Definitely a sillier context here as James does the Podcast while trying to survive driving through Boston, but coming around to an important idea in striving for an artistic image: what does it mean to believe in something v. what does it mean to be convinced about something?

You'd never say it but we love the sound of silence. Today we touched on some pretty important topics of piano pedagogy, talked about our experiences with silence in music and had a nice few minutes together. Most impressively: we managed to keep our weekly meeting! 

It’s official! Michael is in Medical school. James and Michael meet in person to speak together for the first time in the same room. Sort of. What does Michael think makes music lessons very special ? How does a musician who has achieved a Doctorate in Piano Performance pivot towards a completely new career path? How will he stay connected to his past? This is the beginning of the second season of the Piu Podcast, where James is slightly preoccupied trying to find the right speaking volume to match Michael’s eloquent phrases. More to come!

We have a wide ranging discussion today from Algorithms to fog machine parties in the piano studio, to absolutely losing the ability to enjoy a thing. From David Foster Wallace to Horowitz to the practice room: and also James's gleeful ignorance of some of the core of piano repertoire. There might be some screaming children in the background as well.

Today is James's birthday! This was meant as a silly episode to talk about some theme music for the Podcast. But it ended up starting serious due to the actions of James's students. In any event, we had a fun time together and hope you come along for a nice bit of together time.

We continue to express our opinions and thoughts about learning, memory and experience. And paying attention to our mothers! Always listen to your mom. Appropriate that this comes just before Mother's Day! (Happy Mother's day Mom!)

We continue to explore new territory of conversation.

The "signal hill suite" is visible as a playlist on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3FqBkc9kBVoGiiAlzOJBeU?si=ffb3b245233a43fc all the songs can also be found on the Youtube Channel https://youtube.com/@PiuPianoMusic

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The artworks we discussed which were created by Duncan Major can be viewed at the archive section of this website: https://www.craft.do/s/nFzxcAN9UIxGlt - from the weeks April 14 & 21

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article by Angela Hewitt about Memory:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/apr/25/angela-hewitt-pianist-memory-muscle

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the Sound Symposium recording of Jason Noble's piece
https://youtu.be/2hgBK-1XRag

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By the way Joyce (Ulysses) is to Homer as what I thought Infinite Jest was to Joyce.

It has been 3 weeks since our last episode because of travel and Eastertime!

Today we discuss about learning music, teaching music, online groups - the value of community and transparency as well as some cool books and resources about how to optimize your mindset!

https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn 

Hopefully Mike is inspired to turn his Doctorate work into a bunch of videos for the people!