[display_podcast]

Here is a rough transcription of the podcast if you want to follow along:

Hi, this is Duane and this is more good stuff you really ought to know. There are so many things in music as in any field that you really ought to know to make yourself a complete musician or piano player. Just as in the field of mechanics or the field of medicine or the field of basketball or whatever field you’re talking about, there is a zillion individual little subjects. And articulation is one of those subjects.

Articulation means in music or in piano playing the same thing as it does in speech, speaking distinctly or in music of course it means playing distinctly so that each note can be heard not all mashed together in other words. If I talk to you like this — it is one thing for you to understand what I’m saying. But if I speak to you like this distinctly so that you can hear every word and I make every word distinctly, then I am articulating. So in piano playing, if I articulate clearly, my playing is a lot cleaner than if I slur things together.

Now there’s a place for slurring, don’t misunderstand me and you can be artificially articulate and that’s not desirable but I’m talking about generally clean playing, okay, I’m sure you understand. You can go to see it on any subject, can’t you? And ride a hobby horse, right off the end of the world because you know you don’t think about anything else except that one thing. well I’m not arguing that at all, I’m just saying to play cleanly is a virtue to make it your life goal is not, okay? So just one of the many things you need to consider.

Let me play a little bit of Spinning Song, you probably know it, it’s a great classic. Now what if I want like this [piano playing] you that…is very much like [inaudible] [laughter]. It just, everything runs in together, okay? Now there’s, that tells you two things, one it tells you that you may be playing something too rapidly if you can, avoid doing that. If you find yourself doing that, then you need to slow down to a point where you can articulate clearly, okay? So that may define your tempo for you, and that’s good.

Tempos need to be defined according to the individual skill of the player. Some people are gifted with extremely quick reaction, I mean they’re like point guards in basketball, they’re the Magic Johnson, generally the quick fiery darts to the basket. And other people are slower and so they’re the power forwards or whatever, right? And I’m more of a power forward, I am not gifted with quick, you know quick reactions but that’s okay, you take what’s given to you and you make the best of it.

So let’s try Spinning Song together about like so. And when you get to the right hand, those four notes concentrate on playing them distinctly [piano playing] ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta not [piano playing] not [piano playing] but [piano playing]. Hear the difference? [Piano playing] and it helps to lift your fingers [piano playing] and so on and so forth, okay? Just one of the many good stuff you really ought to know. Thanks for being with me, we’ll see you next month.