for Piano Made Easy”), ie: with a very simplified structure (alaap, gat, improvisation using phrases from the alaap, gat, ending gestures including tihai) to fit… Continue reading Raags on demand…
New, nice review - by Fiona Lau (in Music Teacher Magazine - available to buy from https://pocketmags.com/music-teacher-magazine/july-2018) - of my "Indian Raags for Piano Made Easy" book. "I can see this book being extremely useful to: those who teach world music and would value a keyboard approach to it; classical pianists wanting a wonderfully approachable… Continue reading Review (July 2018) by Fiona Lau – Music Teacher Magazine
Here are the first seven of a series of short video tutorials on Indian classical music - 1) What is a raag/raga? What is Indian classical music? 2a) The 4 melody ingredients that combine to define each raag. 2b) The 4 melody ingredients - examples on a piano. 3) The structure of a raag -… Continue reading Video tutorials
New - Pipa Dreams in Imperial Garden (April 2018) for solo piano, is an attempt to capture something of the essence of the Chinese lute. The pipa is a strummed and plucked, pear-shaped instrument, with four strings (typically tuned A D E A), characteristically using frequent fast tremolo with all of the right fingers repeatedly plucking… Continue reading Piano music inspired by the Chinese pipa
https://serenademagazine.com/series/music-education/how-to-play-indian-sitar-raags-on-a-piano/ Published 10 April 2018 Composer John Pitts explains the creative process behind the Indian raag compositions for piano solo in his new book “How to Play Indian Sitar Raags on a Piano” So, please indulge me with this imaginary scenario:1) A sitar player in India who also happens to love European classical music. He… Continue reading The creative process behind the Indian raag compositions for piano
http://www.delacreatividadalpiano.com/2017/11/the-intense-pleasure-of-improvising.html An article first appearing on Agustín Manuel Martinez's blog 1 November 2017. Many of the readers of Agustin’s blog will have first-hand experience of the great joy of playing the piano. Those who improvise, or who play around with little musical ideas of their own, or who compose, or who play around with blues or… Continue reading The intense pleasure of improvising Indian raags on a piano
An article first published here: https://pianodao.com/2017/08/17/revelling-in-the-moment As a pianist, I’ve always loved the actual sound of the piano. It is a very personal instrument. I’m not knocking the usefulness of an electric keyboard, but for me nothing beats the responsiveness and the intimate resonance of a real piano, with the unstruck strings reverberating in sympathy with the played keys. Intimate, because the physical sound is at its most absorbing up close and personal.
