I have amazing gift givers around me.
They give me such thoughtful gifts that the thoughts behind the gift makes me tear up, as much as the usually-much-needed-gifts themselves.
One such friend, my duo-partner, clarinetist Maiko Sasaki (with whom I co-founded ensemble MATIMA: http://matima.org/), gave me a page-turning pedal one year for my birthday. If you are a classical music lover, you probably have noticed that many pianists have dispensed with page turners. Instead, they are reading off of iPad, and turning their pages with this.
I have used it on many occasions. While I have been taking notes of increasing number of musicians using these, I myself have to confess to feeling very awkward about using it, actually. First of all, I only wear heals when I perform. And so, just pedaling my piano is already an additional challenge, let alone having to pedal my page-turning. Secondly, my foot cannot go back and forth between the piano pedal and another device. It often turns the page backward (by pressing the left portion of the device), when I need to be turning forward! Lastly, I used to have a Lenovo Yoga – you can look up to see what the product’s habitual problems with the touch-panel screen, and screen-freezing. Anyways, during one performance, my screen just completely froze. In fact, I was playing with Maiko. I went as far as I could from memory, but eventually gave up. We had to stop the performance of a piece in the middle, excuse ourselves for technical difficulties, and resort to a hard copy – which, thankfully, we had.
However, all of my litanies aside, it is the future for pianists, I am sure of it. And it is just expensive enough, that a young music students would rule it out as too expensive to afford for themselves, despite the obvious need. It would make for a great gift, if you know of a aspiring pianist.
One of my biggest fans gifted me generously with something I use everyday now. It is Microsoft Surface Book 2. It was for my birthday last month, and it was a product that just came out. The screen detaches itself and becomes a tablet – perfect for reading music from! And it never seems to freeze the way my old Lenovo Yoga used to. Maybe it’s the blue light, but I’ve been practicing much more productively now, than when I had to shuffle all the loose leaf pages of music printed from PDF.
That IS a hefty gift, but perhaps a stylus to make notes on your digitized PDF music is more appropriate as a holiday present for a pianist friend of yours? I now can write in my fingerings and notes to my music much more neatly than before.
The notion of “starving artists” isn’t far from the truth. Artistic endeavors and artists who undertake them are supported by those around them, and the society. I was able to become the musician that I am today, because of so, so many friends, supporters and audience members.
I am grateful to you all.