Last night I played my first gig with my colleague Ed Bryant. It took place at a Free Methodist camp (for the most part a retirement community) near Lakeland. The evening started with a pot-luck dinner for 200+ people. Our table enjoyed meatloaf, jello salads, hash brown casserole, and peanut butter brownies. After the meal, Ed performed several musical theater selections and I played some Gershwin and Piazzolla. This was the first time I've performed Piazzolla.
The evening's concert instrument was an electronic keyboard, and that's what I find myself playing on more and more these days. Often, folks will describe what they have as a piano, but in reality, it turns out to be a keyboard.
Since I wasn't trained to perform on these instruments, there is a bit of a learning curve for me and, I would imagine, for most classical pianists. It reminds me of the learning curve with learning to play the pipe organ. A great deal of initial anxiety comes from not really knowing all the things that could go wrong. At the piano, I've known those things for years and feel prepared to deal with a lot of them without a lot of conscious consideration.
To make a long story short, last night's keyboard was transposing. Several times during the performance, I thought certain chords or low vocal lines sounded a little lower than usual, but I didn't explore whether the instrument was set to transpose in mid-performance. I need to add "check to make sure the instrument isn't transposing" to my pre-performance check-list.
Such an occurrence makes you feel pretty silly and un-professional. On the other hand, I was told that I "got a lot of music out of that instrument" which was quite encouraging. It's very deflating to show up expecting a piano and discover a different sort of instrument. But I'm learning not to complain and to strive, instead, to do the most I can with what's there, just like when I show up to play a broken down old spinet. I accepted that experience long ago.
Repertoire seems key. The music that sounds great on a grand (for example, Ravel's Alborada) may not work so well on a spinet or upright (better for ragtime) and a keyboard needs something else, too. Maybe we should teach our students with more of an eye to the various instruments they will play - as well as the various architectures in which they find these and the types of occasions for which their abilities will be needed - and not just focus on building a well-rounded "classical" repertoire.
