A Quick Update...

So I know that I haven’t updated my blog in a while so here it goes.

Starting with music I just wanted to say sorry that I haven’t posted anything in a month or so.  I am working on it, I just got so busy.

Secondly I totally forgot that I had a Tumblr account but I remembered and now I am going to start using it.  You can find it here... http://evangelinehall.tumblr.com/

So since I haven’t updated you all in a long time here are some of the videos I have uploaded since the new year.

If you have any suggestions for future blog posts then please feel free to let me know.

Evangeline J

Happy New Year

I would just like to say thank you for all your amazing support over the last year. I know I didn’t upload many videos but the support that you gave me was incredible so thank you. J

In 2012 I would like to copyright my original piano pieces so I can get them uploaded to youtube (I am listening to Liszt at the moment so I am feeling very inspired) and in general just get more music stuff done.

So Happy New Year to you all and I hope you have a wonderful year.

The Oxford Street Piano

I know I haven’t written a blog in a while. To be honest I forgot I even had a blog and every time I tried to write a post I couldn’t think of anything to write about.

I have had my second piano “Rosie” for nearly a year now but before I got her she spent some time in Oxford Street so I thought I would write about it.

Rosie is around 80 years old and about two years ago she was bought by Street Pianos (www.streetpianos.co.uk). Street Pianos is a project that takes old pianos, paints them in bright colours and places them in different places around cities for the general public to play.

Rosie was painted by Lee Campbell to be put in the Oxford Street shopping plaza to be played by the public and a few special events to be played by Elton John and Stevie Wonder look-alikes (see video below).

After the project was over the piano spent some time at Oxford Street before being auctioned off for charity and given to me as a birthday present, which is how I ended up with her.

Here is the video of her arriving after the long journey from London.

If you would like to see more photos of her when she was in Oxford Street then click here.

So anyway this is Rosie’s story of the time she was the piano in Oxford Street. J

Piano Regulating

If you follow me on Twitter then you may remember me talking about my piano's Action having to be taken away to be 'regulated'. It was some necessary maintenance that needed doing on the piano and as I type the piano tuner is downstairs fitting it. We managed to get some photos of it being fitted so I thought it would make an interesting blog post.

Regulating is where the Action (shown below) is taken out and levelled out so that all the hammers sit at the same height making it much easier to play.

Because the piano (named Rosie) is about 85-90 years old this is something that needs doing more than on a modern piano. She played fairly well before but you had to compensate for the notes that took longer to hit. For example if you played middle C and the C note above it at the same time it would take the higher C would sound the note before the other note.

The action was away for about two and a half weeks (which isn't too bad considering the work that needed to be done).

Anyway hopefully I will get a chance to post a video soon of the piano now that it has been regulated and hopefully you will be able to hear a difference hehe. :)

How I started playing piano...

Well I've finally got round to setting up a blog. It is something that I have been meaning to do for a while but never really got round to it. Anyway I thought this would be an appropriate subject for my first post. How I started playing piano.

I started taking lessons when I was about four and a half. To be honest I don't really remember that much about me playing when I was younger. The only really strong memories that I have are of my first lesson and taking my grade one piano exam.

My parents bought me my first piano for my 5th birthday (the same black piano you see in my videos) and I have cherished it ever since. I really enjoyed playing piano when I was little but reading music always frustrated me and eventually I stopped taking lessons when I was about nine. To be honest after I stopped taking lessons I forgot most of what I had been taught.

I didn't really play again until I was 13. All thanks to the song My Immortal by Evanescence. I fell in love with the song and wanted so much to be able to play it on piano. So I sat down at the piano one day with my ipod and played the song over and over again hitting random keys on the piano until I found the right note. This was how I started out learning songs by ear though it took ages to just learn one bar of the song.

I then started playing for about 5-10 minutes every night and remembered why I loved playing piano so much.

I started posting videos in early 2008 and continued since then.

Anyway I tried to keep this short but it seems I have failed hehe. :)

Thank you so much to everyone who has taken time to watch my videos, it really means so much! <3