Ticklin' the Ivories in Anchorage

A question I received quite often in the months prior to my departure from Kansas was, “Will you keep playing the piano while in Anchorage?” In order to allay any and all fears you, the reader, may have, here is a synopsis of my piano playing these past five months.

One of my first items of business upon arriving in Anchorage was finding a piano on which to play. Luckily for me, there was a piano in the unit house. Unluckily for me, it was rather completely out of tune. I then turned to outside sources, and checked with the University of Alaska Anchorage to see if I could take lessons or, at the very least, use the practice rooms for my own study. Unfortunately, the former wasn’t feasible and the latter wasn’t allowed.

Things took a turn for the better when I checked with a few local churches, to see if I could use their pianos to practice. While I didn’t find a church I could practice at, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church did have a piano they said I could have. That week, I stopped in on the way back from work to check out what was a pretty decent Yahama upright, and very similar to what I grew up playing back home. To make things better, the church had been keeping it in tune! Feeling very grateful for the generous gift, several others from our church and I came back in a few weeks and moved the piano into the unit house.

The new piano!

It was a great improvement over the previous piano – a much richer bass, more full tone, and it was in tune… for about a day. I should have known that though it started in tune, any piano needs to be tuned after a move, especially when moved in sub-freezing temperatures. So now we had two pianos, both very out of tune. I then began to get creative and set out to sell the first piano on Craigslist, thereby financing a tuning for the new piano. That was three months ago, and nobody has sprung for it yet, though I have gotten a good handful of interesting folks and have been dropping the price. Maybe nobody wants a piano that makes you cringe when listening to it!

Attempting to tune the piano - a rather difficult task that I am not very good at!

Thankfully, I didn’t let all these events distract me from actually playing the piano! While I don’t practice as much as I did last year in high school, I still play generally every day and some days for as much as an hour or two. In the first several months I concentrated on three pieces: Piano Sonata No. 18 in E-flat Major by Beethoven, Ballade No. 3 in A-flat major by Chopin, and Virtuosic Étude No. 2 by Moritz Moszkowski. Now, I am working on a Bach prelude, Brahms’ Fantasies Op. 116, a Scriabin etude, and a piece by Władysław Szpilman. For those of you not familiar with Mr. Szpilman, he was a Polish pianist and composer who, as a Jew, lived through horrible years in the Warsaw ghetto. His story of survival is incredible and I’d highly recommend both his autobiography, “The Pianist” and a 2002 movie of the same name. I was able to obtain his music through Inter-Library Loan and it is a moving experience to play something that was written in the early 1940’s while in the ghetto.  

 
Pieces I have worked on so far this year.

In addition to my classical pieces, I’ve been involved regularly at church, playing hymns, special music, and accompanying singers. With all these opportunities to play piano, I hope to return next year to college with a deeper knowledge and ability than when I left! 

I hope you enjoy these select pieces I’ve been working on. I don’t pretend to have these pieces concert ready, but nevertheless, playing the piano up here has been a true joy!

Virtuosic Étude No. 2 - Moritz Moszkowski

Ballade No. 3 in A-flat major - Frederic Chopin

Prelude No. 6 in D minor, BWV 851 - Johann Sebastian Bach