Where I’ve dreamed up the music
I mentioned my various-over-the-years studios recently. Here they are (I think), except for the practice rooms in college, where I wasn’t making up much music anyway. Well, a few songs, but I didn’t really need a piano for that, and most of the songs are best forgotten (although I have recycled a few of those melodies over the years; a post for another day).
Starting with the piano Mom bought when we were kids:
And from that piano, many years later obviously, I went to college. Many practice pianos in the basement of the old music building; then a few pianos scattered around campus while the new building was built. Then I was practicing off-campus, on my friend Geoff’s piano, which is now mine and you’ll see it down the page.
Next is first piano that was mine, and on which I created the music of my first two recordings, the cassette Topaz and the CD A Handfull of Quietness. And actually most of the music on my Christmas CD, The Rebirth of Light. This is a Conover small grand, built in the 1930s when Conover was copying the Steinway specs just as carefully as they could. This picture was taken as part of my promo for Topaz. I was still pretty much a baby!
One more picture from West Adams St, where I’m actually playing and you can see the room. This is supposed to be the second bedroom in my upstairs apartment. Oh, you should have heard the movers getting the piano into the apartment, and then into the bedroom! They were not pleased. I wasn’t either, actually; I had to do geometry and then have my landlord knock out part of the stairwell ceiling for the piano to come up. We were all pretty huffy by the end of that day!
Going out again a few years later was actually more scary: not enough movers showed up and they almost lost control going down, which would have crushed the man on the lower end. I hid in the kitchen because I couldn’t face what I expected to be imminent death. Happily, it was a lovely teaching and composing space and I was in it for several years.
Now for my studio in Omaha, where the stage lighting was already in place because the house we rented was owned by a member of Mannheim Steamroller. No, we did not ever meet him. But it was very fun to move into a place that was already set up for my Conover.
I don’t remember actually giving any house concerts here, which is too bad considering the wonderful lighting. This is the exact location where I created the song The Rebirth of Light, while a blizzard was happening outside. Which I then performed on an Iowa Public TV Christmas program just a couple of weeks later.
Then we moved to California, leaving my Conover behind, and for I while I had only my Kurzweil keyboard for creating and practicing music. The Christmas music that wasn’t created on the Conover was created on the keyboard, and I recorded 2 of the pieces on Rebirth on the keyboard — they just sounded better there!
Eventually we moved to a duplex and I bought Geoff’s piano. (Stalled on that for over a year, and the story has a cliffhanger ending, which maybe I’ll write about one of these days.)
Behind the curtain is the … kitchen! The piano is in what should be the dining room, and it is raised above the living room by several inches, which came in handy for house concerts.
From there we moved up the street to a house, and my Steinway and my husband’s upright owned the living room. It made a fantastic teaching space.
Much of the music for Under the Greenwood Tree was composed right there, as well as several pieces for Drivin’!
Finally, we’re approaching my Happy Camp studio. Here I am playing air piano where the studio will be:
We can call this the subfloor studio.
And at last, we’re here! I’ve recorded 4 CDs in this space, and am looking forward to recording a 5th later this year or early next year (as you know, life has been coming at me fast recently). I’m actually planning to reorient the studio before then, so that house concerts will be more easily manageable, and recording should be simpler too. This music room has made me so very happy! All of Verbs was composed here. Nearly all of Passages. Some of the previous 3 albums. All of the notation has happened here! Many teaching pieces have been composed here. And of course we’ve had oodles of concerts, not all of them by me.
Happy Camp Studio, since Beethoven’s birthday in 2005.
Finally, something not my studio. When we lived in Omaha, a nearby piano store had a bloodred grand piano. Not my cup of tea! But if it had been coral like this one … well, I might have been tempted!
I think this would look excellent in my studio. But it would have to sound exactly like my Steinway!