Art Bandini
Lives in NJ, United States
In the fourth grade an elderly lady would visit our school to give piano lessons to interested students. I was a painfully slow music reader and for many years I resorted to playing by “ear” in the simple key of G. In high school after professional lessons, I learned chord theory and played gigs with a small dance band group using fake sheet music.
Exposure to classical music at home and visits by a local man who could play Rachmaninoff’s “Prelude in C# Minor” inspired me to learn a few classical pieces. Unfortunately, I am prone to making mistakes which is one of the reasons why my career was spent as an electronics engineer instead of a concert pianist!
A few years ago I abandoned my acoustic piano in favor of a digital keyboard. With a MIDI interface and music editing software almost anyone can sound like a professional. Also, the potential for creating compositions from digitally recording improvisation sessions is phenomenal. One of the key elements in generating inspired music is an “in tune” instrument and while a newly tuned acoustic piano is fine, the digital keyboard never needs tuning. |
