So Many Wrong Notes

With cancelled gigs and the disappearance of live performances due of Covid-19, why are we still having performance anxiety dreams? Franny and Jeannette discuss the underlying anxieties for these recital nightmares. Note: We actually recorded this awhile ago, when the … Continued

The first of our listening series, in which we report with recordings we’ve been recently enjoying in hopes that you’ll share in the fun Max Richter: Vivaldi Recomposed: Daniel HopeKonzerthaus Kammerorchester BerlinAndré de RidderInt. Release 28 Apr. 2014 https://www.deutschegrammophon.com/us/cat/4792777 Liszt-Horowitz: … Continued

In this edition of our holiday episode, Jeannette quizzes Francis on weird Holiday facts, like the real meaning of We Wish You a Merry Christmas, how much it would cost to put on the 12 Days of Christmas, who invented … Continued

Fresh from his time at Juilliard, Francis and Jeannette take the opportunity to talk about both their experiences of having studied there.

So so sorry for the ridiculously long break! But we’re back, and we’ve got various news items to report as we catchup over the last year.

Jeannette sits down with pianist and pedagogue Stijn De Cock for a conversation on teaching, work/life balance, and much more. Stijn teaches at Florida State University, and is the founding director of the Brancaleoni International Music Festival. He will be … Continued

Jeannette interviews Francis on Rhetoric in Music for a look into the origins and philosophies of it in historical performance, and how musicians today can apply it to their own performances.

Happy Holidays everyone! We hope you all had a relatively stress-free gigging season and your travels went without snafu. For this special holiday episode, we find out about a whole bunch of weird facts about Christmas Carols, Bach, and Christmas … Continued

Who likes to talk about money? No one. Especially musicians. Ew. Gross. So low. Don’t sully yourself with this dirty money talk. Leave that to Franny and Jeannette in this episode. Except, they just think that everyone should be more … Continued

We continue our conversation on teaching piano, getting into topics of favoritism, drawing boundaries, and their latest obsessions. For the cardboard creations that are mentioned, go to Jeannette’s facebook or instagram

Whats makes a good piano teacher? Franny talks with Jeannette about growing up as the daughter of NJ’s piano nazi, their teaching philosophies, influential teachers of their lives, and bushels more.

In which we talk about our summers at various music festivals, being at Garth Newel, and give belated thanks and replies to our listeners. Special thanks to Shi-An Costello, who left us our very first review! Thanks for listening!

We continue our conversation with the fascinating Aisslinn Nosky with part 2 of our interview, romping through tuningland, conductor-less orchestras, how to talk to your keyboardist, and of course, stupid questions!

Franny and I interview the brilliant Aisslinn Nosky, the baroque violinist extraordinaire whose electrifying performances get everyone buzzing. She has coming to Garth Newel Music Center for the past three summers to lead our Emerging Artist Fellows in a baroque … Continued

Francis sits down to talk with harpsichordist/conductor Richard Egarr! They talk about the harpsichord sound, creating dynamics on the instrument, and thoughts on continuo playing. And he only says f*ck once…(maybe it’s twice) To find out more about Richard Egarr, … Continued

Ok, so we’ve been REALLY wanting to do an episode about BEING ASIAN in music. But every time we recorded something about this topic, we hated how tiresome and preachy we got. This is actually an episode we did awhile … Continued

Our piano tech series continues with Harry Doss, piano technician at Virginia Tech, and also the guy who also makes the 2 hour trek to Garth Newel Music Center before every concert weekend to make our pianos sound concert worthy. … Continued

Jeannette sits down with composer, teacher, and music observer Garrett Schumann. Garrett is someone who’s constantly thinking about music and its place in society and culture, and conversation with him is always interesting and thought provoking as a result. They … Continued

Here’s the second part of the interview Francis did with musician, writer, actor, and activist Shi An! They talk about the intricacies of the composer/performer relationship. Remember to check out Shi An’s album, Rounded Binary!

Francis interviews fabulous pianist, composer, writer, and activist Shi An! We talk about the importance of names, how we feel about the canon, and performance. You’ll find out much more about Shi An in the second part of our interview … Continued

This episode is the first part of a series of episodes we’ll be doing on the unsung heroes of the piano world: piano technicians. William “Boomer” Harold is the piano technician at Yale School of Music, and we have a … Continued

Last year, I sat down with two talented high school students who I met while working at Friends Music Camp. They’re two of the most musical kids I’ve met and was happy that they were both attending performing arts high … Continued

My conversation with Joseph Gascho was so interesting that we couldn’t fit it into just one episode. For the 2nd part of our interview that started with episode 7, Joe talks about the instinct to go above and beyond as a teacher, … Continued

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone! And what better way to deal with the festivities than with a slew of stupid questions. We talk about everything from Christmas traditions, Mr. Hanky’s Christmas Classics, best gifts, Haley Joel Osment, favorite carols, … Continued

Harpsichord phenom Joe Gascho may be uncomfortable with me introducing him as an awesome person, but he’s just going have to be ok with it, because if anyone is deserving of the title, it’s him. Find out why in this … Continued

We talk about practicing anxiety, our fears behind procrastination, how we learned, effective practicing and planning techniques, how we got our theme song, and a bunch of other stuff. listen on iTunes and subscribe to get upcoming episodes!

The stupid questions episode. What do Rachmaninoff and pancakes have in common? What does “singing like a pianist” mean? Find out on our first episode devoted purely to stupid questions. Let us know what you thought of this episode! Mostly … Continued

For part 2 of my interview with pianist Brian Hsu, we get into repertoire pet peeves, talk about his past and future recording projects, about how becoming a professor has made him see how they might have gotten some stuff … Continued

This week we have for you the first part of my interview with Brian Hsu, one of my closest and oldest friends. I have mad respect for this guy, not in small part because you can always count on him … Continued

Jeannette talks to composers David Biedenbender and Matthew Browne about their experiences with working with performers, their compositional processes, their relationship to writing for the piano, and their thoughts on music today.

We’re back! For episode 1 of season 2, we catch up on our summers, get into the business of performance anxiety, talk about how nerves are actually not the enemy, and also about more important things like naming your spiders … Continued

A little taste of some of the interesting and incredible guests we have in store for you this coming season. New episodes coming soon!

For Part 2, Jonathan bares all: how a glitch in paperwork nearly cost him a musical career, how he chose freelancing over tenure track, what he has learned from his musical mentors, and how he is thankful even for lessons that … Continued

It was so good to catch up with Jonathan that we had to split this interview into 2 episodes. In Part 1, we talk about what he’s learned from being the director of his own chamber music series, what it … Continued

In our second Awesome Person Interview series, Franny interviews a fantastic tenor, Martin Bakari. This week Martin and Franny talk about working with singers: the qualities that make a great collaborative pianist, building trust during the rehearsal process, and what … Continued

For the inaugural episode of our “Awesome Person Series”, we bring you an interview with Pomona College’s Everett S. Olive Professor Genevieve Feiwen Lee, a pianist whose wisdom, empathy, and creativity makes her a favorite of anyone who gets to know … Continued

In which we discuss the often loathed tradition of playing entire recitals by memory.

In which Franny and Jeannette talk about why they love to collaborate with composers!

Franny asks Jeannette many a good question about what it’s like to be the pianist of the Garth Newel Piano Quartet, and how that has worked better than Xanax for mental sanity. There is talk of brothers on both ends. … Continued

In which Franny discovers that Jeannette knows nothing about the harpsichord despite being his friend for all these years. What do you think of our new theme song?  Leave us a comment! ITUNES GOOGLE PLAY  

In the interest of rebranding, we decided to re-release episode with our new name.  Stay tuned for the blog post in which Franny details the reasons why we made the switch! In this episode: Jeannette breaks the poop joke seal, … Continued

Mambo! This ad ended up being the preamble instead of the actual content we had planned.  Which is fine, but I still wanted to call it “Mozart Mango” because one should say Mozart Mango as much as possible, whenever possible. … Continued

Finger This – a new podcast brought to you by two asians who don’t speak any asian languages. ITUNES

A new show by Franny and Fang, 30 some-thing keyboard geeks.  Coming March 1!