BEYOND THE TUNING OF TODAY'S SOCIETY
April 14, 2021. Fedor Veselov is playing Scott Joplin, D. Llorens i Guillaumes, D. Scarlatti and S. Prokófiev on a piano with the “ Crazy Pedal ” (which allows you to change the tone of the piano just by pressing it), this new and free sound that reminds some of us what it really means to “love music”.
I talked to him a few days later. When Sergey Gogolev introduced him to the idea, he found it interesting. "But I needed time to assume things," he said. He was thinking for a long time until he finally knew what he would play.
Fedor Veselov showed talent for the piano from a very young age, and at the age of fifteen he was already awarded in various national and international competitions. He studied at the Fryderyk Chopin State Academy of Music and the Tchaikovsky State Conservatory in Moscow. He has won multiple awards, participated in various projects, and has recorded several concerts. Furthermore, he is an expert in both solo piano and chamber music. He has played from classics to pop-rock.
"At first, I thought it would be like this typical tuning of out of tune pianos in the United States, or the one that electric pianos mimic," he confessed. But it is not that at all, it is "something else". This timbre allows us to feel differently, listen and find another dimension of the work: “I have discovered another depth”.
"Fedor encouraged me a lot in the project from the first day he came to play with the Crazy Piano Timbre at my house," Sergey told me. Although the idea of the pedal with the possibility of obtaining both acoustic tones on the same piano arose half a year later, I was thinking precisely how it would sound if it was played by someone as emotional as Fedor, with his passion for music and his capacity to express such varied feelings through her. "
He confessed that he was initially quite skeptical about the possibility of playing classical music with the “Crazy Piano Timbre”. He conceived jazz, and also some contemporary composers such as D. Llorens i Guillaumes, who already composes ACOUHIB (Acoustic Hybrid Piano) for the two different acoustic tones of the piano.
But in the end, he was convinced to experiment with something else. He chose - in addition to Joplin and Gillaumes - Scarlatti and Prokofiev. Scarlatti because it is prior to Bach's "well-tempered" tuning. At that time, the tuning was not so "digitized", it was not so exact but more natural, free, personal. Each tuning had its own peculiarity. Also the sound of Prokofiev, closer to us, is very interesting in the search for new sound textures. Played on this piano, "it has opened another dimension to me," says Fedor.
At the next concert (May 14) he wants to take more risks and try a romantic: Chopin. "In this first concert I played it safe because I had few opportunities to rehearse." He was only able to rehearse with the new bell two hours before the concert!
He is excited by Sergey's enthusiasm for the project. “Sergey is convinced of his idea. At first people resist, but insisting things come out. " This new sonority, the depth of the new timbre, can open up new fields in the musical world which, unfortunately, is now quite closed. "As we have gotten used to the middle pedal, which at first seemed crazy, we can get used to the new pedal and its wide range of possibilities."
Fedor told me a little about his musical career. “I got a little disappointed with the world of culture, because they didn't allow me to play what I wanted. Now I am an amateur and I have the luxury of being able to choose ”. Music is freedom. The freedom to play what you want and to experiment with new sounds.
“Currently, there are many people who schedule concerts without knowing almost anything about music. They decide what the public wants, and the public ends up wanting this because nothing else is offered to them. " Working with the ACOUHYB project is the possibility of skipping the figure of the programmer.
Sergey gives you the freedom to interpret what you want. It is the only way for the musician to express what he really feels. Only in this way can the love of music be transmitted. This love that would make Fedor play even if there was nothing else in the world. This love of music that he shares through, precisely, music.
Only in this climate can the superficial barrier of intermediaries and extra-artistic factors that brutalize the world of music be broken, and one goes on to make music, beyond the tuning of today's society, a tuning perhaps too narrow. Pure, free music, far from programs and preset tunings. "And if they don't want to listen to me, they are free not to." Music is more than that.
Nadja Bas.
I talked to him a few days later. When Sergey Gogolev introduced him to the idea, he found it interesting. "But I needed time to assume things," he said. He was thinking for a long time until he finally knew what he would play.
Fedor Veselov showed talent for the piano from a very young age, and at the age of fifteen he was already awarded in various national and international competitions. He studied at the Fryderyk Chopin State Academy of Music and the Tchaikovsky State Conservatory in Moscow. He has won multiple awards, participated in various projects, and has recorded several concerts. Furthermore, he is an expert in both solo piano and chamber music. He has played from classics to pop-rock.
"At first, I thought it would be like this typical tuning of out of tune pianos in the United States, or the one that electric pianos mimic," he confessed. But it is not that at all, it is "something else". This timbre allows us to feel differently, listen and find another dimension of the work: “I have discovered another depth”.
"Fedor encouraged me a lot in the project from the first day he came to play with the Crazy Piano Timbre at my house," Sergey told me. Although the idea of the pedal with the possibility of obtaining both acoustic tones on the same piano arose half a year later, I was thinking precisely how it would sound if it was played by someone as emotional as Fedor, with his passion for music and his capacity to express such varied feelings through her. "
He confessed that he was initially quite skeptical about the possibility of playing classical music with the “Crazy Piano Timbre”. He conceived jazz, and also some contemporary composers such as D. Llorens i Guillaumes, who already composes ACOUHIB (Acoustic Hybrid Piano) for the two different acoustic tones of the piano.
But in the end, he was convinced to experiment with something else. He chose - in addition to Joplin and Gillaumes - Scarlatti and Prokofiev. Scarlatti because it is prior to Bach's "well-tempered" tuning. At that time, the tuning was not so "digitized", it was not so exact but more natural, free, personal. Each tuning had its own peculiarity. Also the sound of Prokofiev, closer to us, is very interesting in the search for new sound textures. Played on this piano, "it has opened another dimension to me," says Fedor.
At the next concert (May 14) he wants to take more risks and try a romantic: Chopin. "In this first concert I played it safe because I had few opportunities to rehearse." He was only able to rehearse with the new bell two hours before the concert!
He is excited by Sergey's enthusiasm for the project. “Sergey is convinced of his idea. At first people resist, but insisting things come out. " This new sonority, the depth of the new timbre, can open up new fields in the musical world which, unfortunately, is now quite closed. "As we have gotten used to the middle pedal, which at first seemed crazy, we can get used to the new pedal and its wide range of possibilities."
Fedor told me a little about his musical career. “I got a little disappointed with the world of culture, because they didn't allow me to play what I wanted. Now I am an amateur and I have the luxury of being able to choose ”. Music is freedom. The freedom to play what you want and to experiment with new sounds.
“Currently, there are many people who schedule concerts without knowing almost anything about music. They decide what the public wants, and the public ends up wanting this because nothing else is offered to them. " Working with the ACOUHYB project is the possibility of skipping the figure of the programmer.
Sergey gives you the freedom to interpret what you want. It is the only way for the musician to express what he really feels. Only in this way can the love of music be transmitted. This love that would make Fedor play even if there was nothing else in the world. This love of music that he shares through, precisely, music.
Only in this climate can the superficial barrier of intermediaries and extra-artistic factors that brutalize the world of music be broken, and one goes on to make music, beyond the tuning of today's society, a tuning perhaps too narrow. Pure, free music, far from programs and preset tunings. "And if they don't want to listen to me, they are free not to." Music is more than that.
Nadja Bas.
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