Cocktail Piano

[lostinidlewonder]

A collection of pieces played on a K.Kawai grand 7ft4" which I think handles this style wonderfully, its really warm. I didn't have good recording mics with me so the quality is not so good unfortunately. This music is supposed to be background music, it is intentionally played a little held back I am also a bit rusty but family loves to listen to this. It was my dads birthday so this was like a happy birthday present for him. There is a small cut to remove talking with my family who where there at the time.Can you catch the part where my brother starts whistling to throw me off and succeeds, the bugger!

Runtime: ~ 11mins

[rachfan]

Hi lost,

Those pieces brought back memories.  The first is "Tenderly" and the second "Misty".  Darned if I can remember the title of the last one though.  (It'll probably come to me at 2:00 a.m. )  The playing was quite good for someone saying they're rusty.  It was good to hear you playing for us.  Thanks!

Yep, I heard the whistling, but you kept your focus regardless.

[lostinidlewonder]

Thanks Rachfan for listening, think Frank Sinatra for the last piece I am rusty in this style since I don't practice it much, but I do practice piano a lot so the general playing is there, but its the feel, the clarity of thought which I find tough to "wake up" with cocktail music. I guess it is like playing tennis and squash, similar but very different.

I really want to get back into this style of piano although it is completely opposite from what I usually play. However when I meet people and they ask me to play piano they love this style much more than "classical" which is disappointing for me since so much more work goes into classical. I think it is because you can sing along with the music, it is familiar to many people, they feel safe! The music is very organic since it is played differently all the time, the fill ins are a unique part to it and what makes it so enjoyable for me, it is something you just don't experience with classical memorized music style. I have a previous recording of Misty and it sounds different to this one which I like.

I do feel pretty old when I play this music which is a real paradox since it is newer than most of the classical music that I play. Funnily enough I tend to find not many people 30 and under know about much of the music from the 40s-70s.

[lostinidlewonder]

Just for fun here are the two Misty recordings side by side, 2006 and this recent 2010. I like how the music always recreates itself but stays the same.

[rachfan]

Both recordings have things to commend them.  The music stays essentially the same as you say, although you have opportunities to improvise too, which can recreate a version a little different from previous ones.

I've read that classical music afficiandos comprise only about 5% of the music loving public.  Now that's scary.  That's why if you attend a formal piano recital, it's mostly "gray hairs" in the audience, representing that 5%.  When Leonard Bernstein was alive, he used to say that we classical musicians are museum curators.  I think it's worrisome that an important part of culture might be going the way of the dinosaur.  And your point about the youngest crop knowing nothing of the music even of the 40s to the 70s just accentuates the problem. On the other hand, I'm sometimes taken totally aback on YouTube when performing rockers, rappers, and even very contemporary composers subscribe to my site there!  So maybe that offers a spark of hope that interest in classical music will not be extinguished altogether.

Is the song "Fools Rush In"?

   

[furtwaengler]

I enjoy reading the thread as much as I enjoy listening to the music. 

My knowledge of commercial music is extremely limited, and that's saying something about me, not the music - I'd say I'm at a loss.

Anyway, good stuff in this thread, words and music.

[furtwaengler]

On the other hand, I'm sometimes taken totally aback on YouTube when performing rockers, rappers, and even very contemporary composers subscribe to my site there!  So maybe that offers a spark of hope that interest in classical music will not be extinguished altogether.

Ooh, what's your youtube site? 

[goldentone]

This is sweet, soothing playing, Lost.  This music reminds me of the summer I worked at a high-end hotel. From 5 to 7 in the evening the first pianist, a lady, would play this era of music.  

Laura is the fourth song, by the way.  A beautiful song that my grandmother loved.

Thanks for sharing, Lost.

[ted]

Thanks for posting this appealing music. I am very fond of this sort of sound and you play it well. Indeed, I was more or less brought up with it as my father played hundreds of songs at the many parties my parents used to have. Those days of people having a few drinks and singing around a piano are well and truly gone now and I think we are poorer for it. The whole thing started to collapse when televisions replaced pianos in living rooms - around the early sixties here but earlier in other countries. Then the guitar, with its portability, replaced the piano as the primary instrument of popular music. The early decades of the twentieth century gave rise to dozens of wonderfully talented melody writers and pianists and saw the invention of entirely new ways of playing the piano, of which your style is an excellent example.

One good thing about this forum is that most of its members are more musically broadminded than those on other sites. Long may it continue.

As to the position of classical music, I'm afraid these divisions are completely lost on me. I certainly couldn't be called a classical aficionado as the last such piano recital I attended was in 1967. On the other hand I'm pretty far from a jazz enthusiast as I cannot grasp what they talk about most of the time. All sorts of sounds seem to  influence my brain and all sorts of sounds come out in my playing. In fact, I do spend considerable time listening to what people call jazz and classical; it's just that I do not take part in their social mechanisms. I cannot see classical, jazz or any other established idiom ever dying out now. Thanks to recordings the world of music is steeped in every style that ever existed; anything, whether by accident or design, is only as far away as a mouse click. The associated mechanisms - concerts, sing-alongs and so on may start and stop but like the sound of the playing in this thread, the idioms themselves will live on somewhere in the collective global consciousness.

[lostinidlewonder]

Thanks furtwaengler and goldentone for listening as well! Goldentone I always love to listen to pianists in hotels, some are amazingly talented and can play anything you request immediately if not make it up! One pianist I heard at the Hilton hotel in Perth was really amazing, I forgot his name but he busks with Ragtimes in Perth city and has represented our country over seas in Jazz/Rag festivals. Just totally effortless playing his game.

Then there are some which are horrific, it really makes you want to stand up and leave. I remember one restaurant in Perth use to have an upright piano in the middle of the restaurant and anyone was encouraged to play. Some people who played where so terrible, one of the managements family members would play often too and it was so bad I did notice people leave because of it!

I have been asked to play in restaurants/hotels a few times after I've been pushed up to play, they only get on average around $150 for 3 hours of solid playing. In my opinion, so not worth it! I guess if you want to just get your practice done for an audience then it's cool lol, but I couldn't imagine doing that as a career, the music played is worth so much more than that.

.... Indeed, I was more or less brought up with it as my father played hundreds of songs at the many parties my parents used to have. Those days of people having a few drinks and singing around a piano are well and truly gone now and I think we are poorer for it. The whole thing started to collapse when televisions replaced pianos in living rooms - around the early sixties here but earlier in other countries. Then the guitar, with its portability, replaced the piano as the primary instrument of popular music. The early decades of the twentieth century gave rise to dozens of wonderfully talented melody writers and pianists and saw the invention of entirely new ways of playing the piano, of which your style is an excellent example.

I really wish that this era still existed (I experience it in my family circles but not really anywhere else, only one student of all my students does similar things), I am sure more musical families still gather together around the piano and play the "oldies" , but it is not as popular these days anymore isn't it? Most people like the karaoke machine now with all the fancy sounds you can be a real star!!! My dad has an awesome karaoke machine with tens of thousands of pieces that can be cue with a press of a button. How can a pianist compete!

One good thing about this forum is that most of its members are more musically broadminded than those on other sites. Long may it continue.

I have played this cocktail style for professional classical pianists and they get quite jealous and envious. Most of them ask me how do I come up with the fill ins, which is not an easy thing to answer as most of it comes from rhythmic listening, trying it out and finding out patterns that work well over many years. I also think that some classically trained people turn their nose to this style of playing and say, oh classical is more advanced and more refined so why waste time with this stuff. The thing is that playing cocktail piano is like playing improvisation but on a composed melodic line, common chord progression and rhythmic standards. It has a huge scope for spontaneous creativity with the notes you play which I think puts a lot of classically trained people out of their comfort zones of playing written music.

I really want to write about how to study playing the cocktail piano style later on in my life because I think it is really a dying art and not talked about enough.


On another note, here is the list of the pieces played in the initial post of the thread:

0:00 - 1:58 Tenderly
1:59-4:16  Misty
4:17-6:10 (I forgot the name of this and if anyone knows please remind me.)
6:11-8:25 Laura
8:26-end Night and Day

[ted]

I imagine the good pianist at the Hilton you mention who plays at ragtime festivals could only be John Gill. Unfortunately he records few CDs. I have one called "All By Myself", which can be bought from sites such as Pianomania.

[lostinidlewonder]

Yep that is him Ted thank you very much for reminding me I am terrible with names.

[oxy60]

Regarding this style, just look for old piano books from the 40's and 50's with titles "how to play popular music." I had such a book but the arrangements in the popular collection were good enough for my family who wanted to sing. Also as a child I couldn't master that technique.

Lost, that is beautiful text book playing of this style. You play it just as I remember it. We're the ones who can keep this style alive.

[ted]

The best known of those books was the Shefte series, which had a tremendous vogue for four decades, possibly longer. I still have my father's books from the original set and more modern volumes from the early sixties. I am inclined to look pretty favourably on them in that, used properly, they gave thousands of players working knowledge of all the commonly used chords in all keys, which they probably wouldn't have gained otherwise. The idea was that these chords could then be plopped in using the chord symbols in fake books. Provided the learner was diligent it used to work quite well. What it could not do, of course, was impart the essential feeling for rhythm and phrase, and it did demand more self-discipline than many could muster.

I knew several players who taught themselves to play very well indeed  using these books, but not to the level of the music in this thread, and in a much more stylised fashion. They gave pleasure to thousands of people though and on that count alone they deserve credit.

[oxy60]

Live piano imparts a certain elegance to any occasion. Ingrid Croce always tries to have live piano at Sunday Brunch in her restaurant.

Maybe a few well chosen words in the ear of an owner of an upscale establishment might land you a nice gig..

[rachfan]

Hi furtwaengler,

My YouTube page is Rachfan1 (similar to my rachfan moniker here).  But, so you won't be disappointed, I don't do true videos.  So what you'll see there is a stationary picture in the video track while the audio track plays.  I don't have the necessary computer equipment convenient to the piano to produce real videos.  And using external mics as I do, I'd have to do the synchrornization rigamarole to get the video in phase with the audio.  I've always been content just doing audio recordings.  It's so much easier.   And, it's hard enough sitting in front of two mics without adding a camera!