My Pocket Piano

When music really got to me, I was already a young teenager.

It was June 1996. I was 12 years old, about to turn 13.

Suddenly, all I wanted to do was to play piano. Every day when I got back from school, I went straight to the piano and played for hours. And before going to school, I woke up early and practiced piano.

It was so early that in order for me not to wake anyone up from their sleep, I had to practice with a dampener felt. A dampener is a thick piece of cloth that goes in between the hammers and the strings of the piano so that the sound is noticeably softer when you play it, giving it a distinct, warm sound.

This sort of dampened sound has been widely used in recent years by many artists in the neoclassical genre. Some of them, like Ludovico Einaudi, Nils Frahm, or Olafur Arnalds are extremely popular artists with millions of streams.

Even if I´m not an avid listener of their music, I always found something very special about the tone quality in their music.

And it turns out that I had completely forgotten that it was the same kind of tone quality that I was used to hear back when I started seriously learning to play piano!!!

So, I had to try out something using that tone quality.

The result has been literally over 100 short piano pieces that I´ve composed since last june. Yes, you read correctly: June. 4 months ago.

After a thorough (and very tough) selection, I´ve made a collection of 4 volumes called “My Pocket Piano”.

The first volume is out today, you can listen to it now on this link. It´s a collection of 4 sketches inspired by childhood. As I said yesterday, it´s simple music, for complex emotions…

Enjoy.

And, have a great day.

Claudio.

P.D. Link here.