The Miller Piano Specialists Podcast | Nashville, TN

Another episode of the Miller Piano Podcast is here! Host, Jason Skipper sits down with accomplished pianist, composer, and award winner Ed Bazel. If you want to learn more about the ins and outs of becoming a professional musician, you do not want to miss this podcast! Topics Discussed: Can Music Truly Heal the Soul? Ed's Interesting Journey As an Aspiring Artist How Ed Found His Absolute Favorite Piano How and Why "The River of Calm" Began Ed Bazel's Upcoming CD Transcript Jason Skipper 0:12 Welcome to the Miller Piano Podcast! I'm your host Jason Skipper, and in this episode, we have special guest Ed Bazel here visiting us. Ed has been a longtime friend of Miller Piano Specialists. He is the host of The River of Calm live stream concert series, as well as The River of Calm beyond the music podcast. Ed is an accomplished pianist and composer, and he has won many awards. Just to name a few from Miller Piano Specialists, in 2017, Ed was the recipient of the MPS Hall of Fame Award in the Instrumentalists Category. In 2018, he received the MPS Hall of Fame Award as Entertainer of the Year. In late 2019 late last year, he was recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Ed, It's an honor to have you on the podcast, welcome! Ed Bazel 1:00 Jason, thank you so much. You should be my agent, that sounds like that's pretty cool stuff that's happened there! Jason Skipper 1:08 It's very impressive everything that you've done. You know, I've been watching the MPS Awards show last year, also online with The River of Calm. It's just impressive everything you've done, so it is an honor! Ed Bazel 1:21 I'm a lucky man. I'll put it that way. So thank you so much for having me here. Jason Skipper 1:26 All right. Well, as I mentioned that you have been working closely with Miller Piano Specialists for quite a while. I know you've been through them with the events over the years. You have The River of Calm that happens every month there at the store. How did your relationship start with Miller? Ed Bazel 1:43 Oh, wow, that's a good question. It started because my sister took piano lessons when I was a kid. That's what happened. She was older than me, so my mom would drop her off and she figured, if she drops my sister off for half an hour, she might as well get me lessons too, so she can have an hour of free time. So my mom was really smart. So I started lessons at five. There's an answer to this Miller Piano thing that I'll get to. For 11 years kicking and screaming, and I was on a Yamaha spin at a piano at that time. I hated it until I realized that I was too shy to talk to girls, and maybe I could be good at piano and that would help. I don't know if it did or not, but that's another story. So yeah, I went to school, I have that business degree Computer Programming Degree and I told my mom and dad, "You know what, I'm going to play the piano for a living." I was a professional pianist for about 20 years. Not only here in my hometown of Huntington, West Virginia, but Lexington, Kentucky and then out in Los Angeles for many years. I was the guy like In the tuxedo at the Beverly Hills Country Club, you know, of course, I could play "Misty" (Ella Fitzgerald) and yes, the restroom is that way. I always use that as a joke. It was such a great way to make a living with my hands and my soul. I realized, the more I would go into an agent's office to pick up my paycheck, the more they would call me on the phone to do jobs and was like, "This is interesting." So I said, "Why don't I take that box of index cards you have of your artists?" This is really old school stuff, "And let me create a database for you." So that's how I got into the agency side of things. So I ended up becoming an agent in LA, a lot of work in the Asia Pacific market, and then learned the corporate entertainment market. We're getting to Miller Piano I just want you to know that! Jason Skipper 3:52 Oh, you're good, you're good. Ed Bazel 3:53 So I had been an agent for artists like Judy Collins, Don McLean, Gordon Lightfoot, John Waite, a number of older, classic artists. Then I had an entrepreneurial seizure, which is what they call it, and I thought I could probably do this on my own. So I opened my own company. For 20 some years, we've had a company that produces concerts, comedians and speakers for corporate events. So that means somebody knows how to build aircraft or program software suites. But when it comes to that big company event where you're going to have a concert, they don't know exactly what they're doing. So we're the guys that say, "Hey, we'll walk you through the process, you show up and look good, and we'll handle the details." During that 20 plus years when I wasn't a pianist, when I was working in the corporate world, which again, bookings all the way from the Great Wall of China to the US Ambassador to the Vatican in Rome and an amazing career with tremendous artists. But all that time, I wasn't playing the piano for a living, and I somewhat missed it. I missed it more and more. I thought, you know, I've got this Yamaha Clavinova now that I've used for so long, which is an electric keyboard with a weighted action, which is really cool to have, especially with the volume control button if you are living in an apartment or had people sleeping. So that was good. I thought this piano is starting to call me again, after all these years. It's like waking up again. So, I actually have a laminated vision board in my shower. Yes, I do. Sorry to say that, but it works! It works. People think people at Kinkos think I'm a little strange, but that's okay. Jason Skipper 3:55 Gotcha! That's the best place where you get the best ideas. Isn't it? Right there. Ed Bazel 5:58 Every morning, every single morning. So I did have a grand piano on my vision board. So with the piano calling to me again, still booking concerts, you name it, you know Smash Mouth, Foreigner, Huey Lewis in the news and stuff, I'm still thinking there's something missing. So I thought, I've never recorded a piano CD before. So, a few years back, I decided I'm going to go in and at least record a CD of my own stuff. So I went to you know, the beautiful studio here in Nashville. They had a Yamaha C7 and here I'd practice on the Yamaha Clavinova weighted action keyboard, which seems like no big deal. But when I sat at that Yamaha C7 in the studio, which is like you're under a microscope, there's no hiding when it comes to solo piano, none. It was like going from my Yamaha Clavinova which I would say was like beautiful Honda, you know that you're driving or even better than that. I'm not trying to diss-service the Clavinova. But that Yamaha C7 was like a Ferrari on steroids. Oh my gosh, what an experience playing that. The difference in feel was really palpable I ended up you know, playing afraid of the keyboard because it was so expressive. So I had to control it. So with all that said, I wasn't really happy with that CD. I'm gonna record it another one. So, that problem with not being able to express myself, I cured it because I bought a C7 for myself, and my touch and feel are back now. That's all because I wandered into Miller Piano and I walked in there and I remember Sherry Carlisle Smith sitting in the corner there and she gave me some space. I'm not one of these persons that want to be jumped on immediately. I just kind of want to touch a little bit. Sherry was so pleasant to work with, she made it easy for me to find the right piano. I think when you're buying a piano, depending on where you are, and what your mission is, for me it was finding the right one that called to me that felt great with touch and feel an expression. Oh my gosh, and she found it for me. I love that piano, I play it every single day and also at night, every night before I go to bed. It's one of those "Thank you God" moments saying I'm so lucky being able to do this. So I'm a huge fan of Miller Piano and I'm not a paid advertiser for this. Yeah, they're great, they're experts at what they do and they'll find you what you want. Starting out, you probably don't need a Yamaha C7, but if you have kids, you could start with something much smaller, more reasonable and have them grow into it. Either way, they're a no-pressure group and as I say on our River of Calm projects, they are Nashville's authorized Yamaha Piano dealer. That's a big deal and Nashville Music City USA. Let's get to Miller Piano, the more I sat at my beautiful Yamaha C7 and played songs especially in E flat, "Someone to Watch Over Me," "Over the Rainbow," "Till There Was You," these are all old songs that I used to play for a living. It really started calming me down because the work of concerts can be a little bit stressful. We all have stress in our lives. Jason Skipper 9:45 I can imagine, yeah. Ed Bazel 9:46 The more I sat down and played the piano, the more I was relaxed in my DNA and I did have some radio experience and I wondered if there's a radio station that offers this type of music, so I thought, "I could actually create one." Again that entrepreneurial seizure that happens. Jason Skipper 9:53 I love that terminology, entrepreneurial seizure. Ed Bazel 10:08 Absolutely. So I found some software and I put a couple of my songs up there and a couple of my other friend's songs up there. The first song I put up for friends was my friend Eric Bykales who I believe you spoke with already. Jason Skipper 10:24 Yes, we had him! The podcast will be out soon, it's the one right before this when that comes out, episode nine. Ed Bazel 10:31 I better speak well of him, then! Jason Skipper 10:33 He spoke well of you and we'll talk about it a little bit. He talked about some other passions you guys have together. Yeah, we'll talk about that in a moment. Ed Bazel 10:41 Okay, no problem. At first, had Eric on there, I decided I need something calming. So I called it The River of Calm, music to soothe your soul. It started out with me and Eric, and about one listener, which was me. Music, bottom line, is healing and comforting. It might not cure everything, but it certainly is healing for your soul, your DNA. We proved this as The River of Calm, which is the riverofcalm.com. We now have over 116 independent artists on there. Some of them are Grammy Award winners. Some of them are musicians like Eric, who is Neil Sedaka's pianist for all those years. We have Olivia Newton John's musical director there. We have professors, we have an amazing accomplishment of independent artists who really believe that music is healing. So this goes out along with we have on The River of Calm, numerous, articles on healing, on music and health, music in Alzheimer's, chemotherapy, dementia, PTSD and Parkinson's. It's a real mission of, calming and just having people take a moment to center themselves. Then lastly, we do have two things, our online podcast, which is Beyond the Music where we talk to these artists who create this music on their journey of how they composed it, their fears, their joys, etc. Lastly, we have a monthly live-streaming concert, which we partnered with Miller Piano, where we bring The River of Calm to live once a month to Miller Piano. It's an hour show on Facebook Live, and this past month, we did The River of Calm 10x, and that was 10 pianist each playing one song within one hour. It was incredible. It wasn't a competition, it was there for love and support. If you're familiar with Nashville, we had the Bluebird Cafe, where songwriters come bringing their guitars and sing their songs and share their music. We're like the bluebird cafe without lyrics for pianists. Miller Piano has been great for this. We've had almost, I think around 20 different live streaming concerts, and always on a beautiful piano. That's a Yamaha C7, nine times out of 10, which is the industry standard for recording studios around town. One thing I like about the C7 and the Yamaha is no matter where you go, it's the same touch and feel on that keyboard. It's very accurate, It's very comforting, and it's a quality, quality product for sure. Miller Piano has been great, I'm a huge fan of them and again, there is no financial gain on this. This is just the love of music, and I also admire what Ross, Sylvia, and Sherry Carlisle Smith and everyone else in promoting and encouraging the live music scene here in Nashville. Jason Skipper 14:09 We appreciate all those words and I know that they're so appreciative. Also, being able to host what you guys are doing there with The River of Calm the concerts that you have every month for our listeners, if you haven't heard The River of Calm or you haven't seen this, you can find them at your website. I believe it's the riverofcalm.com. Also, look you up on Facebook, these are always being announced. These events are always being announced both on Miller's page on the Miller Piano Specialists Facebook page and also The River of Calm Facebook page. Also the Miller Piano Specialists website Millerps.com. So, this is I believe is the third Thursday. Am I correct? Ed Bazel 15:07 Correct, the third Thursday of each month. Absolutely. Jason Skipper 15:10 Okay, third Thursday of each month. So, talk to me a little bit more about The River of Calm and the healing. It's so captivating, what you explained and how music can heal and soothe the soul. We know how important music is in life and I think it can help people so much. Can you go deeper into that exactly? Ed Bazel 15:33 Yeah, that's true. That's a good question. There are numerous scientific studies or first off, we could just bandaid this and just say, "Oh, yeah, well, I'm sure it does something." But there are scientific studies, about the healing process on DNA level or just even if you want to get really serious. I'm reading a book telomeres, and they're the endpoint of stem cells. Dr. Ed Park has an amazing book out about the processes of helping lengthen your telomeres which will lengthen your life. It's about the holistic method, breathing, relaxing music, comforting music and eliminating stress in your life. We're not going to get out of this place alive and laughing at the absurdity of it all in away. Let's get back to music. For one thing, we have a project, which I'm really thrilled about. I don't know if I've mentioned this to you, Jason. But we have partnered with a filmmaker out of New York, who won the Sundance Film Festival for their work with a project called "Alive Inside" and it's about filmmaker going and following a doctor as he went to nursing homes and put headphones on people that had Alzheimer's or dementia and playing songs of their era and seeing scientifically how the mind comes back and recognizes that. It really does awaken those who are so shut down. So it's a beautiful project, Aliveinside.org, and we've talked to them. We're partnering on a headphone project where we're going to use those exact headphones with The River of Calm artists music, and then bring them into chemotherapy centers, in hospitals to help comfort patients who are in the process of the absurd and surreal process of chemotherapy. That's a big project and mission for us on that. You look around you see so many different apps that are out there. Calm.com is out there, insight time or meditation apps, but music does something on a DNA level. I'm not smart enough to explain it scientifically. But as a musician who's lived 10,000 hours at a piano, I know it, and I'm not alone, because we have listeners in over 168 different countries right now. Wow. That all started from me at a piano with just one listener, me. It's bigger than me, I can promise you that. Jason Skipper 18:48 Absolutely, absolutely. I read on your website, it mentioned I think something you say, music transcends language and touches our souls. Ed Bazel 18:57 That sounds like a pretty good idea because it does. It doesn't matter what language you are, it just cuts across that and reaches down into your soul. There something I love about the artists on The River of Calm is the expression and depth of creativity from their soul. They're 115 or 116 different, what I call healers. They're musical healers, and there's a whole profession on music therapy out there to that we could bring in somebody into discussing to really get the science behind it. Again, we're just stating on the big picture of it, but it is very real, and I'm happy to be a part of this NFR music can help even one person, just calm themselves, and get them centered and realizing they're okay. I think we're on the right track. Jason Skipper 20:01 It's worth it for that one reason, and it seems like it's many, many more people. So you answered quite a few of my questions. You mentioned that you're from Huntington and you were in Lexington for a while and you were in LA. What brought you to Tennessee? Ed Bazel 20:23 That's a good question. I actually was in Los Angeles and really enjoyed the time out there. It was like having a front-row seat on life. Now, there were earthquakes, riots, and gunfire. That was on Monday now Tuesday, where the wildfire. [laughing] I was out there and doing fine. My parents are in Huntington, West Virginia. At that time, my dad had leukemia, and I felt kind of bad about that. I was kind of feeling a pullback this way. At that point, I was an agent for the different artists that I mentioned and learning the corporate entertainment world. I told the guy I was working for that was prior to my entrepreneurial seizure, that "Hey, why don't I open an office for you in Nashville? It's close enough that I can get to West Virginia much easier than me trying to get from LA to West Virginia." So It's five and a half hours from here, so I was able to do that. At that time. I had a young daughter. It was a great place to be, I just realized I'm like 23 years ahead of most of the people now moving here. Jason Skipper 21:40 It's amazing how time flies it really is. Ed Bazel 21:42 No kidding, but Nashville's a kinder gentler place to be. I can't say enough about it, and I'm happy to be a part of the music industry here. Jason Skipper 21:53 Right. Well, in our podcast with Eric Bykales, as you mentioned there he mentioned that you guys both love to fly drones. And at one point you had put together a drone business? I'm not sure exactly. He didn't get deep into it, but is that true? Ed Bazel 22:12 I'm not allowed to discuss anything. I'm kidding. Yes, we both love drones. Eric is a great pilot. Drone flying can be a two-person business because one person is the pilot. The other one has a screen to direct where to fly to. So we would do this, we had a business and we still have it, but we haven't had time for it. Where property owners hire us to survey if they're selling a marina or they're selling a hunting acreage or a big house for us to fly around, get aerial views, stunning views. Then we edited the film and then had our piano music in the background to cover it, so it was a lot of fun, I tell you what. Eric's still a great pilot and his new CD, "Fire in the Sky," that picture was taken from his front cover from the drone itself when he was flying it. Jason Skipper 23:10 He mentioned that and that's awesome. That just makes it so much more personal. I just asked because I love drones as well. I have a drone and I love to fly it. I had to ask that! Ed Bazel 23:24 So you never know. Jason Skipper 23:25 Yeah, you never know. So outside of music, of course, you have The Bazel Group, you mentioned your business. Outside of music, outside of work, and outside of drones, what else are you passionate about in life? Ed Bazel 23:40 I've got a daughter who's 26, she's a good kid and great to have on board. I also seem to love to work out. When my dad had leukemia, I couldn't help him I realized. So I thought to do something to help the process. So I organized and rode a fundraiser, bicycle ride from the end of the Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles, to the end of the St. John's Pier in St. Augustine, Florida. Jason Skipper 24:12 Seriously? Wow. Ed Bazel 24:13 3000 miles, eight states, and 278 cities and towns and about 88 miles a day. Jason Skipper 24:19 Wow. Ed Bazel 24:20 So I've done that. Five marathons, I've hiked Mount Kilimanjaro, I've been to the Tour de France on a bicycling vacation twice. I'm now taking swimming lessons to be able to swim a lot more efficiently than I can right now. Jason Skipper 24:40 Wow. Well, you've had quite a life so far. Ed Bazel 24:44 I told you I'm a lucky man. And the futures yet to be invented yet, so lookout. Jason Skipper 24:52 That is for sure. Everything's changing, new things are on the horizon. Good deal! Well, how can listeners get in contact with you? Of course, they can come and visit The River of Calm when you're there on the third Thursday of every month. How else can listeners find you? Ed Bazel 25:13 Listeners can find me on The River of Calm if they need me for The River of Calm, I'm Ed@theriverofcalm.com is the email address. I'm just being very open with that. We have Bazelgroup.com. Then I'm working and I'm almost ready to record my new CD to replace the "oh my gosh, I'm on a Ferrari with steroids, Yamaha C7 issue." So I have a piano CD website, which is Edbazel.com. Of course, Spotify, iTunes, and The River of Calm too, did I mention that? Jason Skipper 25:56 Yes, there we go. Well, good deal. So on the CD that you plan to be recording, I understand you haven't done this yet. How soon will that be happening? Ed Bazel 26:05 Probably within a couple of months. I mentioned on The River of Calm, I've interviewed a number of the artists probably almost up to 20 right now, and everyone has a different journey. I've heard some who have one CD out, others who have 18 out. I'm going, "Oh my gosh, I'm a slacker!" But this stuff does not come quickly to me, I want to shape and refine it. So I have about 10 songs that currently I'm just in the editing process notation wise, to make sure that I record them and play them with the notes that are intended to be played and not just kind of faking it as I get there. I want this piece to be meaningful. Believe me, it's very humbling to be a pianist and play with nine other pianists that are up there like we did this past week for The River of Calm 10x Livestream. I've come to realize and I hope everyone else will that when you're a pianist, it's your personality that comes out. There's no "Oh, I've got to be like him or her." I like it to we're all different flavors of ice cream. Each one is good enough and just perfectly who you are. To try to take that as my own advice is a little tough at times, I'm working on it. You know, I want to be the pianist like Eric Bykales or Dane Bryant or Philip Wesley or numerous others. But I realize I'm this guy that has romantic melodic lines and just what it is. Jason Skipper 27:47 Yes! Eric mentioned that to me, that you are a romantic. It's amazing. Ed Bazel 27:54 Well, it's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do this work. Jason Skipper 28:00 Right. Well, finishing up here this last question, what should I have asked you that I didn't ask you that you'd like to talk about? Ed Bazel 28:10 Wow, Jason, that's a good question on that. I think about this River of Calm thing, and I think, "Am I doing the right thing?" Do I have my inner demons like other artists? You bet I do. Am I good enough? I don't know. I guess I'm good enough. It's still a journey, It really is, I think it's everyone's journey. I love seeing people, especially parents bring kids into Miller Piano and to watch them sit down. I want to just drop to my knees and worship them for giving their kids a chance with music. Oh, my gosh, my parents always wanted me to get a "real job." Here I am a pianist for many years, and my mom even said at one time, God bless her soul. She said, "I think you should get a job on the Toyota factory line." I was like, "Oh, just shoot me, just shoot me." But for what it's worth, I've been lucky enough to make a living and a career in music and have amazing experiences. I just salute the parents that are tough enough to keep their kids in lessons and then watch them blossom. You see that happening at Miller Piano almost daily. Jason Skipper 29:31 You do. Wow. Well, thank you, Ed. This has been a great time. It's been great to get to know you, and It's been great. We thank you for your time. Ed Bazel 29:42 Thank you for your time, Jason. Thank Miller Piano Specialists for me too, okay? Jason Skipper 29:47 Oh, we definitely will. They'll be listening as well, we're all listening. I'll just finish up here saying as always, to all of our listeners out there, make sure to go to our website! You can find the notes and a transcript of this episode right on our website on Millerps.com. You can also find this on Apple Podcast, Google Play Podcasts, and Spotify. Look us up on your favorite podcasting platform. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe. That really, really does help. Once again, thanks, Ed. I appreciate your time. This has been your host Jason Skipper, and we'll see you next time.

Episode #9 of the Miller Piano Podcast is finally here! In this episode, host Jason Skipper talks with Eric Bikales, a musician, composer, and amazing pianist. If you are a music lover, this is an episode you do not want to miss out on! Topics Discussed: Eric's Relationship with Miller Piano How Eric Became the Musician He Is Today Advice to an Aspiring Musician The Music Business and LA Living Eric's Music and New Album Transcript Jason Skipper 0:12 Welcome to the Miller Piano Podcast! I'm your host, Jason Skipper, and in this episode, we have special guest, Eric Bikales connected with us. Eric has been a longtime friend of Miller piano specialist and is a musician. Specifically a wonderful pianist, composer, also a flute player and many other things. Eric has played for 37 years, I believe, with Neil Sedaka. He has composed music and played for many different artists, TV shows, and much more. I'm really looking forward to having Eric share so many of his stories. Eric, welcome to the podcast! Eric Bikales 0:47 Hey, Jason, great to be here. I'm really happy to speak with you. The first thing I want to say is thank you to Miller Piano for being such a great home to me. All the people over there so nice, and they have treated me so well. For years now they just really make me feel like I have a place here in Franklin, Tennessee. You know, they also sell the best pianos too! Jason Skipper 1:18 That is for sure! I know you've been with their events, "The River of Calm" and other events that they've done over the years at Miller Piano Specialists. I heard your music there and heard it online many times. Your music is amazing. Talking about Miller since we started there, how did your relationship start with Miller Piano Specialists? Eric Bikales 1:37 Well, it was kind of funny. I had just moved to Franklin from a little bit north of Nashville. I lived there for a number of years. When I moved to Franklin, I decided that I want to start teaching piano out of my home. So I designed some posters and I just looked up what music stores were in the area and the first one on the list happened to be Miller. I went over there and I met Sherry Carlisle Smith, who was their general manager and a saleswoman, and she and I just really hit it off. Jason Skipper 2:16 It's hard not to with Sherry in it? Eric Bikales 2:19 She's got that bubbly personality! We sat down and talked for I think what amounted to like a couple of hours. I was only going to ask her if I could hang up an ad for teaching in her music store and it wound up that we knew all kinds of people in common. Then I found out that she had been in the business herself as one of the Jordanaires, which is a very famous singing group who used to backup Elvis and a lot of other artists. One of the guys in the Jordanaires and the name escapes me now (Charlie McCoy), who actually devised the Nashville Number System that we still use today. Sherry was there on the ground level when all that was happening, she was touring as a singer and she didn't become a piano salesperson until later on in life. Anyway, we had a great conversation and became really good friends. I just wound up starting to go there weekly to check up on how things were going, and then I got involved in their Writers Night, and she let me play original material. I developed a little audience and following at Miller, and then one thing developed into another and we've just been going strong for years. Jason Skipper 3:43 How long has that been? Eric Bikales 3:45 Well, I've been here for about six years, something like that. I think that she was one of the first people I met when I got here. Jason Skipper 3:52 Okay. I know you've been connected through "Writers Night," you've been involved in that activity. Also "The River of Calm." How often are you in these events? And how often are these events held? Eric Bikales 4:03 Miller Piano has events going every month. They have a whole schedule of things ranging from "Writers Night" where anybody can come out there and talk to Sherry about it, or Dave and get signed up to perform on a Writers Night. It is just such a good experience for people who write original material and want to test it out on an audience. Believe it or not, even though it is a piano store, "Writers Night" doesn't even cater to piano artists, in particular. Lots and lots of guitars, people who sing and play guitar, come out there and participate in Writers Nights as well. Then there's "The River of Calm" and that's something that started up a couple of years ago with Ed Bazell. "The River of Calm" is an internet radio station that promotes healing, soothing, relaxing music. It's primarily based on piano but not totally. I met Ed Bazell at Miller Piano. Come to think of it, I met Ed at my CD release party for my first CD that I put out called "Follow Your Heart." That was an event that Sherry was kind enough to sponsor for me at Miller Piano to be able to have my release party there. I had a nice sized crowd and I got to play a few of my tunes from the upcoming record, and I played a few new ones. We had a great time. Ed and I actually started hanging out and decided to form a drone company because we're both into flying drones. So, we joined forces and we started a company called "Fly by Day." Jason Skipper 6:05 Oh wow! Very cool! Eric Bikales 6:08 We still have a little Facebook page up and some of our work. That continued for a couple of years until the laws changed regarding commercial drone flying. Of course, now, it requires a pilot's license of sorts, and things kind of came unglued at that point. But, we still do it and we still have our drones. So in fact, I use the drone now for taking photos from my records and my latest record, which is called "Fire in the Clouds." That piece, "Fire in the Clouds" is written for a scene that I took a photo of which was a beautiful sunset right here in Tennessee. I guess I had it up there at almost as high as you could get it about 380 feet or so. I got a really gorgeous shot and that wound up being the cover of the new CD. To continue about Miller, they sponsor their "Writers Night" I think those are the first Thursday of every month. They sponsor "The River of Calm," which is the third Thursday of every month. Then, they have various other things like CD release parties, and of course, they have teachers on-site there who give lessons. Sherry also gives a class lesson on piano. It's a busy place you know, they've always got stuff going on there. Jason Skipper 7:29 Always, always. Well for our listeners, follow Miller Piano Specialists Facebook page, because we're always sharing when these events are. You can see it on our website, Millerps.com, as well. I know that these are always going out live from the Miller Piano Facebook page, and also The River of Calm Facebook page, I believe. Always come out, too. It's quite an experience, as Eric said. Eric, let's get to know you a little bit more, just about you, where you're from. So let me just ask you that, where are you from? Eric Bikales 7:58 I'm a Kansas City guy. Jason Skipper 8:00 Kansas City! Eric Bikales 8:01 Yeah! Kansas City, Kansas. My family was all musical, everybody in the family played instruments. There were four kids in my family, two boys, and two girls. We all started on the piano, and if we chose to, we could take a second instrument after a couple of years. I chose flute, I really chose drums, but my folks said, "No!" Then I said okay well then, saxophone and they said no again. And then they suggested, "How about flute" and I went, "Okay." I mean, my folks were totally classically oriented. What we listened to at home was classical music or show tune. So that was the era in which my folks grew up in. To them, The Beatles would have been kind of like new crazy music that you know, they just don't listen to. Which seems so funny to us, because The Beatles are so accepted at this point. But back then, it was a new thing. So I didn't get into listening to pop music until I got into junior high school or middle school, as they call it now. That's, that's when I got turned on to pop music and jazz in particular. Once I heard a couple of jazz artists that really spoke to me, I was off and running. I just, I love this stuff. I mean, I heard Dave Brubeck. His song "Take Five" was brand new, I think was released in the late 50s or maybe early 60s. I can't remember. But, it was a cool, cool thing. That record "Time Out" just captivated me. Then when I heard Ramsey Lewis come out with "In Crowd," that was it. I had to learn how to play that note for note and so I did! I just learned the whole thing, see by then, I had already had several years of classical lessons and so I had some fingers at that point. I just had to try to copy what Ramsey was doing. I didn't know what I was doing, I'm sure I ruined a couple of record albums, putting the needle back and forth, making sure I had everything exactly the way he did it. Then I did the same thing with Herbie Mann on a flute because the first time I heard Herbie Mann live at the Village Gate, which only had three songs on it which were "Summertime," "Comin' Home Baby" and something else. It absolutely captivated me and it gave me a direction besides classical. Although I love classical, I was at the age where I was really interested in integrating into the music of my generation, and music that my peers were listening to. I know that when I performed classical music, in school and talent shows and stuff like that, people were receptive to it, and I think they were more impressed than the present. Really, I think that classical music was always something that some people listen to and other people never really bothered with. I love it to this day, I still have a classical repertoire that I play on the piano and a little bit of flute. I try to keep those things up as best I can. The problem these days is that there's so much music that you collect throughout your life, that it's just really hard to keep it all going at once. Jason Skipper 11:24 Right! Well, let me ask you this. I understand you lived in Los Angeles for a while, and you've done quite a bit of commercial music. I know you've moved around, played with Neil Sedaka, I believe 37 years. How did you get into all of that? Eric Bikales 11:37 Well, I guess it all started in college. Just briefly what happened was that I discovered when I went to the University of Kansas that contrary to my entire belief system, I wasn't going to be a doctor. I thought I was going to go to medical school like my dad. I just figured that was what I was going to do because it seemed like a really good thing to do. Of course, that's pretty naive. So when it really gets down to brass tacks, you find out pretty quickly if you've got what it takes to be in that world. The magic wasn't there for me, I wasn't really actively taking physics and chemistry and biology when I got to college. I was in the liberal arts program, and I realized that I'm not going to be a doctor. Then I didn't know what I wanted to do. I wound up deciding that I should do what I do best, and that's music. So it had nothing to do with making a living or anything else. I didn't really consider anything except, "What do I do the best? What do I love doing? What do I want to go into?" It's just so naive, but that's where I was. So I said, "Follow your heart." Yeah, I just decided to do that and I got into the Music School at the University of Kansas. I did that for two years until I realized that it was kind of a dead-end for me because the school didn't even recognize jazz or pop music as a legitimate art form. They really only did classical and they went right from classical into all this postmodern stuff that I didn't really like all that much. I didn't really look like serial music and 12 tones and all the really weird stuff just didn't appeal to me at all and I didn't see the purpose of it. So after two years of music school, I quit and I joined a band. The band became really popular in a regional way. It's called Sanctuary, and that attracted the attention of a producer in Los Angeles named Mike Post. Mike had a couple of hit tunes, one with classical gas, Mason Williams, and he had a hit with Kenny Rogers in the first edition called, "To See What Condition My Condition Was In." So everybody knew who Mike Post was, and he was interested in producing my own song "Sanctuary." He and I became really good friends, and we did a recording session together with him. At that session, he pulled me aside and said, "You know, you should really consider coming out to LA and being a studio musician." I said, "Yeah, I definitely want to do that. And what is a studio musician by the way? Jason Skipper 14:29 Right! Eric Bikales 14:29 He said, "You know, you could play people's records for a living!" I said, "I could make a living from that?" And he said, "Sure, you could get paid union scale for playing with different people. You just have to know how to play in all styles. Your time has to be good. You have to play in tune, you have to be able to read a little bit. Look, why don't you just work on all those skills for a year or two, save your money, move out to LA and I'll help you!" I said, "Man, that's an incredible offer. I would love to do that." It opened up a whole world to me that I could go into. I just had never thought about moving to California or making a living in music or anything else. I was just kind of floating with what was going on. So I took him at his word, and I wood-shed for two solid years, and I practiced between five and eight hours a day, took lessons, and I really worked hard. I saved my money, and I moved out to LA. Sure enough, he made good on his word only he had also, in the meantime, become a really hot TV composer. When I saw what he was doing, he was splitting focus between producing records and writing music for TV. He had shows like Rockford Files, The A-Team and Black Sheep Squadron and those were all hit shows. He said, "Eric, you really need to follow me into this, you'd be perfect for this." Off show, you had to write for a picture. So he sat down with me and taught me how to write music for TV. However, I didn't have any training as an orchestrator or an arranger, and he was using like a 37 piece orchestra. So I had to take lessons on the fly from a guy in Hollywood. He took one of the pieces that I wrote, and he scored it for A-Team. He had me come to the session, and I got to hear my music played on the air. Then he sat down, showed me how to do it, and he showed me how it all worked. He gave me an opportunity to write some music for A-Team and then for a show called Hunter. Later on, there was NYPD Blue, Hill Street, and LA Law, White Shadow, just a whole bunch of shows. Ten one of the guys that he was working with, I started working with that person. His name's Danny Lux, and he had that he had the work on like Party of Five, Ally McBeal, My Name Is Earl, Sliders, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Scrubs, Good Wife. It just goes on. Jason Skipper 17:12 That had been amazing the first time that you heard your music being played live on these shows. Eric Bikales 17:19 Yeah, it really was. It was an incredible experience for me. As exciting as it was even then I didn't really get how cool it was until years later when I could gain some perspective on it and realize how fortunate I was to have come across Mike Post and become one of his protegees, have him show me the ropes as he did. He's amazing. I mean, this guy was just so talented musically, and so good at business, so sharp and so good at thinking on his feet. He was just like a perfect role model and he was hot at that point. He was the number one TV composer. He kind of was to TV what Hans Zimmer became in the movie industry, later on. In looking at everything, for me, it's been a game of trying to be the absolute best you can be at all times and never stopping with practicing and learning and being a student, just absorbing everything you can. But then the other half of the equation is accessibility, and we just all need to have access to something that can propel us in the right direction with the right people at the right time. My guy was Mike Post at that time, and I was just so fortunate. During that time, I had a lot of opportunities to audition for different people and play in different recording situations and road situations that work with The Pointer Sisters, [Inaudible], Chere, Bette Midler, a whole bunch of different artists. I wound up auditioning for Niels Sedaka one point, and I had played recording sessions with everybody in his band, and so when they decided to have a second keyboard player, I got the call. I didn't get the job, but I just had to audition along with all the other usual suspects. I would see the same piano players that all the auditions, it's all the same guys. They're all really good, sometimes you get it sometimes, they get it. You take turns and it was really fun. I happened to get the audition for Neil, so I joined his band in 1983. I have been doing it ever since and I just never thought I could possibly last that long. Yet it has he just keeps going and he keeps using more or less the same guys. It's changed a little bit. We have been all over the world, we've played so many different places everywhere from Carnegie Hall to Billy Bob's in Texas. The best place everywhere and I've been in so many different countries Jason Skipper 20:03 Really? Eric Bikales 20:06 Oh, it's been an incredible experience. It's not all smooth sailing, but it's provided me with so much travel and experience that I never would have gotten any other way. You know, Jason, it's really a question of being ready for those opportunities when they come around. Sometimes you are and sometimes you aren't, it's not a matter of luck, It's a matter of good fortune. There were auditions that I went out for that I did not get. I thought, "Gosh, I mean, I thought I played pretty well. "And yet, there are reasons, they're there sometimes things beyond your control, or maybe somebody came in and played a lot better. One thing I did learn in LA very quickly is that there are 10 people that probably live on the block that can play circles around you, and it's just amazing. You just don't want to pin all your hopes and dreams and your ego on the fact that other people can't outplay you, because you won't be able to deal with it psychologically if you've got that kind of a personality. You really have to let that go and figure out there are people that can play better than you all over the place. You know you find your own little niche. You have your own way of doing things. Everybody is special in their own way. You know, they have their way of writing songs, their way of playing their style, and you can find your place. Jason Skipper 21:44 That is a great life motto. It doesn't matter what niche you're in, it doesn't matter what you do. There's always someone that can run circles around you. So I love that! Eric Bikales 21:56 I'm constantly amazed, and especially with it with YouTube now and all the phenomena's that you see on YouTube. Little kids that are six years old that can play rock [Inaudible.] It never ceases to amaze me, but I don't I really don't think about it too much. It's one of those things that there's always somebody that can outdo you at something. It's really not the point of it. Jason Skipper 22:23 Right. You mentioned you have a new album out, of course, with the drone, you were able to take the footage of that, but I'd like to hear more about the album. Exactly, what did it take to make that? How long have you been working on it? Eric Bikales 22:35 I'm going to start with the album for that, which was my first release in quite a long time. I actually had a little record deal toward the end of my stay in Los Angeles. I released four CDs as a new age electronic artist. I was on a label called "Mood Tape". I guess the best-known record that I did of the four was called "Tranquility." There's still stuff on the radio that they play from some of those four albums. At that point in time, the easiest way and the most inexpensive way to record was to do it all electronically and digitally. That's what I did because I've always enjoyed synthesizers and electronics. Then the styles when Windham Hill came along, the style started shifting more toward acoustic music. That really left me out in the cold because I was an electronic guy, with that deal. It wasn't that I couldn't play acoustic piano, that's my main instrument. It's just that's not what I was known for. So there was some period of inactivity there and then I didn't pick back up on being a solo artist until I got to Tennessee. Then I decided I wanted to do something to take the place of the TD music that I'm really not doing anymore because most of that's done out in LA or at least was then. So I started working toward making a solo CD and I wanted to make it all piano because I wanted to show people that I can play the piano and that I love acoustic music as much as electronic. So I released an album called "Follow Your Heart." It did moderately well and got a lot of radio play all over the world. My follow up album is the one that you're speaking of, and it's called "Fire in the Clouds." The difference between these two records is mainly that "Fire in the Clouds" was recorded completely at home in my own studio. I've got this great studio, I've had a studio for as long as I've been in the music business and it's always changed. It's morphed from one thing into another because technology changes so much. At this point, It's a pretty efficient little studio. I decided I'm going to try to do the whole thing at home. That's what I did. This record now is just being released as we speak. It's not up on Spotify yet, but it will be within the week. You can find it on any of the usual vendors online from Apple Music, iTunes, it'll be streaming on Spotify, Pandora, basically everywhere. I have a promotion company that was helping me get it out there called "Higher Level Media," and they're just great. So they're helping me with the effort, and I'm getting a lot of help from The River of Calm and from Sherry down at Miller. I'm just hoping that the follow-up record does better than the first record. I mean, that's sort of the idea, Jason Skipper 25:51 Right, of course! Eric Bikales 25:54 What's really changed that is hard to completely get my mind around is the fact that CDs are going away. I find fewer and fewer people who are buying CDs. So it's really hard for me to let go of, I'm at the age where I grew up with records, and then that that gave way to CDs. I didn't mind that so much. CDs to me sound better than records even though records are kind of a kick down for a lot of younger people, it's just it's like a nostalgic thing. You know, it's vintage and all that. But, the fact that CDs could be seeing their last days is a difficult thing to transition for me to make. Personally, I really like the idea of having physical media that you can hold in your hands and say, "This is my record, you know, this is my music." I find that what we're going to is a world where you can say, "Yes, I'm a composer. Here's my music because you can't hold it in your hand because now it's just a file. Jason Skipper 27:00 Right, It's just a file. Eric Bikales 27:02 This may be a weird thing for some people to understand but for those of us musicians who were old enough to have been through the era of vinyl, it's kind of sad to see it all going away. It's only going to be streaming at least for now. We never know what the future holds. Jason Skipper 27:23 It has changed so much the music industry I know that I didn't grow up with records, but I grew up with cassette tapes, and then, of course, CDs and everything along with that. It has changed so much over the years. We don't have a CD player in our house. Of course, I do in my truck, but I don't at my house. And I think that's the norm anymore. Everyone uses digital now. Eric Bikales 27:45 You can't fight the trend, right? I mean, you can't. You have to go with where everybody is going if you want to be a part of it. Honestly, for me, Jason, it's been a struggle to let go of the old school music business and embrace the new music business. Suffice it to say, that where I am in my career right now, I mean forget about records and forget about CDs and all that you really need to get your stuff out there on the streaming stations so that people can hear you because that's how music is being listened to. We're making this transition and while CDs are not completely dead yet, they're just like gasping for breath. So you still have to make a CD sometimes. I find that at some radio station if you want them to play your music, you have to submit it on a CD. Jason Skipper 28:41 Oh, is that right? Eric Bikales 28:42 Yeah, it is! That's one good reason to go ahead and at least make a short run on CDs. I like having the physical thing that I can hold in my hand and I like it when I go play for a gig and I want to sell my music at the gig, that I can sell a CD. So I'm still making CDs. But I think by the time I do another record, ooh, I don't know. That may be the end of us. Jason Skipper 29:13 Wow, yeah. It's hard to let go but it very well maybe because it has changed so much. Well, one more follow up question here. So we don't get too long. You mentioned that you had put together some footage from your drone and put it with music. Do you post that anywhere? Is there a way to see that footage? Eric Bikales 29:32 Well, what footage we've actually had time to do, my wife Khai has put together for me, she's really getting into the video editing portion of this. You are asking where you can find it. Well, right now it's only on my Facebook, but I intend to put that up on YouTube and I intend to see if I can develop a YouTube channel. It's just another way of adapting to what there is to do at this point in time. I still have a lot of music that I want to write, I have lots and lots of ideas. I have a nice studio and I'm at a time in my life where I'm really kind of foregoing a lot of the activities that I used to be involved with, because I'm sort of tired of doing those and I want to focus more attention on writing and getting my music out there. So I want to build a following and I want to build a fan base that enjoys my music and is willing to buy it or download it or at least listen to it stream. Which, again, that's the main thing I guess. I'm in their pitch and you know, I haven't turned in the towel a doubt If I'll ever do that. Jason Skipper 30:38 Well, I think that's the way it has to be done today. That would be great if you could get something up on YouTube. Now, for everyone who is looking for on Facebook, we can find you on I believe it's facebook.com/ebikales, correct? Eric Bikales 30:55 That's right, yes. The other thing too is that I've gotten to enjoy teaching, which is something I never did in my earlier years. I work for the Academy of Art in San Francisco as an instructor, and I've written several courses for them, and I teach them. So I have college students and graduate students from all over the world that are enrolled in the Academy of Art based in San Francisco. I teach online, I teach harmony and theory, notation, ear training, arranging and film scoring. I do that full time I've been doing that for about, over five years, maybe six years, I really enjoy it. So being an educator is another thing that is part of my life. It's a stabilizing factor. I enjoy helping people to understand what music is important and what's not and what you really ought to do to equip yourself to do your art. Jason Skipper 31:49 All right. Do you still do personal lessons as well? Eric Bikales 31:52 I do, I do. I still have piano students and love to teach a piano and I've given lessons on B3. I have one of those over here. I've taught people in film scoring, how to write for a picture. Yes, I can do it all privately. So if you're in the Tennessee area, I'm happy to oblige. Jason Skipper 32:11 All right, well, how can people get ahold of you? Eric Bikales 32:13 The best way is to go to my website, which is undergoing a facelift right now. But It is www.Ericbikales.com. That website is being redone as we speak. Also there's the Facebook site that you mentioned already is facebook.com/ebikales. By all means, you can friend me on Facebook and my email address is easy to find on both of those sites, so you can write me a personal email if you wish to do that. I am selling the second CD and the first one, and copies of it if you have a CD player! Jason Skipper 32:51 Well, I'm gonna buy it off of Apple Music, but I'm really looking forward to that as soon as it comes out there. I was looking forward to earlier. Eric Bikales 32:57 Well, great. It's been a pleasure, Jason, I am so happy to be associated with Miller Piano. You know, they sell the best pianos in the world. Even when I go out of town with Neil Sedaka, and play concerts with him, we always have a grand piano for him. Then I play it for part of the evening. 90% of the time, that's a Yamaha. They just make the most consistent pianos. Jason Skipper 33:22 They really do. Well, that is amazing. I just love hearing all your stories, Eric, I imagine we could probably talk for another two hours. You can probably share maybe more, you know, of just all the things you've been through. This has just been a great, great time to hear your stories. This has been great, Eric, I really appreciate it. One last question. As a personal note here, you said you're from Kansas City. Are you a Chief's fan? Eric Bikales 33:47 Oh, you betcha. I am so proud of the chiefs. The Super Bowl, It was an amazing thing. Yeah, I was jumping up and down. Jason Skipper 33:56 I bet, I bet. We're a little sad here that Tennessee didn't make it, that the Titans didn't make it this year, but we were written for the Chiefs when they made it through. At least I was and everyone I know was, as well. So, alright Eric. Well, thank you. Eric Bikales 34:11 Thanks, Jason. It's been really fun talking to you. I appreciate the opportunity of coming to your podcast and getting to talk to everybody. I'm so happy and proud to be associated with Miller Piano, and I'm going to be a supporter from now until the end! Jason Skipper 34:28 Well, thank you, Eric, so much for being a part of Miller Piano and everything that we're doing and we appreciate that. This has been great. This was Eric Bikales, a pianist, flutist, composer, drone flyer, just a great guy, get his music! As always on this podcast, you can find show notes and a transcript of this episode right on our website at Millerps.com, as well as you can also find us on Apple Podcasts, Google Play podcasts and Spotify. Look us up on your favorite podcast listening platform. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe. It really does help us, we'd really appreciate it. Once again, I'm your host Jason Skipper, and we'll see you next time!

Another episode of the Miller Piano Podcast is here! In this episode, host Jason Skipper talks with Sylvia Miller, Owner, and Director of the Miller Piano Music Academy. This is a great episode that you DO NOT want to miss! Enjoy! Topics Discussed: Sylvia's Background and Beginnings in the Piano Business The Miller Piano Music Academy and All of the Training Options That Are Offered at the Store. The Amazing Benefits of Learning How to Play the Piano. Transcript Jason Skipper 0:12 Welcome to the Miller Piano Podcast where in each episode we explore the world of music, and pianos, how technology has changed over the years in music and the latest happenings at Miller Piano Specialists. I'm your host, Jason Skipper, and I'm here with Sylvia Miller, who is the owner of Miller Piano Specialists along with her husband Ross. She is also the director of the Miller Piano Music Academy. Hi Sylvia, welcome to the podcast. Sylvia Miller 0:39 Hi, Jason. Glad to be here. Jason Skipper 0:41 It's great to have you. It's so good to have you here on the podcast. We've been wanting to get both you and Ross on here to do an episode talking about the history of Miller Piano. We haven't done it yet. But to all of our listeners, that's coming very, very soon, so stay tuned! Really looking forward to that. In any case, before we get into our topic, let's get to know you a little bit better since this is your first time on the podcast. I saw on the website that between you and Ross, you have over 80 years of experience in the piano business. Is that right? Sylvia Miller 1:15 That's right. It's approaching 90 years. Jason Skipper 1:20 Oh, wow. Yeah, that that's amazing. That's amazing. So where are you from Sylvia? Sylvia Miller 1:26 Well, you know, I grew up in Upper East Tennessee, in Kingsport and lived there until I went to college. Jason Skipper 1:37 Okay, where'd you go to college? Sylvia Miller 1:38 I went to college it East Tennessee State, which is in Johnson City. Johnson City is just a few short miles from Kingsport. Jason Skipper 1:47 And so how did it happen? How did you get into the piano business? Did you do it before you met Ross? Or did you meet him and then get into it then? How did you get in? Sylvia Miller 1:56 I actually did. I was going to College, and Hammond Organ Company opened a manufacturing facility in Johnson City. And I was approached by somebody that worked in HR there, they were looking for three people who played piano who could work in their final inspection area. And I took that job and that's what really got me into the music business. I had played piano since I was in about second grade. And I played the organ, also. But from there, I worked there about a year and a half, I guess, and was not in school and decided I really wanted to go back to school and get my degree. And so I took a little part-time job at the local piano store there in Johnson City. And that's where I met my husband. Jason Skipper 3:00 Wow. So you guys met at the piano store? Sylvia Miller 3:02 We did? Yes. And at that time, I was selling sheet music. And he was doing part-time delivery at Christmas. He was in college also. Jason Skipper 3:14 Okay, gotcha. Well, I won't spoil everything for our meeting whenever we talk with Ross as well. So I'll let you get deeper into that. But how did you guys end up in Nashville? Sylvia Miller 3:26 Oh, goodness. Let me think we were working for a piano company in Indiana. And they had two stores in the Nashville area and asked us to move to this area to manage those two stores and that's what we did back in, goodness, 1996 I believe it was. And from there, we left there and opened our own business. Jason Skipper 4:03 Wow. Okay, so you've been in Nashville for close to 25 years. Sylvia Miller 4:10 Close to it. Jason Skipper 4:11 Okay. 25 years. Wow. Sylvia Miller 4:13 This is home for us. Jason Skipper 4:14 Yes, this is home. Good deal. So, Miller piano specialist was opened in was 2001, 2002 I believe? Sylvia Miller 4:23 January 2 of 2002, which is actually my birthday. What better gift could I have gotten! Jason Skipper 4:32 That is so true. What is a gift! Was it a gift, or was it part of that gift... was that on purpose? Sylvia Miller 4:41 No, just coincidence. Jason Skipper Oh, wow. So, your birthday is also on the anniversary of the store also. Sylvia Miller It is Yeah. Jason Skipper 4:50 Oh, that's so cool. All right. Well, I wanted to get into, the topic of this episode is actually, we wanted to talk about Miller Piano Music Academy. And I know that you are the director of the Academy. And it's something that we're really proud of at Miller Piano. And so, first just to get started, can you give us an overview of what the Music Academy is? Sylvia Miller 5:16 Yes, it is a group teaching format that was developed by a teacher out in Utah. And we can offer classes for ages 2 and up, and of course, there's a lot of difference in class for a two-year-old than a class for a six-year-old. But they're all group lessons. They're very small groups. And it's just a wonderful way to learn the piano. Jason Skipper 5:55 Gotcha. Okay, and so you say two and up. So we're talking two until they're still kids or when they're adults as well? Sylvia Miller 6:05 Well, we basically, are the classes that we're teaching right now go up to about age 10 or 11, I guess. Jason Skipper 6:18 Okay, so I just saw on Facebook, I think it was last week or so, there were several recitals going on. Sylvia Miller 6:27 Yes, our classes run on a semester basis. And so at the end of the fall semester, which was in January, we have recitals and parents come and friends come and they get to hear what the kids have been doing for the last four or five months. Jason Skipper 6:49 Wow, okay. Good deal. And so, when someone enters the academy, do they start at a beginner course and then they move up? Is it almost like a, you know, you go through every semester, I guess, and you keep going up how many semesters are there? Sylvia Miller 7:07 Oh my goodness, Well, it depends on their age because the classes are, are grouped. For instance, if you're five or six years old, you're going to be in a what's called a piano pals class. And that's a two-year program. And once you finish that two-year program, then you move up into what's called young artists, which is advanced classes. So we have kids, that are going into young artists now that have been with us four, five, six years now, once they've gone through the different levels. Jason Skipper 7:48 Okay. I it's my understanding. What I saw here is that you use a curriculum called Art City music that is nationally accredited, correct. Sylvia Miller 7:58 Yes. Sure is. Jason Skipper 8:01 Can you give me any extra details about that? Well, Sylvia Miller 8:04 You know, the typical piano teacher, and there's nothing wrong with this. When they take a new student, put them on the piano bench, and they start teaching them how to read notes and about rhythms. And we do things a little differently here. This curriculum is a combination of learning about reading music, but also encompasses sight-reading. It encompasses learning the notes. We use, instead of learning A, B, C, D, E, F, G, we use what's called solfege and solfege is learning the names of the notes by Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do. If you know that song, that's how we learn the notes. It's more musical and it's easier for the kids to learn that way. And so we use a rug in the classroom, where we do a lot of things on the rug, and each activity is only two or three minutes and then we go to another activity. So it really keeps the kid's attention and just makes it more fun in learning. And then we go to the piano and the things that we've learned on the rug, we translate that to the piano then so it's just a great way to learn. Jason Skipper 9:50 It really sounds like it. That keeps them interested, keeps them engaged. So I saw this the other day I was actually looking online reading some things and I saw that the philosopher Plato, he once said that "music is a more potent instrument than any other for education". I thought that was pretty cool. A really interesting little tidbit. Do you agree with that? Sylvia Miller 10:17 Oh, absolutely. Because people that are involved in music, especially young people, learn so many other things besides just how to play the piano. There's a lot of self-discipline. That's part of it. There's, there's commitment. There's patience. And because many times they're playing with other people, it just increases their hearing. If you're playing with another person, not only do you have to pay attention to what you're doing, you have to listen to the other person as well. And so it's just a great way to learn and, you know, there's a lot of math involved in playing the piano. Jason Skipper 11:08 Right. Sylvia Miller 11:09 And generally, if you're playing music, you're going to do well in math as well. Jason Skipper 11:17 I saw that you shared something on Facebook maybe a few days ago, something that was called the benefits of taking piano lessons. Sylvia Miller 11:24 Oh, yes. Yeah. Lots of benefits. Jason Skipper 11:28 I saw one, memory capacity, it says after receiving piano lessons, students spatial-temporal skills increased by 34%. comprehension skills, as you said, mathematical abilities, as you said, concentration, discipline, confidence, and grit. Sylvia Miller 11:46 Absolutely. Jason Skipper 11:47 You know, music is so important. And I think that a lot of times we see music as entertainment. But I think it's a huge part of the growth of people, you know, kids, children when they're growing up, and people overall. Sylvia Miller 12:04 Well, and you know, I don't think I've ever met anyone who said, I hate music. We all have music in us in different degrees. And again, you know, every day in our Piano Store, we have an adult come in and say, I started taking lessons when I was young. I quit. I wish my mom had never let me quit because I want to play now. And so we offer things to help adults learn to play as well. But this particular teaching program is wonderful and the parents whose kids are in these classes will tell you it's a wonderful program, and kids that have been in these classes Many times go on to learn other instruments like violin and guitar and drums even. And it just expands their musical ability. Even singing, you know, a lot of our kids learn singing as a result of being in these music classes. Jason Skipper 13:21 Right, right. So you mentioned that you also have other ways to teach adults and other things. What else do you offer in terms of education and training and classes? Sylvia Miller 13:33 We offer private lessons for adults. And then Miss Sherry, who is our sales manager, teaches a class for adults. And she teaches the Nashville Number System, which is learning to play with chords and learning to play by ear, and that's a free class for adults. And so that's another great way to learn. Jason Skipper 14:00 You know, I grew up playing music, grew up playing the piano, actually. And I've never learned the Nashville music, the number system and I really want to I need to go. Sylvia Miller 14:10 You need to come to the class. Jason Skipper 14:12 I do, I do, man because I've always wanted to learn that. I mean, I know how to play by ear and you know, I can read music, etc. But I just have never learned the Nashville System and I live in Nashville. you kind of need it. Sylvia Miller 14:25 Yeah, you really do. And I did not know it either. And you know, I've been playing piano since I was in second grade. But I did not know the Nashville number system. And so, I have sat in on many of her classes. Just to learn that. It's made. It's made playing easier. Jason Skipper 14:44 Really? Sylvia Miller 14:45 Oh, yeah. Jason Skipper 14:45 Wow. Okay. Okay, well, I do need to go there. I need to figure out when that is. Can you explain to everyone, to the listeners, what do people need to do if they want to get their kids involved or if they want to get lessons for themselves or come to one of these classes, how did they do that? Sylvia Miller 15:03 Just call the store. Like I said, the children's classes run on a semester basis. We just started our spring semester and it'll be over about the first or second week of June. Adult, just give us a call and we can put you with a private teacher. Sherry's class is on Thursdays at 11 am. And like I said, that's free, there is no charge to come to that. So they could call her and get more information about that as well. Jason Skipper 15:38 Okay, that's every Thursday, you say. Sylvia Miller 15:41 Yep. Unless for some reason she has to be away. But typically, it's every Thursday morning. Jason Skipper 15:47 Okay. And they can call you the phone number is 615-771-0020. Sylvia Miller That's it. Yes. Jason Skipper Alright. So, finishing up here. I want to ask you one more personal question. So outside of pianos, just so we can get to know you a little bit better. What are you passionate about Sylvia? Sylvia Miller 16:10 Ha, my grandchildren. Jason Skipper 16:12 Your grandchildren. Sylvia Miller 16:14 I love my grandchildren. And fortunately, they all live in the area. We have four. And I'm crazy about them and I spend as much time as I can with them. Jason Skipper 16:25 Okay. You guys have four grandchildren. That is awesome. All right. Well, is there anything else that you would like to mention that I didn't ask about? Sylvia Miller 16:36 Well, just to remind everyone that we are the authorized Yamaha Piano Dealer for Middle Tennessee. And, you know, Yamaha's the number one piano in the world. So, if you're looking for an instrument, come and see us, we sell verticals. Grands, Digital's, we have so many different kinds of pianos these days. And so we'd love to have anybody come and visit. Jason Skipper 17:06 All right, Sylvia. Well, thank you. That was Sylvia Miller, everyone, the owner of Miller Piano Specialists and Director of the Miller Piano Music Academy. As always, you can find show notes and transcripts of this episode right on our website, which was MillerPS.com, as well as on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Podcasts, and Spotify. Look us up on your favorite podcast listening platform. And don't forget to rate review and subscribe. Once again, this is your host Jason Skipper. We'll see you next time.

It's a new year, and with that comes a new podcast episode! In this episode, host Jason Skipper talks with Miller Piano Specialists General Manager Sherry Smith about the latest news and events happening at Miller Piano. Topics Discussed: Ted Yoder at the River of Calm Concert in January Miller Piano Specialists Music Academy Recitals February Writer's Night (First Thursday of Month - Russ Roberts and Friends) February River of Calm Concert (Third Thursday Ed Bazel) C'Ya On The Flipside II" Benefit Concert at the Grand Ole Opry on Feb 5 The Yamaha Lunar New Year Promotion Transcription Jason Skipper 0:11 Welcome to the Miller Piano Podcast where in each episode we explore the world of music and pianos, how technology has changed over the years in music and the latest happenings at Miller Piano Specialists. I'm your host, Jason Skipper. And I'm here with Sherry Smith, the general manager at Miller Piano Specialists in Cool Springs. Sherry, how's it going? Sherry Carlisle Smith 0:33 It's going wonderful. Jason, how's it going with you? Jason Skipper 0:36 Doing good, doing good. It's been a while since we've talked here, at least on the podcast. How was your holiday? Sherry Carlisle Smith 0:43 The holiday was wonderful, extremely busy. some wonderful new Yamaha friends and clients and it's just been a great Christmas season. And I hope everybody enjoyed theirs like I did mine... Jason Skipper 0:57 Awesome I know that you're talking about several new clients and things that are happening. I'd like to talk about that in a moment. But I know that you've been traveling a good bit Are you back for good now? Sherry Carlisle Smith 1:08 I'm back for good for a while, I never know I do travel quite a bit. And I traveled to Southern Indiana quite a bit where my family is located and I do a radio program up there. The bread of life ministries on Sunday's, and if I'm not there, and I'm traveling, thanks to the wonderful edge of technology, I can actually do a streaming live radio show from anywhere. Jason Skipper 1:33 Isn't that great I love it. Sherry Carlisle Smith 1:35 It's awesome. Jason Skipper 1:36 It really is. It really is. I know. You said it's been busy. I know there have been several events on the calendar over this past month. I saw on Facebook that we had Ted Yoder at the River of Calm Concert a few weeks ago. Is that right? Sherry Carlisle Smith 1:51 Ted is awesome. He is from Indiana and plays a hammer dulcimer and has a fantastic wonderful following He has a new project that just came out. And we always love to have Ted here because he is just a remarkable entertainer and performer and musician. Jason Skipper 2:10 Ted's amazing. I know, I remember years ago, when I still... I lived in Bolivia for a long time. And when I was still in Bolivia, I remember seeing him on the Internet. I don't know if it was on Facebook or on YouTube, but one of those viral videos, it's like, wow, you know, just amazing. Sherry Carlisle Smith 2:27 He started on YouTube. So that was probably it. Jason Skipper 2:29 Yeah, exactly. And I did see that the Music Academy, Miller Piano Music Academy had an event just maybe a week ago. Is that right? Sherry Carlisle Smith 2:38 They did. We had three of our recitals and we have recitals about two to three times a year. And they had them back to back last week. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, I believe. Jason Skipper 2:48 Is that right? Okay. Well, very soon we're going to do a podcast talking about the Music Academy because it is definitely something that I know that we're proud of, that Miller Piano is proud of and so, definitely want to talk more about that here soon. Sherry Carlisle Smith 3:04 I want you to because musical education is the future. Jason Skipper 3:09 It really is. I was looking, you know, I was kind of looking around about it and I saw something that really caught my attention. The philosopher Plato, once said that "music is a more potent instrument than any other for education". And I thought that was pretty cool. Sherry Carlisle Smith 3:30 It is. It's, it's a well-known fact, and I'm kind of getting off subject here, but it's a well-known fact, if your child is involved in music, that their math skills, their English skills are all improved scholastically because of music. Jason Skipper 3:46 It's amazing. All right. So coming up here in February, what events are scheduled at the store? Sherry Carlisle Smith 3:54 What we have at the store in February, the first Thursday of this month, we will have Writers Night with Russ Roberts and Friends, and he is a writer that will bring in another writer and we never know what musician's going to come. It's always live on our Facebook, or we welcome you to come in and enjoy the fun with us. It's about an hour and a half. And we usually have somewhere, I think around 850 online viewers. So we're all over the board with our viewers and we have a great hoedown time. Nobody knows what song's going to pop up because they're original. And the musicians just jump in and it shows you how Nashville really works. Jason Skipper 4:36 That's awesome. 850, is that what you said? Sherry Carlisle Smith 4:40 Yes. Jason Skipper 4:41 850 Well, for our listeners out there, if you have never seen it, you need to go to the Miller Piano Specialists Facebook page. I believe it is facebook.com/millerpianospecialists, Is that right? Sherry Carlisle Smith 4:58 You just go Miller Piano Specialists and it pops up. Jason Skipper 5:01 Pops right up there! Sherry Carlisle Smith 5:03 If you do like us and follow us you will actually get a notification when we are live with our events. Jason Skipper 5:12 Very, very cool. Yes, I pulled it up right now and it is facebook.com/millerpianospecialists all together or you can just search it and it pops right up. So, good deal. Is that all that's going on in February? Sherry Carlisle Smith 5:23 Oh, absolutely not. And we actually, on the third Thursday, we will have The River of Calm with host Ed Bazel here, and he has not announced yet who our artists will be. But as soon as I know the top-secret information, it will be on our Facebook and our website, so that you can either join us live in the studio where we have some wonderful appetizers from Black Diamond Culinary. And we enjoy an hour's worth of wonderful, relaxing, calming music. It is streamed live on Facebook and it's also streamed live on the radio River of Calm. The other exciting thing. We've got something else coming up. We're going to be working with the Elton John autographed Red Piano Limited Edition. Jason Skipper 6:15 Right. Sherry Carlisle Smith 6:16 And we are going to be working Wednesday the 5th of February at the Grand Ole Opry house with the Troy Gentry Foundation. Jason Skipper 6:27 Awesome. Sherry Carlisle Smith 6:28 Pretty exciting. Jason Skipper 6:29 Pretty exciting. Sherry Carlisle Smith 6:31 Yeah. Jason Skipper 6:32 So tell me more about that. Give me some details. Sherry Carlisle Smith 6:36 It is gonna be, the Troy Gentry Foundation was actually one of our clients, and to keep his legacy going, they do a benefit concert with different artists. And then the money is given out to. Actually one of the foundations I think they give to is music and schools and Kentucky, but they have several places where the money is spread out to keep Troy's foundation going and to keep his memory and the love of music going, and love God and love others, I think that was one of his personal beliefs. So we're going to be involved in that through this wonderful Yamaha Limited Edition Elton Signature. And since Elton could not be there at seven o'clock, he's on tour. His piano will be center stage as people come in, and the wonderful technology of Disklavier will be playing, keys moving, Elton John music right there while you're being seated. Jason Skipper 7:41 That is awesome. Sherry Carlisle Smith 7:43 And then the different artists that will be there will be playing on the piano. So they're going to be doing some personal playing on the Elton John piano and actually, there is a list, I can tell you a few performances like Rascal Flatts, Blake Shelton, Dirks Bentley, Dustin Lynch, Craig Morgan. There's a list of thousands and you can find this by looking up the Troy Gentry Foundation concert on the Internet. Jason Skipper 8:15 Okay, yeah, I just looked it up here. I think I found one here on Vents Magazine. It talks about "See Y'all on the Flip Side II", I believe is the name of it at the Grand Old Opry on February 5. And yeah, as you mentioned, there are quite a few artists so definitely look that up. Vents Magazine and search for See ya on the Flip Side II. Sherry Carlisle Smith 8:37 It is going to be a star-studded evening and your tickets are going for a great cause. So if you're looking for something to really have a great time and support a great cause, you can get your tickets at Ticketmaster and opry.com. They're going to range anywhere from like $45 to $125 which, for what you're going to get that night, it's going to be incredible. Jason Skipper 9:00 That's incredible. Yeah Sherry Carlisle Smith 9:01 I'm so happy Miller Piano gets to be a part of that. Jason Skipper 9:05 So this piano, it talks about recordings of Elton. I guess he'll be in New Zealand it looks like. He'll be Zealand while he's on there but he'll be playing. Sherry Carlisle Smith 9:16 What the Disklavier has, is it has about 37 average radio streaming stations and Elton, of course, playing Yamaha Pianos. Elton has his own station. So we will be tuning in to the streaming station where all of your favorite Elton John's will be playing on the piano, the keys moving, it's an incredible experience. If you've not experienced a Yamaha Disklavier, please stop by and see us at 650 Frazier Drive because what you will see that night is what we have on our floor, except ours are not read or autographed by Elton. Jason Skipper 9:59 Oh, we need to get one of those! Sherry Carlisle Smith 10:02 I need to get a gold pin and mine are mostly black today. Jason Skipper 10:05 Oh, wow. Well, we've talked about the Disklavier a few times but it's amazing. So how many stations did you say there are? Sherry Carlisle Smith 10:13 I believe there's around 37 now. I may be off by two or on by two. Most of the stations are going to be genres of music, Gershwin, that type of thing, Elton John. But they also have different stations. They add in like there's always a holiday station. And that's incredible because every month they have a different holiday theme of music, the Grammys, the Oscars. And we have something else I need to say! Jason Skipper 10:45 Yes? Sherry Carlisle Smith 10:45 We need to do a big shout out and congratulations also. This year, you know, we have our MPS award show. And we have a horizon award of young people that are on the horizon. And Yates McKendree was one of our winners this year. I was surprised this week. Yates accepted a Grammy! Jason Skipper 11:11 Shout out to Yates! Sherry Carlisle Smith 11:12 19, and he accepted a Grammy for a guitar-playing, I believe, part on Delbert McClinton's latest album. So we are just, I feel like it was like destined to be and it was like... we knew that there was a lot of stuff happening with this young man but never in my wildest dreams did I think at 19 he would be receiving his first Grammy Jason Skipper 11:39 At such a young age. 19. Well, shout out to Yates, congratulations! That is incredible. Awesome. Sherry Carlisle Smith 11:47 So you never know what's gonna happen at Miller Piano Specialists! Jason Skipper 11:51 I hear you there. So I know that at Miller we just started with the Yamaha Promotion which is the Chinese New Year, the Lunar New Year correct? Sherry Carlisle Smith 12:02 Correct. We started that on the 25th. Jason Skipper 12:05 Can you give us a rundown exactly what that entails? Sherry Carlisle Smith 12:07 Yeah, it is a great, great program. It celebrates the Chinese New Year, the Lunar New Year. I believe it's the Year of the Rat this year. And what Yamaha does in conjunction with that is they do a rebate program from Yamaha. So it goes up to $1,000 rebate. So, and depending on the Piano that you choose, and there's a list in our store listed of the different Pianos and the rebate prices that you would get back from Yamaha, for purchasing. Jason Skipper 12:35 Right Sherry Carlisle Smith 12:36 So it's a very great program and we celebrate this, we try to celebrate this once a year, and they have made some great offers on great pianos with savings for you right now. So please come by and check that out. You will see Red Envelopes with Chinese writing of the new year on them and inside will be your card and it will tell you the different prices that you are going to receive the rebates on which pianos. Jason Skipper 13:02 So now's the time to get out there and look at them get by the store. Sherry Carlisle Smith 13:07 Right now because this only lasts... it fell on an odd time... and I believe this only lasts through right at the end of February. It started a little bit early because we have a leap year this year. Jason Skipper 13:22 Right. Right. Okay, got ya. Sherry Carlisle Smith 13:24 So you want to get in as soon as you can because things are moving pretty fast. And inventory. Yes, we can always order it for you, but wouldn't it be much nicer just to have it delivered in 48 hours? Jason Skipper 13:36 Yeah. and have it there, be able to see it, get it, test it out and then get it during the time. Exactly. So before we finish up any other exciting news going on right now? Sherry Carlisle Smith 13:49 It's always exciting here with the crew that works here and that we're crazier than bedbugs. We love what we do. We absolutely love meeting the people. Seeing you. We've always got coffee. Come by, see us, hang out with us, play some pianos, you might find just the thing you're looking for. Jason Skipper 14:08 For anyone who follows Miller Pianist Specialist on Facebook, you should know when Sherry says that they're crazier than bug beds. Yes. You can tell... Sherry Carlisle Smith 14:19 Bed bugs, bed bugs. Yeah. No, it's an old saying. Jason Skipper 14:23 An old saying that's awesome, though. But well, good deal, Sherry, I appreciate your time here and anything else you wanted to say before we finish? Sherry Carlisle Smith 14:32 No, we just want to thank everyone for your support through the years and we're looking for many more and come see us at 650 Frazier, Dr. Franklin, Tennessee, in between Sperrys and Basset Furniture, or you can call us at 615-771-0020. We're open on Thursday and Friday nights till eight o'clock. So come on by. Jason Skipper 14:52 All right, good deal. Well, thank you, Sherry. Sherry is the General Sales Manager once again at Miller Piano Specialists in Cool Springs. As always, you can find the show notes of this episode and a transcript, right on our website on millerps.com. Just go there and you can go to Podcast or you can scroll down and you'll see it on the bottom of the page. And you can also find the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Podcasts and on Spotify. And look us up on your favorite podcast listening platform. And, by the way, don't forget to rate review and subscribe and once again, this is your host Jason Skipper. We'll see you next time.

Are you buying a used piano? Give this Miller Piano Podcast episode a listen. In this episode, host Jason Skipper talks to Sherry Carlisle Smith, the General Sales Manager of Miller Piano Specialists, an authorized dealer of Yamaha Pianos in Nashville, Tennessee. Sherry discusses buying used pianos and other topics including: Catching up With Sherry (Click Here for Episode 1 and Episode 2) Great Deals at Miller Piano Specialists for Christmas and New Year's How Sherry Started With Miller Piano Specialists Miller Piano Specialist Youtube Channel Why People Tend to Search More for Used Pianos Than For New Pianos How to Buy a Used Piano the Right Way Why Buy a Used Piano From a Dealer? Why Buy Used Pianos Local? Why Miller Names Theirs Used Pianos With Actual Names? Transcript Jason Skipper 0:13 Welcome to the Miller Piano Podcast. I'm your host Jason Skipper. And in this episode, we have Sherry Carlisle Smith back with us to talk about the ins and outs of how to buy a used piano. Sherry is the General Sales Manager at Miller Pianos Specialists in Cool Springs. Sherry, welcome back to the podcast. Sherry Carlisle Smith 0:33 Oh, it's so good to be back. Hello. How are you doing? Jason Skipper 0:36 I'm doing great. It's good to have you here, Sherry. I know you're busy. I know everyone's busy with the end of the year here but we wanted to get you back on the podcast to talk about everything that's going on there at Miller Piano Specialists and I appreciate you taking the time. Sherry Carlisle Smith 0:51 Well, I'll tell you what, it has been very busy between Christmas and spreading the Christmas musical love and end-of-the-year closeout. It's been one chaotic fun place. Jason Skipper 1:04 I bet! You're gonna have to tell us about some of those things here while we're talking. But before we get into everything, I know that for those who are listening, if you don't know Sherry, well, you need to go back and listen to episodes one and two of the podcast, Sherry... Sherry Carlisle Smith 1:20 Maybe they don't! Ha! Jason Skipper 1:21 Maybe they - yeah, exactly! But if you don't know Sherry, come and listen to episodes one and two of the podcast and, you'll get to know her a lot better. If I remember right, going back, you were born in Kentucky, you grew up in Indiana. You moved to Nashville in your 20s after graduating from college, you've been in the music business pretty well, ever since. You've toured with several different groups and musicians, including Johnny Paycheck. The Jordanaires, is that right? Sherry Carlisle Smith 1:50 Yes, yes. And then my dad, we actually started recording in Nashville when I was 14. We did gospel and I did like, my first single when I was 17, here in Nashville. So, I've been back and forth with Nashville for a long time. Jason Skipper 2:05 Yes, I can tell! And how long have you been, I can't remember, how long have you been here at Miller? Sherry Carlisle Smith 2:13 I started at Miller in 2010. And I was so blessed to find Ross and Sylvia and just a wonderful place and environment to work and so proud that we've got a great staff. And my daughter's in here working with us, too. So it's a family thing. Jason Skipper 2:30 It is a family thing. Ross and Sylvia are amazing. I hope to get them on the podcast very very soon. Wow, you're going on 10 years now. Sherry Carlisle Smith 2:39 Yes. Jason Skipper 2:40 10 years. 2010. That's what you said, right? Sherry Carlisle Smith 2:43 2010. Jason Skipper 2:44 Wow. We're almost in 2020, so... Sherry Carlisle Smith 2:47 Yeah, so September will be my 10th anniversary. We'll have to have a party, invite everybody. Jason Skipper 2:52 Well, that sounds good. I want to be there. I hope I get an invitation! Ha! That sounds awesome. Well, anything new going on other than, you know, you shared quite a bit there at what's going on in Miller. One thing I wanted to ask before we get into the topic of how to buy a used piano is, you know, we're coming up on Christmas, New Year's. Are there any great deals going on right now for now? Maybe after New Year's? Sherry Carlisle Smith 3:19 Right now Yamaha's doing a red-letter envelope that gives you some options and financing. And at the end of the year, it's always a great time to buy because we are trying to close out to get our new stuff being delivered in coming up in January. So we have a lot of great specials on new pianos. And Yamaha, like I said, has joined in and has done some special financing for everyone through the holidays. That will really benefit them. And we are really loaded with a lot of nice trade-ins or used pianos right now. Jason Skipper 3:52 Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, that's what we wanted to talk about. And let's get into that talking about used pianos a little bit. I do a lot of the online work for Miller and... Sherry Carlisle Smith 4:03 You're doing a great job. Jason Skipper 4:04 Well, I appreciate that, thank you. But part of the work that I do is research. I do a lot of online research trying to figure out what people really want or what they're searching for. And you know, something that really interests me, you know at Miller we have some of the most the best the most technologically advanced pianos in the world. From the Disklavier or the Clavinova, the AvantGrand the acoustics and digital upright grand pianos - we've got it all. But something interesting that pops up in my research over and over is that so many more people are searching for used pianos. The new ones, for example, last month, 10 times more people in the United States search for the keyword "used piano" over the keyword "new piano". Why do you think that is? Sherry Carlisle Smith 4:55 I think, you know, it's bargain shoppers, and they're wanting to get in the market and buy a piano. And a lot of times people get sticker shock. Yeah, when they go into a piano store and they see a sticker price of a piano before asking the quality, it's just like buying anything else - clothes, shoes, cars, you know, you go around you look at the sticker prices first, right? And so I think shopping in the US market, just like if you were buying a car, you look for the US market and then it kind of filters you up to where, okay, if this is used, I kind of know what to expect for a new piano. So it's, I think, it's just a filter of people getting into the market and that's the first place people look basically for anything. Jason Skipper 5:41 Okay, well, that definitely makes sense. Let me ask you this. When someone contacts you, maybe they call or they send an internet form, or maybe they contact you through Facebook or they walk in, you know, walk into the store, and they're looking for used piano do they usually have a clear idea of what they're looking for? Or is it the case that usually someone looking for a used piano and says, "I'm interested in buying a piano, but I don't think my budget gives for a new one? Can you help me?" Can you walk me through the process of working with a customer evaluating their needs, and helping them find that perfect piano for them? Sherry Carlisle Smith 6:21 Yes. And that's about 50/50. You have 50% probably that walk-in that they do have a certain model or they've been online, or they think they know what they want. And then you have 50% that really are needing education. And what is the used piano? What's a new piano? What's a digital, what's a hybrid? So a big part of our job here, even if you're looking for us is it's let's sit down and talk. But are you going to use the piano for are there children involved? And do you know how and what to look for in a used piano? Let me show you some examples of used pianos. Let me show you some examples of new pianos and your other options which may be digital or hybrid. So really finding out what the customers' needs are, makes it a lot easier for us to find the right piano. And if we don't have it, at least we know what to look for. Because used pianos are turnover daily. So I may not have what you need today, but tomorrow, I may have the exact piano. Jason Skipper 7:26 Gotcha, gotcha. Okay. Well, let me ask you this. Let's say I'm on the Internet, and I've decided with my family, we need to buy a piano, okay, but we don't have a huge budget. I'm searching on the Internet. And I write in, for example, in Google, I write used pianos near me. And I find a plethora of listings on eBay and Craigslist and maybe Facebook marketplace and I see used pianos from online businesses from other parts of the United States. I assume that they could ship them to me or I also see, you know, local businesses such as Miller Piano Specialists, you know, and the offerings that we have for used pianos. Where do I start? You know, I'm a new customer, I don't know much, but I'm looking for something. Where do I start? What do I need to know before buying a used piano? Sherry Carlisle Smith 8:19 Well, first of all, you want to know the history of that piano, because there are some things that just like we have a lifespan and acoustic pianos lifespan is approximately 50 years, okay? Okay, now, it could last a little longer, a little less, depending on the care just like us going getting a checkup at the doctor, right? Tuning - what people do not understand, and this once again goes back to education. A piano needs to be tuned twice a year in a home in a church, the atmosphere, depending on if they take their heat up and down. It could be four times a year, right? There are tons of pressure points that pull against that plate with those strings. And if it is not cared for properly, it will pull those tuning pins out that are threaded. And then they have a tuning block issue on the piano. So then we're looking at, it's almost like pulling the engine to get to the alternator. We're looking at more money to fix it than what we put into the piano. So the outside is the least of our worries. We can always have the outside, prettied up. We look more at the inside and the workings of the piano and how much life is left on it for that next person. Jason Skipper 9:38 Gotcha. Okay, so I'm assuming, I mean just, if I were, for example, you find something online, maybe in another state and I can't travel to get it I want them to ship it to me. I don't know how many do that but I'm assuming that Sherry Carlisle Smith 9:55 Oh, they do. Jason Skipper 9:55 They do. You know, that doesn't sound like a good idea. Sherry Carlisle Smith 10:00 Not it's not, it's just like my daughter is a ballet dancer. And it doesn't matter the brand of shoe or every time she goes to get a new pair of ballet shoes. She has to try them on to have to be fitted. A piano is a personal experience. It's a sound. It's just like I tell people listen to this and touch it. So when they touch it, they get a feel, a sense. When they stand back and they listen to it, they're going to get a sound color. Some people say that's too mellow, that's too vibrant for me. You know, so then there's a sound color. And it's not a right or wrong answer. It just helps me to understand what they're looking for but buying online and not having a technician locally that can go through the piano or a dealer like we are that. We've gone through the piano and we know what the inside is like and you not being able to lay your hands on it and touch it. That's the experience of buying a piano just like test driving a car. Jason Skipper 11:07 Right. Okay. So, for example, I find something on Craigslist or, you know, Facebook marketplace from an individual that's selling their piano from their home. But how would I go about evaluating a piano if it's been taken care of how do you know that? Sherry Carlisle Smith 11:22 Well, that's where people, we have people all the time that say, Oh, we haven't had it tuned in 20 years, it sounds just like it did. There's no way it can sound just like it did. It may be totally out of tune with itself, but there's no way it can be in tune. And will it hold pitch? Will it hold a tune? So you really need for a technician to look through it which is going to cost you money to go out and do that. You need to look for the serial and the model number. And if a person will not give you that because that's trackable on the internet, or we can do it for you here. Because there are some pianos that are what's called gray market that are not even destined for the US market. And that's something you really want to stay away from. Jason Skipper 12:09 Gotcha. Okay. Well, that's interesting. Well, let me ask you this. What would be a reason if someone's looking for a used piano and why buy from a dealer? Why buy from you? Sherry Carlisle Smith 12:21 Well, I hope first of all their experience is good and we find what they need. And they do know buying through us that they have someone they can call they can talk to, they can come back to if they have a problem. One of our specialists is there for you 24/7. The other thing is buying from us you get a value trading. So let's say you buy a used piano for $2,000. But your son or daughter does really well and you want to buy him that grand in 10 years, or five years or next year. Then we give you full value trade up. That's to go up to something larger and you know that the quality like I said, is going to be there and our use panels because if it's not, it will not be on our floor. Jason Skipper 13:06 I gotcha. Okay, well, what do you do? You know, before we talk about what you have there in stock, do you guys accept every panel that comes through the door? Sherry Carlisle Smith 13:16 Absolutely not. Jason Skipper 13:18 Okay, what do you do? Sherry Carlisle Smith 13:21 I've been out on three different calls this week looking at people that have not had success in selling on these different sites that you were talking about. And so I went out and I looked and appraise the piano and realistically gave them a figure. Yes, you can always if the pianos in good shape, sell it for a little bit more because we have to go into it. Make sure it's tuned up, make sure it's regulated, make sure it's got a warranty. We have to ship it to the next person. We have to pick it up. So we actually look at the pianos before they're brought in. So it's not like, oh yeah you got that piano in a great teacher. And then we get there and half the pedals are gone. Jason Skipper 14:07 I hear you on that one. So you're very selective in choosing what you bring in because you want to back that as well. Sherry Carlisle Smith 14:14 We want to back it in our name is on it. So that is very important to Miller Piano Specialists, to the family here, and to the specialists that work here. Jason Skipper 14:23 Of course, right. Okay, so what do we have right now at the store? I let me just say this, I love it. You know, we look online, you can see the listing of used pianos we have they're also new. But I look online and I see all of these pianos that we have, for example, you go to the used pianos page, I see him and they all have names. You know, for example, we have Becky, a Pearl River baby grand, I believe, And Ronnie Roland digital. We have a Gary, a Gulbransem, a Branson Grand Piano, Timothy a Kawai digital piano, and Rachel. I love that. Sherry Carlisle Smith 15:02 Well, Timothy's gone, but okay. Jason Skipper 15:05 That's gone? Oh, no. Okay, well, that's great, but... Sherry Carlisle Smith 15:09 My daughter, Dakota, one of the specialists that works here, said, Mom, you know, we put the stories of the pianos and where they came from and the background of the piano who owned the piano where they want owner. She said we get so personal let's, let's name them. Let's give them a name with the personality. And I've had people that come in that actually have bought the piano because they love the name. Yeah. And then one lady said, it's Barry. This is Barry and I'm not changing the name. This is Barry. Barry Baldwin. So it just gives more personality to the background behind the piano. Jason Skipper 15:46 Right. Well, what do we have right now in stock? Sherry Carlisle Smith 15:49 We have got several. We've got, I believe, eight grands that had been traded in lately that are very nice, that are in the somewhere between five-foot, six-foot range. And we have got several digital's in right now. And we have got, I would say, six or seven vertical uprights, including, I believe we have a, you one, you know, maybe I use three coming in, which is very rare with waiting lists for a lot of these pianos. Jason Skipper 16:22 Right. So can a person find all of these online or are there more in store? Sherry Carlisle Smith 16:29 They can. They can find them online, you know, through - and there's a really good thing on our YouTube and I believe it's on our website too now but we actually went in the studio and did a little video on it's like six or seven points of how to purchase a used piano and what to look for in a used piano. So there's a lot of questions that people ask and this these are really good videos we shot at a local studio over here and based on Devonshire and we're very helpful in getting that done. And it really helps you walk through some of the questions and some of the answers to what we've been talking about. Jason Skipper 17:08 Right. Okay, well, we're definitely in the show notes of this episode, we're going to link to all of those or embed them on the page. So we'll definitely put that so anyone listening, check out the website, Miller PS.com, and you'll be able to see all these videos that Sherry's referring to. So I believe people can always ask for a used or a new piano inventory list as well, right? Sherry Carlisle Smith 17:32 They can, yes, they can go out and fill web form on the page right there. And then one of our specialists will get back with you to send you information. We like to do a call first. If you could please put the number because it helps us so we're not sending you just a glob of staff. Right. It's kind of like walking into one of these department stores and they have so much stuff from floor to ceiling. And I have actually left my basket and all the floor. And they're full because I went in there for baby powder. And I came out with all this stuff. And I'm like, Oh, no, no, no, that's not working for. So if we know a little bit more about what you're looking for, and we made that phone call, then we know more what to send that might be special just for you. Jason Skipper 18:19 So it's all about that personal contact with the customer? Just allowing the customer? Sherry Carlisle Smith 18:24 And I can tell you it is and, you know, we all, I think at the Christmas season we have a joyous time shopping and then we have some of his fat grumble about shopping and the crowds and everything else. Okay. It has been so crazy busy. Like I went shopping for an hour and a half, two hours today. And it was you know, everybody goes shop online. I want the experience, whether it's good or bad. I want the experience and of hearing the muzak and seeing people bustling around and people talking about buying what, and then me feeling it and touching it. I wouldn't have bought a sweater today if I hadn't touched it because I went I don't like that. And then I touched it and went, Oh, I gotta have it because one of my senses clicked in and it was like, this is perfect. Jason Skipper 19:14 Right. Sherry Carlisle Smith 19:16 So, it is the experience. Jason Skipper 19:18 It really is understanding what you need, what you're looking for. And when you're buying that piano, just like you mentioned, being able to see it in person. It's like buying a vehicle, even more, I would think, just because it becomes part of the inside of your house for not just you know, 5, 7, 8 years. I mean, we're talking many years to come. It's part of your family, It becomes part of your history, right? Sherry Carlisle Smith 19:43 It is and I travel a lot and I live in my car. So when I went to get a car, and I knew what I was kind of looking for - something with four wheels, you know, four doors - Ruby, that kind of thing, you know? But I literally wanted to sit in it. And that gentleman was so good. And here are three vehicles I like to use sit in on drive them and try them and the experience because I live in my car as much as I do as my house. And a piano is something that is used every day for a long, long, long time. So you want to make the experience of buying it. Good. Jason Skipper 20:24 I hear you. Well, that is perfect. And I think that really explains it. So for our listeners out there, you know, I don't know if you're looking for something maybe you're part of the Miller Piano Specialists family. You've already purchased one but it's so important to be able to get to know it and I love this with the used pianos, putting a name on them. But whatever it is that experience coming in talking to you guys understanding if you're searching for that, I think that's the key. It really is. Make it more personal. Go out and touch him and look at him. I won't talk anymore, this is yours ha! Sherry Carlisle Smith 21:02 No, that's great. You're saying all the right things. And you know, please, by all means, call us, let us know how we can help you or fill out those forms and put the phone number on there. And if you know you've had that great experience with us, a testimonial, you know if you could give us a good review, because people do look at that, before they make that second move off I'm going to give them my information to find out what they have. They're going to look at the reviews and see who's happy and what experience they've had here at Miller. Jason Skipper 21:35 Right, right. Well go to Google, go to Facebook, look at our reviews. It's pretty amazing. I look at it and we have over 100 between the two and they're all five-star. They're amazing. I will say this. Yeah, you know, let me ask you this Sherry. Just to end up here, for the person listening. You know, they're trying to figure out what to do and searching for a piano. Do you have any last advice, something that I didn't ask, you know, a lot of times they say you don't know what you don't know? And maybe I don't know what to ask, you know, but... Sherry Carlisle Smith 22:08 Well, there's one big word: Education. Do not be afraid of asking a question. There is no such thing as a stupid question. And education is what we specialize in. So allow us to educate you on pianos and a piano that might be right for you. So education is the one word I would leave you with. Jason Skipper 22:32 You got it. All right. Well, Sherry, how can our listeners, of course, get in touch with you? I know you can go to the website, but how can they get in touch with you? Sherry Carlisle Smith 22:43 Okay, they can get in touch with us, of course, through the website. They can also call us at 615-771-0020. We're on all forms of social media, you can message us on Facebook. Please give us a call. I mean, that's the quickest easiest way to get through us. Jason Skipper 23:01 Right. And if you're doing some Christmas shopping in Cool Springs stop by the store. You're just right there. Sherry Carlisle Smith 23:06 650 Fraser, Dr. Franklin, Tennessee. We're located between Sperry's and Bassett Furniture. Jason Skipper 23:11 All right. All right. Well, thanks, Sherry. This has been great. This has been great. Everybody. This has been Sherry Carlisle Smith, the general sales manager at Miller Piano Specialists in Cool Springs in Tennessee. As always, you can find show notes and a transcript of this episode right on our website, www.millerps.com. As well as you can also find us on Apple podcast, Google Play Podcasts, and Spotify. Look us up on your favorite podcast, listening platform. And don't forget to rate review and subscribe. And also, as Sherry mentioned, go out and leave a review somewhere online. If you've been with us, you worked with Miller Piano Specialists, do that. In any case, once again, this is your host Jason Skipper, and we'll see you next time.

Welcome to Miller Piano podcast episode number 5! It's Christmas time, and we have a special Christmas treat for you piano lovers out there. In this episode, host Jason Skipper talks with Shana Kirk, a Yamaha Corporation of America consultant and product specialist as well as many many other things, which we learn about in this episode. Shana talks in detail about new piano technology, and how that technology can be used to address common 21st-century learning challenges. Topics discussed: Shana's Personal and Education Background Life in Colorado Yamaha Disklavier's Piano Technology in the past 30 Years How Shana Became Interested in Piano Technology Common Piano Learning Challenges of Today and How the Yamaha Disklavier has Fixed These Examples on How Teachers Take Advantage of Yamaha Disklavier's Tech Features How Yamaha's Acoustic Pianos' Headphone Technology Works Distance Learning Tools The Future of Piano Technology How You Can Reach Out to Shana Transcript Jason Skipper 0:14 Welcome to the Miller Piano Podcast. I'm your host Jason Skipper. And in this episode, we have a talk with special guest, Shana Kirk. Shana is a consultant and product specialist with the Yamaha Corporation of America. She is frequently featured on event programs for organizations throughout the US and Canada. She writes music and music technology-based reviews and articles for blogs, websites and print publications, including Piano Magazine, and American Music Teacher where she co-authors the Tech Connect column. And it was just announced yesterday, I believe, that she is now the Director of Digital operations for the Francis Clark Center, among many, many other things. Shana, it's an honor to have you with us today. Welcome to the podcast. Shana Kirk 0:58 Thank you so much, Jason. It's great to be here. Jason Skipper 1:00 Did I get all that right? Shana Kirk 1:02 You did, I think so. It sounds like a lot now that you've read it out loud. Jason Skipper 1:07 Yeah. Well, I tell you, I missed a lot of it. Because honestly, reading from your bio, there's so much there. I know just looking at your education, it's incredible. Honestly, I've seen there you have a BA in Piano Performance and German from Lipscomb University, Master of music and Piano Pedagogy from the University of Denver and quite a few others that I honestly would just make a fool of myself trying to pronounce. Shana Kirk 1:34 That German stuff is pretty tough. Jason Skipper 1:36 Yeah, I was trying, I was looking it up trying to figure out exactly how to pronounce those in German, and I said nope. Maybe you can help us with that. Where else have you studied? What else have you done? Shana Kirk 1:47 So I spent some time in Germany actually, while I was a student in Lipscomb, and I studied at the Goethe Institute, which is a language school. And I went to the Musikschule, which is a music school in Mannheim. And I spent a little time also at the University of Mannheim. And so I have always enjoyed dipping my toes in a lot of water, I guess. And I just am so fortunate to have a really multi-faceted career and a lot of interest that just keeps me engaged in busy and curious in every possible direction. Jason Skipper 2:26 That's awesome. I think to sum it up, I read this on your LinkedIn profile, and it's really simple and to the point. I love it... it says, "I'm a pianist and a geek. And I combine those two qualities as often as possible". Is that right? Shana Kirk 2:40 Exactly, that's exactly, exactly it. Jason Skipper 2:42 I love it. I grew up playing the piano. I grew up playing music all my life, but I also consider myself a geek. I do a lot of those type of things. And I love playing with all the possibilities in technology with music, with MIDI and just, you know, working all these different things. So I love it. Shana Kirk 3:01 There's never been a more exciting time to just dive into both piano music and music technology and just 21st-century tools. It's a really, really great, great space to be in these days. Jason Skipper 3:13 It really is. And I don't think a lot of people know that, and that's one of the reasons why we're doing this podcast is just to let the world know what's out there. It's pretty amazing. Shana Kirk 3:24 Yeah, for sure. Jason Skipper 3:25 So before we get into today's topic, we always like to get to know our guests a little bit better, you know, your background where you're from. So I understand Shana that you mentioned, I know you're not... you don't live in Tennessee now, but I believe you are from Tennessee? Shana Kirk 3:43 That's right. I grew up in West Tennessee, a little town called Lexington. That's about halfway in between Memphis and Nashville. I went to Lexington High and my parents still live on a bucolic farm that is right off of Natchez Trace State Park. And so we get back there as often as we can. So I grew up as an absolute Tennessee farm girl who loved music loved all the great harmonies that surrounded me and all the Tennessee music has to offer. And then I went to college right there at Lipscomb. And where that was my first introduction into, you know, really diving into classical music, and really diving into music technology. And I really did have a wonderful experience there. Jason Skipper 4:27 Wow, wow. Well, where do you live now? Shana Kirk 4:29 I live right in central Denver. Jason Skipper 4:31 Okay. And how, you know, just real quick, how did you end up there? How'd you end up in Denver, moving away from Tennessee being so focused on music? How'd you end up in Denver? Shana Kirk 4:42 I was actually looking for graduate programs after I left Lipscomb. After I graduated from Lipscomb, my now husband and I were both kind of searching the world searching the country at least for places that look like fun and also had Continuing Education and graduate programs that would fit both of our needs and somehow Denver was just the place that we landed on. So it wasn't really as you know, there were a lot of factors that went into that. But basically, we were looking around for where could we have a great time and continue our education in the same city and Denver hit that sweet spot and once we were here, we just couldn't think of leaving. Jason Skipper 5:28 It's beautiful out there. I've looked at it multiple times all out through Colorado in that area, it's beautiful. The weather at least in the summertime and you know, most of the year is beautiful I know you get snow, I asked you before we started recording this but have you had any snow so far? Shana Kirk 5:47 There's actually already been a lot of snow in Colorado. If you're thinking about coming out for skiing, everything is already open. And, and just really in great shape up in the mountains. Denver has had more snow than we're used to by this time of year. But today, it's actually sunny and gorgeous, which is a little secret of Denver is that there are 300 days of sunshine and it's almost always sunny. Jason Skipper 6:09 Ah, you're making me jealous. Shana Kirk 6:13 Nobody makes biscuits like the Loveless Cafe, which we don't have. Jason Skipper 6:19 That's true, that's true! In any case, let's go ahead and get into the topic that we wanted to talk about today. we're getting into Piano Technology, specifically the Yamaha Disklavier, and addressing common 21st-century learning challenges. Piano technology has changed so much over the years. You mentioned a little while ago, how we live in one of the most exciting times in music and with piano technology. I think that the majority of people, when they think of pianos, they think of a beautiful instrument. A lot of times the classical instrument, the upright or the grand piano, but not a whole whole lot of people, not many people think about technology in the piano. The truth is it has changed a lot. How has piano technology changed over maybe the last 10, 20, 30 or more years? Shana Kirk 7:09 Well, 30 years is kind of a benchmark in the evolution of technology of the piano, especially the acoustic piano, because that's when true reproducing pianos that were outfitted with MIDI technology started being produced. So Yamaha's first Disklavier was about to think a little more than 30 years ago now and it was just a reproducing acoustic piano. But at the center of that was suddenly the ability to measure every single motion, every single gesture that a pianist could make on a piano could be measured in just incredible resolution even as long ago as 30 years. Shana Kirk 7:55 And in the interim, that has only gotten better. Starting in the mid-90s, Disklavier introduced high-resolution recording. So instead of the 128 increments of media measurement, that was then multiplied by nine. So in the approaching 1000 increments of measurement for every single keystroke, every single hammer hit, every single anything that happens inside of the piano is being measured to unbelievable accuracy. So when you have that kind of accuracy, you can actually reproduce a performance to the standard of a classical artist. In prior iterations of reproducing pianos, say what you might associate with player pianos of the early 20th century. There were actually some very sophisticated instruments even back then, but they couldn't come close to reproducing the humaneness of a classical performer, with all of the subtleties that are required and studied classical music. Jason Skipper 8:58 Wow. How did you - I know that you grew up here in Tennessee, and you studied at Lipscomb. But how did you get interested first in piano technology? Shana Kirk 9:07 So that's an interesting thing. So when I was a high school student, I was a pretty enthusiastic student, and an enthusiastic musician too. But you're in kind of a, an isolated area in rural Tennessee, where you don't know what you don't know. But I was just fascinated by all things music, and I knew I wanted to be in the music world. And I had played in band and taking piano lessons. And then I got to Lipscomb, and there was this whole other layer of musicianship that I had no clue about. So my teacher was Jerry Reed, who is you know, just a wonderful and award-winning and phenomenal teacher in the area. And I think that he saw a spark and also had a willingness to kind of be hard when it was necessary. Shana Kirk 9:59 And so he really gave me some guidance about classical music. And then and also just sort of helping me fit into that world because I had been a total, you know, country girl, and I didn't have a clue. But also at the same time, and this is like, you know, the ironies of growing up in the south, I think I had a small scholarship from the Walton foundation from Walmart. And that scholarship went on top of my other scholarships, and it was actually just cash and they just gave me a check. So with that, check, I marched myself to the music electronic store I don't even remember the name of it now is the dusty little store in northeast Nashville, and I bought a keyboard and a MOTU interface, orange, and bright-colored MOTU interfaces, and Finale version 2.6.1, the engraving software which came on, you know, three or four floppy disks best I remember, and a MAC classic computer. computer like the little screen, you know, monochrome Mac classic. So that was my rig. And I carried it back and forth to Lipscomb with me in the back of my Ford Escort. And, I discovered at the same time that our theory teacher who was a brilliant brilliant man named Gerald Moore. Dr. Moore, unfortunately, passed away a few years ago, but he had been doing a side gig for many years as an arranger in Nashville. So the idea of using a keyboard to write music into a computer was relatively new and we had started that learning curve at the same time. And so we shared each other's pain and learning how to do this. Shana Kirk 11:58 Bfrustrated by how often our computers crashed and how often we couldn't get the setup to work. I have admitted many times, although probably never on the radio that I got away with not doing a whole lot of my theory homework because I used to try to turn it in on finale and then my computer would crash and I would go to Dr. Moore and I would say Oh, my computer crashed. And he was so, he was this giant, like you know, I don't know how it seems like he was seven feet tall but he probably wasn't I don't know. A lot bigger than me person who would just... but he was sort of like a big, you know, cuddly, you know? He was just this nice, nice person, very, very warm person and he was saying, oh, Shana, I completely understand. You can just turn it in whenever and you would never get around to turning it. Hey, let me slide on so much theory homework. I'll have to also admit that I ended up taking some remedial theory classes in graduate school. Jason Skipper 12:58 But hey during that time, you got all the practice in there. So you learned... Shana Kirk 13:06 Definitely. I had this deep understanding of how MIDI and computers fit together, and you know why that is useful in the real world. Because there was Dr. Moore just doing incredible work in Nashville and increasing his output I think exponentially because all of a sudden, he didn't have to handwrite everything. There was this easy way. There wasn't even there was barely an email it wasn't like you could attach a message to I mean, you couldn't attach a score to an email or send anything online but at least you could get multiple copies output fast. Jason Skipper 13:42 Right. Right. That's awesome. You started From the beginning there. You started really, really early and learned it well. I think in our correspondence before this episode, you mentioned that the bulk of your work today in your job and everything you do seems to revolve around artists, educators and recording studios who use the Yamaha Disklavier, especially when it can help address common 21st-century learning challenges. Can you explain what you mean by that? Shana Kirk 14:16 Yeah, yeah, sure. So, I have had a longtime relationship with Yamaha as a consultant, since actually the time I was a graduate student here in Denver. And in that role, I have been in this sort of unique niche of having a big background in classical music and piano pedagogy, but also having this you know, additional layer of knowledge in technology. So Yamaha has hired me now for many years to help educators, especially college music departments. But also private teachers and artists and studios and whatever, to figure out what they needed and how they could be helped by this technology. And since my personal passion is for great acoustic piano performance, a lot of times that has carried over to Yamaha Disklavier. Shana Kirk 15:18 So, since the very early days of Disklavier, schools have adopted them for the purpose of helping students practice more efficiently. So it's one thing to practice for, you know, hours and hours like we do as pianists. But a lot of times that turns into things like repetitive stress injuries, or just plain old brain fry exhaustion. So something that was discovered and actually one of the original reasons that the Yamaha Disklavier was ever invented in Japan was to help students take advantage of being able to listen to themselves better. So if you, as an advanced pianist can record a performance on the Yamaha Disklavier, and then step back a few feet, and then experience your own performance as an audience member, or as a critique of your own performance. You develop listening skills and sort of self-assessment skills that you can't do when you're just in the middle of playing. So that's an incredible benefit to being able to have this very realistic performance of yourself just anytime you need to do that. Jason Skipper 16:35 Right. When you listen back and you hear yourself what you did, because a lot of times when you're in the middle of it, you don't realize, you know, you're messing up in a certain area, you get off time, I guess. I don't know, I mean... Shana Kirk 16:48 Yeah, absolutely, there's that. But then I call it sort of the microscope of a Yamaha Disklavier is when you have that performance. Now, remember that the Yamaha Disklavier, on the backbone of the Disklavier is MIDI. And MIDI is data, MIDI is not a recorded performance. So what can you do with data, you can manipulate it. So because MIDI is data, you can take a display of your performance. And you can speed it up, you can slow it down, you can change the key, you can take little segments out and loop them over and over again. And so anything that you can do in a MIDI studio, you can also do at the Yamaha Disklavier, but the benefit is you're doing it on a real acoustic piano with all of those, you know, brain-rattling vibrations in the room, all of this specialness of an acoustic piano. So I have been giving workshops for teachers for many years now demonstrating a lot of the ways that you can use Yamaha Disklavier as it's just a microscopic teaching tool. One short example I'll give... Jason Skipper 17:53 Yeah, that would be great. Shana Kirk 17:55 Say, I saw this in I saw this years and years ago what before I was working so closely with Yamaha in a teacher workshop with Susan Ogilvy who is also, you know, wonderful technology, promoter and just composer and wonderful person. So anyway, I was in this early workshop with Susan Ogilvy. And she had a student come and she was going to show recording and playback as a teaching tool, and she asked the student to play a scale. And the student, she was expecting that the student would miss a few things, and that she would play it back and we would be able to, you know, make note of Oh, you didn't quite get that, you know, finger passage exactly right, or something like that. Shana Kirk 18:43 But instead, the student was a total show off and he played really, really fast. And the audience kind of gasped at how great they thought it was maybe or maybe how great he thought of himself. And so it's right in the moment, Susan said, you know, I'm going to do something a little different here, I'm going to see what your performance sounds like, if I play it at half the speed, you played. And all of a sudden, you hear all of these bumps and uneven places and places where the two hands weren't exactly together. And suddenly you realize she's just taken a microscope to that performance and exposed everything about it that was insecure and shaky. And also, sometimes you hear two side by side really fast performances, and you can't quite put your finger on what, no pun intended there, why one is so much more professional-sounding than the other. Sometimes it's those microscopic differences in where your hands exactly playing together and was the scale exactly, exactly, even. And that happens across the board, not just in classical music. Jason Skipper 19:55 Right. What other ways Have you seen and maybe other examples are where teachers are working with their students or maybe schools are maximizing their efforts working with students with the Disklavier. What other ways have you seen that? Shana Kirk 20:11 So, it's, it's a long list. But a couple of my favorite examples are just anywhere when a school or a teacher especially and we all know the burden that is on teachers, especially these days with budget cuts in schools and just incredible schedules that the teachers have to put themselves through. I have a colleague Mario Ajero at Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas, and he has all of his students record their piano proficiency exam. So this is the class that you know group piano or class piano, where piano music students, not necessarily piano students, but any music students have to pass what's called a piano proficiency. And so at a big school like Stephen F, Austin, that can be an enormous number of students to go through and get and take these exams. So MARIO has all of his students record their exams on Yamaha Disklavier, so that he can come in and, and grade the exams without having to actually schedule with a student. And it just puts so much more flexibility into not just his schedule, but theirs, I mean, students, you know, especially music students are so booked with performances and recitals and even just attending other things. So so that is just a simple way that the Disklavier has to lighten the load of music students and faculty. Shana Kirk 21:35 And then modern Disklavier, so by modern I mean, just in the last, you know, five or so years, there has been an added element of synchronized video. So most Disklaviers in the last several years, you're able to connect either a camera, so a video camera, or even just an iPad. There's an iPad app that goes with the Disklavier called my music recorder. Those two things will let you marry together video of your performance and the physical performance that is on the display here. So how does that help modern competitive piano student? Well, we mentioned I think earlier the avoidance of performance injuries. And there have even been studies about this, you know, NYU, and Washington University, all kinds of things. So when a student can actually see the mechanics of their own performance on a video screen, and then at the very same time, see how a certain gesture of their body translated to a certain sound at the piano. You know, all of a sudden you have all of this information to take in, you can take notes on it, you can work on parts of your physical performance, that you might not be able to observe even from hearing yourself or from independently seeing a video yourself. Shana Kirk 23:00 So the two of those things put together just give you so much information to assess your own playing and to be a healthier player. I know even probably just now while we're talking to each other, I tend to be a pretty animated talker. And I realize, you know, one of my shoulders is higher than the other, I'm starting to leap forward in a weird way because I get excited when I talk. And you don't realize what little tensions you put into your body in ways that you talk in the way that you do your everyday things. When you're a pianist, and you're at the piano for hours and hours a day, those little motions in your body, those little tensions can really really multiply. So it's extremely important for pianists in today's ultra-competitive environment to have every possible advantage. Be able to reduce those tensions. Jason Skipper 23:51 Right to be self-aware, understand what they're doing, what they do, how it comes through in their music and everything they're doing, so... that's incredible. Shana Kirk 24:00 Yeah, it's critically important. I can't count the number of pianists that I've known that have dropped out of performing life because they have had injuries or because they saw an injury coming and didn't know how to avoid it. But also, I've seen wonderful success stories of pianists who were able to overcome injuries or avoid them in the first place. Just because of technology like the Disklavier. Jason Skipper 24:27 Right. Wow. Well, you say technology like the discovery, or are these options everything you're mentioning? Are they more just focused on the Yamaha Disklavier or what other pianos from Yamaha have the same type of options? Is the Disklavier really the one especially in performance things where it's that's the standard go to? Shana Kirk 24:47 I think the Disklavier is certainly setting a standard in every possible way. But Yamaha because it's such a big and interconnected company and such an innovative company, has carried over a lot of technologies and a lot of ideas across several different instruments. One of the most important ones, I think, is the ability simply to put on headphones. And every instrument Yamaha makes, including most acoustic pianos, are now available with what's called a silent feature. That, you don't have to have the playback ability of the disc severe or some of the more sophisticated MIDI features that are in the Yamaha Disklavier to appreciate why you might want headphones on your acoustic piano that solves so many problems for so many families. If you have more than one child in the house, if you have people who go to bed at different times, if you have close neighbors, if you have a student in your family who just is shy about having other people listen - I don't like other people listening to me, I doubt if most people do. So that is just you know, a problem solver just by itself. Shana Kirk 26:02 And because the core of the Yamaha Disklavier year revolves around this very, very precise measurement, the one hand, and on the other hand very, very high quality sampled sounds inside your headphones because remember Yamaha is also an electronics company. So many many very powerful sampled sounds come from the Yamaha see FX Concert Grand Piano from the Yamaha C7, which is the standard in every recording studio everywhere, you can ask your Nashville friends. Lots and lots and lots of choices. Yamaha is also the owner of Bösendorfer and that sample is now in a lot of our headphones instruments. And then you get into the very exciting more digital features of something like a Clavinova, where you basically have a multitrack studio at your fingertips You know, tons and tons of artists and educators and composers get tremendous use out of Clavinova. I mean, it's everything but the kitchen sink right inside the same. Shana Kirk 27:14 So for someone who may be listening, a listener out there, and they're trying to understand, you know, I grew up playing piano and I think mom and dad, my mom and dad would have been very happy if I could put headphones into my piano every once in a while, you know? And I guess the question is, you know, for some people out there, how does that work? You take a piano, how can you plug in an acoustic piano, and you plug in headphones, you know, just getting really basic here. How does that work where you can plug it in, and suddenly the piano doesn't make any sounds anymore? Can you kind of explain that to our listeners? Shana Kirk 27:49 Oh, sure. It's actually not that complicated that the mechanism of it is not that complicated. In a Yamaha acoustic piano that has a silent feature or a Yamaha Disklavier the silent feature, there is simply a bar that mechanic, you know, you hear a little motor go bug. And it just prevents the hammers from striking the strings or so then instead of hammer striking strings, they're just stopped by this little soft bar and it doesn't make it makes the same sound. I mean, that doesn't, you know, damage anything. And because the Yamaha Disklavier is based on fiber-optic technology, you're the hammers are not hitting anything. They're not hitting sensors or anything like that. They're simply passing through beams of light. And those beams of light can have unbelievably precise measurements. Shana Kirk 28:41 So whatever you're playing on the keys, even if it's fast, repeated notes, or if it's very slow movement of the key up and down, all of that is being measured, and then reproduced in a really, really sophisticated modeled sample of an acoustic grand piano. So one of the things that I think is great fun is you put on the headphones in your, you know, living room-sized acoustic piano that's an upright or small grand maybe that fits into you know, everybody's living room. And then when you put the headphones on, all of a sudden you're hearing this nine-foot concert grand. Jason Skipper 29:19 That's awesome. That's awesome. I wish I would have had that growing up. I really do. Shana Kirk 29:23 I think my family probably wishes they had that growing up. Jason Skipper 29:28 So one of the things that we've talked about here is learning and be able to work with someone who's somewhere else. A lot of times today, people are moving all over the place. My family, we've moved four times probably in the last 10 years. It's just one of those things that happens a lot of people move all over the place and what happens in today, how can we use the technology and today to be able to let's say you have a piano teacher somewhere else like another city where you were and you moved away from them, but you don't want to change teachers you don't know who to look for, then how could we use this technology for things like that? Or maybe you could give us an example? Shana Kirk 30:10 Yeah, well, obviously, distance learning is a really hot topic and education circles everywhere. And music education is no different. So the Yamaha Disklavier itself has a feature called remote lesson that is largely limited to institutions. So if you have a great faculty member at your school, and they have some niche expertise, that other people are enthusiastic about, about sharing, you can sort of beam that teacher one piano to the other piano I actually just now helped facilitate a lesson from Frederic Chiu who is a wonderful Yamaha artist and on the faculty of the Hartt School of Music, and, and other positions as well I'll mention and he was invited to teach a class to some students in Moscow. And so we set up a Yamaha Yamaha Disklavier at the Hartt School of Music, where they have that piano there all the time. And the students in Moscow were able to come to a Yamaha facility there. So Frederic Chiu to has a wonderful way of demonstrating how to create this magical sound in especially the music and the style of Chopin with combining certain subtle movements of pedals and ways to address the keys with velocity, so that's, you know, the speed of playing a key up and down. And all of that very, very intricate information, just jumped right over those thousands of miles into the piano in Moscow. And students were you could see them on the screen, you know, they were just their jaws were dropped. And these are not students who are new to piano repertoire, but obviously, his approach to this particular topic was so new and refreshing. So that was a really magical thing to watch just very, very recently. Shana Kirk 32:10 And years ago, I had a more practical application with Inna Faliks, who is on the faculty of UCLA, so University of California in Los Angeles. And she was invited to join that faculty as a very young artist. And that's not something that you ever turn down if you're in this world. I mean, faculty jobs in piano are so hard to come by. But she had this existing set of responsibilities in New York City. And on top of that, she had a new baby. And so it was going to be really complicated for her to travel back and forth to take advantage of her new job at UCLA, while not letting everything slide in New York and also while still having a new baby. And so she did manage to do quite a lot of travel and she was very much welcomed on that faculty and she's doing such a wonderful job there still. But for that early transition, we were able to help her alleviate some of the stress of travel by letting her teach some of her lessons from New York City to LA. So she taught students from Yamaha artist services in New York City and her students and it was really funny because it was in the winter and her students were always wearing shorts and everybody was all bundled up in New York. Sometimes it's the distance, sometimes it's the time zone. sometimes it's just the convenience of life. Sometimes a teacher is sick. Sometimes a student is sick. And just being able to use Distance Learning Tools, either at the Yamaha Disklavier or Clavinova or silent piano can also accommodate Distance Learning Tools if you apply the software. But they discover you are actually has a built-in feature. Jason Skipper 34:03 That's awesome. That's so amazing, I tell you. So real quick finishing up here. Where do you see the future of piano technology going? Where's the future from today? Do you know? Do you have any clue or? Shana Kirk 34:18 I have my eye on things, I tell you, I always have my eye on things. Yamaha is always looking into the future. I can tell you that. And Yamaha has done a lot of research and a lot of prototyping in the area of artificial intelligence. That's still very new in the sophisticated language of music, or to artificial music-making still feels a little artificial, right? Honestly, you can tell when robots playing music right? Instead of when a human is playing music, but the research is there it's getting closer and closer. I'm also really, really fascinated by how much multimedia is becoming part of our art. So you think of classical piano is this sort of stodgy, snobby world of older people sometimes. And it's not always used in the same breath as innovative or modern, right. But that's just not true at all. There is so much to be done. Because of the complexity of classical music. You can put together just unbelievably eye-popping multimedia displays, where the lady from the piano so from the signals from an acoustic performance, are actually creating their own art. So being expressed as visual graphics. And that's not even hard to do. Shana Kirk 35:52 There's an iPad app called Visual Performer that just immediately turns your performance at the keyboard into a multimedia display. But then there are artists like Dan Tepfer, who are also computer programmers, in addition to being great pianist, and he's a classical pianist and a jazz pianist. And you know, every possible brilliant he could be. And he's writing algorithms that interpret his playing, and then feed it back to the piano. So it's like he's having a duet with his future self. Really, really brilliant stuff. And in the middle of that he has, you know, fractal art. And it's just unbelievable mind-blowing, mind-blowing things. Then also I am aware of pianists who have very severe limits, pianists who have had strokes. I've worked with two great pianists who have had strokes or other conditions that limited one hand or the other, and they're able to continue playing the piano because they record one part and play along with their own selves at the Yamaha Disklavier. So the accommodations for people who have these abilities. That is a future way of just allowing so many more people to be expressive at the piano. You might have seen a video, there was a really great I think YouTube video of the piano of the singer Renee Fleming controlling a Yamaha Disklavier with brainwaves (See embedded video below). So that's research, you know, someone who has complete loss of mobility can still control a piano through their brainwaves. So there's just so much exciting research in the area of accessibility in the area of multimedia, and then you know, distance learning. I'm just waiting for your holograms to be something that I can do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d-PlEAQMBY Jason Skipper 37:46 A hologram dancing on top of the piano while you're playing. Shana Kirk 37:48 Oh, yeah. So I do have to mention one multimedia artist before we close. That is really, really exciting. I don't think she hasn't done a lot of work on the Disklavier recently, but this just goes to show how long people have been, you know, experimenting with the Yamaha Disklavier as a multimedia instrument. The artist name is Xiao Xiao, X-I-A-O X-I-A-O. But she got hold of a discovery or during the time she was at MIT, and created something called MirrorFugue, where great pianists that she convinced to come in record for her, had their images, the actual images of their hands projected onto the keys. And one of the really special times that happened was she recorded the New Orleans pianist Allen Toussaint. And no one was expecting that it would be one of the last years of his life. And so now we can go back in and see that magical performance you know when he sort of unexpectedly passed away. So it's a little bit you know, dark to think about, you know, preserving dead pianist. It's not something that I really tried to emphasize the Yamaha Disklavier. But it is really a wonderful way to preserve moments in history, whether it's your child's piano recital, or a great pianist that might have visited your house, or a great pianist, hit what was at a school or a graduate degree recital. https://vimeo.com/121710688 Jason Skipper 39:19 Wow, that's incredible. I'd say the sky's the limit. And just everything we can see there. By the way, folks, I'm going to go ahead out. And we're going to look for all of these things that Shana has mentioned in here, we're going to put them in the show notes. So if you didn't look, look through the show notes, you'll see links to these videos will embed them on the page as well. So check those out. Well, one last thing here. You know, they say there's a saying you don't know what you don't know. And I feel like that today, with you, it's just been amazing listening to everything that you talk about and that you're sharing we know that there's so much technology and everything they're doing but what haven't I asked you today that I should have asked or something that you'd like to share with your audience? Shana Kirk 40:08 So it like I said earlier, it is just an amazing time to be right here at the junction of music and technology and teaching. The truth is you don't have to be anything like a techie person to enjoy technology at the Yamaha Disklavier or any other technology equipped instrument in 2019. We're all used to using iPads. The technology has receded into the background. It's not the goal anymore, it's just another tool. So if you're doing something as complex and sophisticated as playing the piano, and if you are, you know, congratulations because you're keeping your brain going for the rest of your life, adding just a little technology to the mix to make it more engaging and more convenient, is really, really not a big hurdle to cross. We can connect iPad games that make piano play and feel like, feel like a game. You can connect an iPad and have your whole music library, turn the pages for you from right inside your Yamaha Disklavier or any of the keyboard. You can record performances of special people in your life and have them, you know, archived forever. So you shouldn't feel intimidated and it's great to have people like Miller Music on hand who know their way around and can give everybody a gentle introduction into what sounds like, you know, a lot of complicated technology but it's really, really not there is so much to offer now and it can be as hard or as easy as you need it to be. Wow. All right. Jason Skipper 41:57 Well, how can people find you? I know you have a website, you're, you write blog posts, you write a lot of different things. How can people find you online? And how can if anybody would ever want to get a hold of you? How can people find you? Shana Kirk 42:13 Right, so I have my own website, which is pianotopia.net. And I also helped coordinate a website for Yamaha that's called the Yamaha DEN. So the Yamaha Disklavier Education Network is the DEN. And I try and keep rotating content up there. That is just kind of the latest exciting things to do with Disklavier, especially in ways that education might use. Jason Skipper 42:38 All right. Well, thank you so much, Shana. It's been a pleasure to have you on the podcast with us. To our listeners, don't forget that you can find a transcript with this entire podcast along with show notes and links to all the content that we mentioned the videos and everything else we talked throughout right here on the website. Also, don't forget to look us up on iTunes, Google Play and Spotify. And subscribe to the podcast leave a rating and a review if you could. I'm your host Jason Skipper. We'll see you next time.

Welcome to Miller Piano Podcast's Episode 4! In this episode, host John Haggard talks to Lori Frazer Bailey, consultant of the Yamaha Music and Wellness Institute. Did you know that music can literally help hospital patients heal from certain ailments? Aside from that, the two parties talk about the following topics: Lori's Life in California and Arizona How Lori Ended Up With the Yamaha Music and Wellness Institute Different Studies Done at the Yamaha Music and Wellness Institute What Does the Yamaha Music and Wellness Institute Do? What is Music Therapy? Is Music Therapy Covered by Insurance? Benefits of Learning to Play Piano Using Technology to Your Advantage in Learning to Play the Piano Amazing iOS Piano Apps You Can Use Why a Piano Is a Perfect Holiday Gift, and Why Get it at Miller Piano Transcript John Haggard 0:14 Welcome to the Miller Piano Podcast! On a special talk with Lori Frazer Bailey, she's a consultant with the Yamaha Music and Wellness Institute. And Lori does many workshops for teachers on how to integrate technology into piano lessons. She also works with consumers helping them learn to enjoy and understand their instruments and does university and college training for digital piano labs throughout the US and who knows what else? Welcome to the podcast, Lori! Lori Frazer Bailey 0:43 Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. John Haggard 0:45 Glad to have you. Quite a bio there! And before we begin to talk about Yamaha and all of the things you do, just a little bit of information about you. So like, where are you from? Where are you living now? How did you get into the piano business? Lori Frazer Bailey 1:00 Originally born and raised in California in the San Jose area, the heart of Silicon Valley. I have lived in Tucson, Arizona for almost 16 years. So I'm in the desert southwest keeping myself warm. Kind of funny about the piano industry and how things have changed and evolved. You know, some of these things just happen accidentally. Many, many years ago, Yamaha used to have an event called the Electone Festival, which was an organ competition. And that was actually my first introduction to Yamaha back in the 1970s. And that's kind of how it evolved from there. John Haggard 1:35 The Electone. Now for those who are old enough like, like we are, what was Electone? That's interesting. Lori Frazer Bailey 1:42 Electone was Yamaha's name for the home organ. Because back in the 1970s, of course, we didn't have technology like portable keyboards and digital pianos. And so, if you wanted to play orchestrally and have different kinds of sounds or tones, or at least what we thought were different sounds are tones at the time, you played the organ. And that's what I did for many, many years. John Haggard 2:05 So how are you connected with Miller Piano Specialists in Cool Springs there in Franklin, Tennessee? Lori Frazer Bailey 2:11 Well, Miller is one of our amazing dealers in the Yamaha Piano Network. And I have been so honored to work with them often over the years. Actually, in a fair amount of these capacities that you talked about, I'll come into the store and do workshops. The one thing I love about Miller Piano Specialist is that they're always looking to help people on any level to make music. Sherry does some really great play by ear classes where people who have never played before, never thought they could play before just come in and they learn all about their instruments and how to play and she's really got a great thing going there. And it's always a lot of fun to come in and work with her classes and, you know, show people a little bit more about what their instruments can do. And they also do a lot of outreach into the community workshops with songwriters and things. They've done the fundraisers for the Head Neck Cancer Awareness, and just really, really just great community partners for y'all there in Nashville. John Haggard 3:09 Now as a consultant with the Yamaha Music and Wellness Institute. Tell me specifically what that is that you do with Yamaha? Lori Frazer Bailey 3:19 Back in 2002, Yamaha invested in actually genomic study. I think, intrinsically, everybody knows that music makes you feel good and that music is good for you. But the interesting thing is that when you start to get into the medical arena, and if you, for instance, go into a hospital and say, Hey, we want to set up a music program, they don't care about anecdotes, they want to see black and white data. And so in 2004, we actually published a study in conjunction with applied biosystems, which is the company that actually deciphered the human genome. And this was published in Medical Science Monitor, February of 2004. And prior to that, we had created a group music-making program called Clavinova connection, which we've actually done a fair amount of research projects with. And if anybody wants to read about the outcome on those projects and what we've done, if you just go to yamahainstitute.org, that will take you to the abstracts of all of the different projects that we've worked on. All right. John Haggard 4:21 And so as we get specific into that, just a couple of examples. Like you said, the hospitals didn't want anecdotal data, they wanted to see specifically what a music program is, how that relates to wellness? What's an example of that when you would go into a hospital and say, well, you know, let me see the research. Lori Frazer Bailey 4:39 Well, what there was one example we had an amazing project in a hospital out in California. And we had started cuz someone actually came to us and said, Hey, we want to start this music program. So we came in and Dr. Barry Bittman, who's the neurologist that I work for, came in and did grand rounds for the physicians and, again presented the research and then a program was started there. And the actual program in that particular hospital was done for cardiac rehab patients. And anybody who was having heart surgery, if they had time to do some of the program prior, they did because music is a great way to relax and take your mind off of everything. And of course, having heart surgery is a pretty stressful thing. Yeah, both before and after. And so not only that, but we also did a project, which was kind of fun where the nurses would come down, and we would effectively call it the piano spa, where they could earn time to spend in the piano spa. So again, just having that data where we can show that on a biological level that your body does change when it makes music definitely helps to get those programs going. John Haggard 5:46 All right, and then in its simplest form, if you were just to say if somebody said give me a sentence what is meant by the term music therapy. Lori Frazer Bailey 5:55 A definition of music therapy is actually using music for non-musical outcomes. I just finished attending the National Music Therapists Association National Conference in Minneapolis just last weekend. And these music therapists are really amazing. They train in many, many modalities. Music therapists can be used in the hospice process again to bring just calm and peace to the family and to the client. Music therapists are a lot of times used with premature babies because they find that when babies are exposed to music that they eat better. That will use a lot of music therapy is used with traumatic brain injury, stroke recovery. A great deal of music therapy is also being used with people on the autistic spectrum. And it's just really amazing to see what these therapists can do. Just as a personal example, my mother had a very massive fall in January and had a pretty traumatic head injury. And I hired a music therapist to work with her because she had two major things that she was not able to overcome for a long period of time. One was concentration, and the other was anxiety. And so as the music therapist would come in and work with my mother, she was able, first of all, to keep her completely totally engaged for a period of an hour, where at that point, she couldn't even concentrate for three minutes. And then the other thing was working with a music therapist was incredibly calming to my mother and just helped with her anxiety. Amazingly, so the therapist was not there to teach my mother how to play. Again, we were using the music for a non-musical outcome. John Haggard 7:39 You know what's interesting, is that something that insurance would reimburse? Lori Frazer Bailey 7:44 In some cases they do. Different hospitals are hiring music therapists and in certain cases, yes, and it's becoming more and more of a very well established and very well recognized therapy. It's really amazing to see what these men and women do in that realm. I have the great honor of working with some fantastic music therapists. There's a program being used for our servicemen and women that are called Creative Forces. And Creative Forces is being funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. And they're using music therapists to help returning and wounded soldiers with traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder. And there are different programs and several military hospitals. And it is just, it's just amazing to see what these people, these therapists can do to help these men and women regain some normal state of life. John Haggard 8:42 Yeah, Lori. Well, I mean, okay, so let's talk about someone who's decided, hey, I think I would like to learn how to play the piano or I want my child to learn how to play the piano. From that vantage point, what would you say are the real benefits of doing that? I mean, obviously they're going, you know, going to enjoy it and like to do what they do. But what else in the background is a real benefit for going that way versus you know, someone says, Well, you know, some kids say, Well, I want to play soccer mom, I don't want to, you know, practice on a piano, and I'm sure you've heard that a lot. Lori Frazer Bailey 9:15 Oh, man, many, many times. And of course, you know, I think that having a balance is important. But there are so many things that kids can get from music lessons. Hand-eye coordination, spatial reasoning. It helps with their math skills tremendously because music is based so much on math, helps with their concentration, helps with their sense of accomplishment. My comment is whenever somebody asks me about music, I always say music is magic. Because there are so many things that music can do. And you know, for the adult, so many adults think, Oh, I'm too old to learn. What? You are never too old to learn. The oldest student I had when I was teaching private lessons was 93 years old. John Haggard 9:58 Wow! How about that? Lori Frazer Bailey 10:00 She had always wanted to play. Her older brothers got piano lessons, she never got piano lessons. When her husband passed away, she said, that's it, now it's my time. And bless her heart she was amazing. And, you know, everybody says, you know, when's the best time to plant a tree? The best time to plant a tree was 25 years ago. Yeah, the second-best time to plant it is today. John Haggard 10:23 You know, that's 100% right. And don't put all the things that you know, for that very reason. I mean, now is the time, now is the time. Lori Frazer Bailey 10:30 It is and you know, there's always a quote, there is not one adult that always that would say, I'm so glad I quit piano. Any adult that you talk to that took piano lessons, as a child says, oh, I wish my mother would have made me stick with it. And of course now with technology, there are so many great things for teaching kids. I mean, there's iPad apps that support all the different piano methods. Digital pianos have some fantastic features. with, you know, great sounds and orchestrated backgrounds that kids can play along with I mean, and even for adults. And it's so much more exciting to take lessons in this day and age than it was years ago because we do have the assistance of technology. John Haggard 11:15 Yeah, let's talk about that. Because technology in everything is big. If it's your iPad, your iPhone, your Android, the car that you're in, all the home kits that are available. And if you're looking at a child, let's go to, you know, that example of someone saying, you know, I'd rather play soccer mom or you know, whatever the situation is, or I want to go outside and play with my friends, what is it? What's different? What's new in piano technology, that would really say, you know, to a kid would say, hey, wow, I mean, I yeah, let's give this a shot. Lori Frazer Bailey 11:46 Well, what's interesting is that a lot of the apps and things for iPhones, iPads, tablets, that sort of thing. A lot of them look a lot like video games. And so, of course, their educational as well as entertaining, and there's one app in particular that I just adore. We've even got adults working in it. It's called Piano Maestro and we can hook up with Piano Maestro and we can play together with between the piano and the iPad, sometimes wirelessly, sometimes just with one cable. And the iPad will keep track of your scores and will let you know if you're playing right notes or wrong notes. And then the fun thing for the teacher is that if you have a subscription to this program, you will actually get an email every Sunday night letting you know how much time your kiddos your students spent on the app. And then what their scores were. So when they come the next week, you can actually kind of fine-tune your lesson program as to how much they've gotten done. John Haggard 12:50 Wow, you know, that's pretty interesting because schools today, you know, children are in school, you go online, you see what the grades are. I mean, you know, everything's all there. You see what they're doing, what their progress looks like. So you can really see like you said, what has been done in the past week? Lori Frazer Bailey 13:05 Absolutely. And that just makes the teaching process so much easier because you're not repeating what doesn't need to be repeated yet you're also able to reinforce what needs to be reinforced. John Haggard 13:15 And you're also not listening to someone say, Yeah, I practiced three hours last week. Lori Frazer Bailey 13:19 (laughs) Exactly! John Haggard 13:21 It will catch you. Lori Frazer Bailey 13:22 Because the email tells otherwise. John Haggard 13:25 It does, Lori. Well, you know, Nashville known as Music City, and maybe the music capital of the world, at least for country music and certainly a really influential center here, lots of songwriters and folks like that. And I would think a lot of them would know obviously, about technology, but there are probably more songwriters here per capita than anywhere else in the world. And so what about the new technology in terms of songwriters and composers. Anything recent in the last year, so earlier, two are coming up or anything? Lori Frazer Bailey 13:57 Well, one of my favorite apps is a freebie, actually, which is kind of fun because of course, a lot of what songwriting is based on is a lot of times chord changes, the harmony. And then a lot of times, songwriters will lay down, you know, harmonies, chord changes, then come up with the melody and then come up with the lyrics. Of course, there are computer programs that can spit out lyrics, where you can give them parameters. And David Bowie was a great one for this where he would put in certain parameters of lyrics, and then the computer could actually spit out some lyrics. But one of the things that I love to do is analyze other people's work, which I find to be an inspiration myself, not that I'm a songwriter. But there's a free app for iPhone and iPad. It's iOS only. It's called Chord, just like a piano chord, Tracker. And how this program works is this app I should say, is that any song that's in your iTunes library, so it's one that you have to own, that you pay your dollar 29 for from iTunes, it'll automatically populate into this app. And when you open the app in 30 seconds, I will give you a chord chart to any song in the iTunes library. John Haggard 15:03 That's amazing. It just takes the music and writes it for you. Yeah, Lori Frazer Bailey 15:08 It just gives you the chord charts. Not the melody, not the lyrics because, of course, the interesting thing about chord changes is that chord changes are not copyrightable. But it's really amazing to do this because then you can look at you know, the structure of how a song is built the other chords that other songwriters may be abused. If you're a performer, and you're trying to figure out a song, what's great in this app is that you can slow down the tempo. So that if you're trying to transcribe maybe somebody's solo, you can slow this tempo down to a manageable tempo to play. And then there's even a place that says A-B where you can mark off a place to loop. So if you like two bars you need to learn or four bars, you can tell this app Hey, keep looping those four bars. Now what's really cool about this app, this app wirelessly pairs to our CVP digital pianos, Yamaha digital pianos that they carry it Miller's, I might add. And what we do in the military with this program is that we are working a lot with trying to reconstruct speech. So that Clavinova has a microphone jack on the underside. And we can hit the record button on the iPhone or the iPad, and have the client sing. And it puts their voice right over the top of let's say they're playing, they're singing along with the Beatles. And so this way we can actually listen back to how is the speech pattern improving. And then there's a great place once the recording's been done that you can click on it and just say to the client, what's your email address, pop their email address and boom, they have an instant audio recording of what they just did in session. John Haggard 16:44 That is cool technology. I can only imagine what it's going to be like five years from today. Lori Frazer Bailey 16:50 You know, I can't even begin to imagine. I recall when I came back to Yamaha 1997. When they were interviewing me, one of the bosses said to me, where do you see your job 10 years from now? I said, I can't even imagine because I can't even imagine what you're going to do with technology 10 years from now. But, you know, education is always a part of that. And it's really been, it's been a fun ride. And so like I can't imagine what we're going to do five years from now. John Haggard 17:17 Well, last question for you. Lori Frazer Bailey, folks. And that is, you know, we are coming into the holiday season. And just to touch a little bit more on what you said earlier, people out there trying to figure out, you know, what's the perfect gift for the child, a spouse, the home? And you know, maybe a piano has never crossed their mind? Or maybe they give the argument, hey, you know, it's just too expensive, or, as we were talking about earlier, Lori, someday. So what would you say to somebody who is saying, well, maybe someday maybe it's too expensive? I don't know if my child will stay with it. I don't know if I want to make the investment because then I'm gonna lose the money when the child doesn't want to play. How do you handle all of that? Lori Frazer Bailey 18:00 Well, you know, those arguments have been around forever. And I worked in the piano business for a long time on the retail side. And you know, the other thing about investment is that if you make an investment, in a better quality instrument, you have a lot better shot of that kid staying with an instrument. If you just, you know, buy something that's absolutely minimal, saying, Oh, well, you know, maybe if they stick with it, I'll buy him something better. That's almost like if a kid's going to take tennis lessons, giving them a ping pong paddle and say, well, if you play well with this, then I'll get you a real tennis racket. You know, you can't really learn how to play the piano on a $150 keyboard that's sitting on your lap, that doesn't have weight. I mean, you really do need to make an investment. And the investment is not necessarily huge. I mean, there's many, many price points. I mean, anything from, you know, under $1,000 to, you know, way, way up in the you know, $50,000 $60,000 You know, for things like big reproducing amazing player pianos that hook up to the Internet that'll stream concerts into your house. I mean, there's everything in between. And I think a lot of people's perception is that they either have never been into a piano store or haven't been into a piano store so long that they don't even really realize what the amazing options are. There's an absolutely fantastic instrument that's great fun. That's called the Clavinova smart piano which, again, is a decent price point. It's a fantastic piano action. And if a parent says, well, I don't always want my kid to have screentime. Fine, take the iPad off, have them play it like a regular digital piano. And as a treat, then they can put the iPad on and interface with all the great apps. So there are lots and lots of choices and lots and lots of options. And the beautiful thing about Miller is that they embrace all of those technologies, and they have knowledge of those technologies. And they know when you walk in the door when you say, hey I've got a kiddo that's nine years old. We're thinking about getting started, what do you recommend? And they have options to recommend. And you know, the other thing that a lot of people don't realize, too, is that you can finance a piano. Many people don't walk in and write a check for something like that. And there's always great financing programs available, especially over the holidays, and I would certainly, it's a great, great opportunity to take you know, to take advantage of those. And really, with music, don't wait. Don't wait. Music is magic. John Haggard 20:32 What an education. It's been a great... I want to play the piano now. Lori Frazer Bailey 20:36 I hope you do. Go see the people at Miller Piano Specialists because they will definitely hook you up. John Haggard 20:40 You know, it's a lot of fun. I was a bass player by ear many, many, many years ago. And I can only imagine what that would be like today playing a piano with all that technology. It kind of takes the, I guess there's hard work in anything but it really it seems to me would soften that kind of hard way of the old days and make it fun. Lori Frazer Bailey 20:59 It definitely softens the learning curve and it also just makes it so much more fun. You know, when you've got these backing tracks playing behind you and, you know, even if you're just playing something that's very, very basic, you're still counting, you're still playing the notes properly. And what I've always advocated whenever I do these workshops for teachers is that when these little kiddos are playing, and they're playing songs that are four or five notes, they're not that exciting. You put an orchestrated accompaniment with it, now it's exciting. And if they're supposed to play loud, the backgrounds loud if they're supposed to play soft, the background soft. So not only is it making them count from day one, it's also making them a better musician, and it's also keeping them engaged. And that's the most important part is keeping the kiddos engaged. John Haggard 21:45 You know, absolutely. That is so well said because I'm thinking about that. Yes, years ago, there wasn't a full orchestra. It was you and the piano keyboard and the teacher Lori Frazer Bailey 21:53 And the metronome. John Haggard 21:55 Oh, I remember that thing. Tick, tock, tick, tock. Lori Frazer Bailey 21:58 Yeah, not very stimulating for sure. John Haggard 22:01 Those are the old days, are they? Lori Frazer Bailey 22:03 Yes, they are. I mean, and there is definitely still a place for that. I'm not saying that that's completely gone. But you know, there's just so many more options now to make it more interesting and to make it more fulfilling, quite honestly. John Haggard 22:17 Well, thanks, Lori. Lori Frazer Bailey, folks, she's a consultant with the Yamaha Music and Wellness Institute. And there is a transcript of today's podcast right here on the website for your quick reference. And don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcast listening platform. I'm your host, John Haggard, and we will see you next time.

Episode #3 of our podcast is here! In this episode, host John Haggard speaks with Dave Martin from Miller Piano Specialists about the end of Year Yamaha Red Envelope Promotion - They Have a Gift, Help them Open it. Topics covered: Dave's Specialty at Miller Piano Specialists Dave's Background in Music His College Studies in Pianos What Makes the Miller Family and Miller Piano Specialists special How Does Learning The Piano Help a Person Grow? Yamaha's Red Envelope Promotion How to Contact Dave Transcript: John Haggard 0:13 Welcome to the Miller Piano podcast. Looking forward to the upcoming holidays and a special announcement from Yamaha for this holiday season. I'm your host, John Haggard on the podcast with us from Miller piano in Cool Springs / Franklin is Dave Martin. Hey, Dave, welcome to the podcast. Dave Martin 0:29 Well, thank you so much, John, and thanks for having me. I'm really looking forward to this. John Haggard 0:34 I look forward to it also, and I appreciate your taking the time. I know the holiday season is certainly busy and we understand that Yamaha does have an announcement to make that you will be delivering but before we go to that announcement, just to understand a little bit about you. Now tell us what you do specifically at Miller Piano. Dave Martin 0:51 Well, I suppose I'm the jack of all trades. I have a lot of time in this industry. I started in my early 20s in this industry. And so I have about four decades of work with pianos. I started as a piano technician. And I'm a little bit of a rare bird. You don't run into that many folks in the piano industry that actually went to a college or school or a Technical College, just to go study piano technology. I didn't know it was an odd thing when I did it years ago. But it turns out it is a little bit of an unusual thing. John Haggard 1:35 And when you say technology, so in other words, going to school, talk about that a little bit more like what you learned and how what that does for you now. Dave Martin 1:43 Having started at that place with pianos, I knew absolutely nothing about pianos when I started to study them. As a piece of technology as a musical instrument and really think of it many people who play a flute or violin don't really know how constructed, they just know what they're supposed to do with it. I didn't know what was inside of Canada or why it worked. And so I got the notion as a young man, I had been working as a musician and traveling quite a bit, you know, I like this, but I don't really want to be on the road for years and years. So I thought maybe there's something else I should be doing with my life professionally. And I got interested in pianos. And I said, you know, there are a lot of pianos around that need to be serviced. They need to be tuned. And then of course, they have wear and tear from use. So I looked into it, applied to a college, to a technical college and was accepted. And what I learned is that there are thousands of parts that all have to be maintained and serviced and pianos are very complex instruments, even the simple ones, even the inexpensive pianos are complex. And that's why they need to be serviced. So in the process of learning all this information about how to service pianos. John Haggard 2:02 Right Dave Martin 3:02 Essentially I learned what are all the good components. Why is one piano a good instrument? And another one? Just okay. And another one pretty awful. You know? John Haggard 3:12 Yeah. Dave Martin 3:13 What makes a Piano a Piano? And the experience has helped me so much in my later years and helping people to choose a piano to invest in, because I really literally have disassembled and reassembled many, many pianos in my earlier life. John Haggard 3:30 Wow. Dave Martin 3:30 And it just has been very helpful to me to be able to point out the components and how they work and why they work. John Haggard 3:36 Well, then how did you get your initial interest in pianos? Dave Martin 3:41 Well, you know, as a child, I was interested in everything musical and at the same time, I was interested in every kind of sport that I could find. And so I resisted music for a while, in my early grade school years. I had a lot of opportunities. My family was musical and they would say, Hey, why don't you play this? Why don't you play that? And I'd say, No, I'm gonna play basketball. Now I'm gonna play baseball. No, I want to go swimming. Yeah. And eventually, I got the bug... I was probably 10 years old or so. And then when I got the bug, then I wanted to play all of the instruments. So I started on basically about four instruments at once. Piano, guitar, bass and drums all simultaneously, you know, I was a problem child. John Haggard 4:34 And today, do you play all four? Dave Martin 4:37 Not so much. I dropped drums A long time ago... drums and percussion because I said, you know, it's too noisy. But I do play the other instruments and some better than others, and it's still just a great love of mine. John Haggard 4:53 And so you came off the road, how long ago? How long has it been? Dave Martin 4:57 That was in the 1970s and so I started studying piano technology and it was about 1976 I think. John Haggard 5:06 Anything that was the most exciting thing that happened to you when you were on the road? Dave Martin 5:12 Oh my goodness, the most exciting thing? The very first time that I was playing a big stage with somebody that was well known and we were playing for an industry event, which has changed names now. Back at that time, I think they called it the Nashville radio disc jockey convention or something like that. And I realized that everyone that was in the audience was either a famous singer, or one of their band members, or a disc jockey or a record producer. We kind of had all of the Nashville leads in the room all at one time. And I thought, Boy, this can make a guy nervous. John Haggard 5:59 Ha. I guess so, they're all there. Absolutely. So how long have you been at Miller Piano? Dave Martin 6:09 I've been with Miller for about five years. But, of course, before that, I worked with another well-known dealer here in Nashville for those 20 years. Okay. Actually, early on, I was self-employed as a technician for quite a long time. John Haggard 6:27 So you would tune up pianos, you would repair pianos as well? Dave Martin 6:32 Right. Everything that a piano needs is what I have done to pianos and for pianos, and my years in the business. John Haggard 6:41 All right, so now you've been at Miller, you said for five years. Tell us a little bit about the Miller family and specifically the people behind the scenes if you will, and Miller Piano Specialists. Dave Martin 6:53 Well, I'm glad you asked that question because this company has been so so good, they are such a good company, good people to work with. And I am so happy and blessed to be here. They treat our shoppers who come into shop with us, and eventually by pianos with us, we treat them as if they are our family when they first show up. And usually, they become our family. Because once they have come in and chosen a piano and taken it home... and oftentimes they have the children come and take lessons in our studios here and we see them regularly. And, of course, actually some of my clients that have purchased pianos from me just drop by from time to time just to say, Hey, I'm in the neighborhood. Let's have a cup of coffee. John Haggard 7:46 Yeah. Let's talk about the Yamaha Red Envelope Promotion. Now in reading this, the promotion says "they were born with a gift, help them open it". So how does learning piano, having one at home actually help a young person grow? Dave Martin 8:04 Yeah, so I think that learning any instrument helps a person grow. There have been quite a few studies that have shown that involvement in music helps a developing person's mind, be sharper, and you're able to learn better. It's so interesting to me. I've noticed this for a long time. People who have some of the most complex professions like; surgeons, medical doctors, doctors, nurses, also happened to be very regularly musicians, oftentimes pianists. I believe that the reason they are so accomplished in their professional endeavors is that they have learned as a young person to use their minds well and they think well and they can process information well, and it just gives you a sharper mind to work with. You have a better tool because of music, and also simply the fact that it's very pleasurable, that sense of accomplishment, it makes you feel good. And you get a little hooked on that. John Haggard 9:12 So the Yamaha Red Envelope Promotion. Details of the promotion, Dave, tell us what's going on? Dave Martin 9:21 Well, so the Red Envelope Promotion is basically a way of saying, give this red envelope this gift of this key to your new piano to your let's say your child or your spouse or whoever. And it is a way that Yamaha is sort of giving back to our buying public by offering special financing which is very, very helpful. Zero percent APR financing for up to 18 months. John Haggard 9:55 All right, and that's good until the end of the year. Dave Martin 9:57 That is correct. That's good until the end of the year. John Haggard 10:00 So what do you think is the coolest thing in the piano business as a whole today? Dave Martin 10:07 Well, the fact that our instruments are Yamaha instruments, many of them are now so advanced from where they were when I started years ago. We now have internet connectivity on our pianos, hybrids that have electronics onboard there, a traditional acoustic piano, but with the internet hooked into it and learning capabilities and free apps that you can put on your phone or your iPad or your computer that give you great opportunities to learn piano quicker and make it more fun. So I suppose it's the technology. The fact that technology exists and that it's so good and so helpful. And, frankly, Yamaha is the leader in that field. I mean, just pretty much the leader in the field. They're the company that for quite a long time, they were such a successful builder of musical instruments. They were already deeply established in Japan as the piano builder for Japan, for I think it was about 50 to 60 years or so. And then they said, you know, we're pretty good at building things. Why don't we go build some motorcycles? They are the number one builder of musical instruments in the world. They build. I think the last time I looked... about 125, I think was the number of different types of musical instruments. That's just categories. John Haggard 11:37 Wow. Yeah. Dave Martin 11:38 Pianos happen to be one of the very most important categories for them. But if you need a fiddle or a guitar or a drum or whatever... John Haggard 11:49 Dave Martin, everybody right there from Miller Piano. And Dave, what's the best way for someone to get in contact with you? Dave Martin 11:58 Well, you know, our store, we have a landline. How about that? John Haggard 12:02 How about that! Dave Martin 12:04 Our landline is 615-771-0020. And also by email, my personal email address is very handy. It's my name, Dave Martin, except without the entire last name. So davem@millerps.com. John Haggard 12:24 All right Dave, thanks for spending time with us, learning about you and why pianos are good instruments, what they can do for people when they buy them. I appreciate your time on the podcast today. Dave Martin 12:35 Thank you, John. I really appreciate you having me. John Haggard 12:37 And don't forget about that Yamaha Red Envelope Promotion. They were born with a gift, help them open it. Dave says zero percent APR for 18 months, until the end of the year. And so there you go for that with approved credit. There is a transcript of today's podcast right here on the website for your quick reference. I'm your host, John Haggard, and we'll see you next time.

Miller Piano Specialists will be hosting our third annual MPS Award Show on October 24th at 7:00 pm. And to talk more information about this premier event, Miller Piano Specialists General Sales Manager Sherry Carlisle Smith joins John Haggard on the show. Together, they discuss the following topics: Sherry's Music Background Famous Musicians Sherry Had Worked With What the MPS Award Show is All About How the Nomination Process Goes How the Folks Can Vote How the Program Will Go And Dress Code Famous MPS Awardees MPS Award Show Live on their FB Page How To Reserve Seating For the Event Transcript John Haggard 0:13 Welcome to the Miller Piano Podcast on a special event, upcoming Thursday, October 24th at 7:00 pm. It's named the third annual MPS - Miller Piano Specialists Award Show. I'm your host, John Haggard, and on the podcast today, for a repeat performance. It's Sherry Smith, the general sales manager at Miller Piano in Cool Springs. Welcome back to the podcast, Sherry! Sherry Carlisle Smith 0:37 Hey, John! It's good to hear from you again. John Haggard 0:39 Well, good to have you back. You know, since we spoke last about a month ago, just a quick question, any exciting, breaking news in the piano world or something big in your life that you'd want to share? Sherry Carlisle Smith 0:51 There is always breaking news and big things in the piano world. Come by Miller Piano Specialists in will show you John Haggard 0:58 All right! (laughs) That sounds good to me. Well, hey, how about a quick bio review of you? Maybe somebody here for the first time as a listener or a first time guest to the MillerPS.com website. Just to know about Sherry Smith because, I know, having spoken to you last time, you have quite a musical career background. Can you tell the folks just a little bit about that? Sherry Carlisle Smith 1:21 As we talked before, if you guys didn't hear it, I moved to town Sherry Carlisle and moved here to sing. And of course, when you get to town, you got to have a day job. And I was trained by the Yamaha Dealer Claude P Street Music and I got that under my belt. And then went on the road, did some singing, did some writing and come full circle and I am back with Miller Piano Specialists now. John Haggard 1:48 Now would there be some people when you were on the road, names that we would know? Sherry Carlisle Smith 1:54 The Jordanaires, Johnny Paycheck... A lot of the country artists, the once that I grew up, they were my idol. Ones that I couldn't wait to get on the radio and hear what new song they had out. So I got to do what I always wanted to do. And that was work with some of the people that I looked up to so highly growing up as a child. And I did perform actually, there's some exciting news I performed for the Duluth Fine Arts in Duluth at their theater, the Red Clay theater last weekend. John Haggard 2:28 Okay, so what did you do? Sherry Carlisle Smith 2:30 I actually opened and sang backup for Mike Booth, who works on the Gem Shopping Network. And he's one of their hosts. And he used to do a show with the Jordanaires and I, so we just kind of rekindled and did a show for the fine arts. John Haggard 2:45 Yeah, you know, the Jordanaires, that is a really big name. And for folks who may have heard of the Jordanaires but don't really know some of their history, could you tell the folks about that? Sherry Carlisle Smith 2:56 They actually started out they were a backup group and Gordon's Joker, Alan Secor is his son, he runs the Country Music Hall of Fame. But Gordon and the other guys did backup for people like Ricky Nelson, Patsy Cline. Their biggest, I guess, one of the ones that they love the most to work with was Elvis Presley. John Haggard 3:18 Wow. Think about that. How long, any idea how long they were with Elvis? Sherry Carlisle Smith 3:22 Oh, it was a long time, until the Vegas days. They were doing so many sessions back then when he did go to Vegas and the Stamps went in to join Elvis in Vegas. The Jordanaires were just working so much and with their families, they stayed in Nashville. John Haggard 3:38 Yeah. Aright, so the upcoming event, Sherry, the third annual MPS Award Show. Thursday, October 24th at 7pm. So first off what is the annual MPs Award Show? Sherry Carlisle Smith 3:52 The MPS Award Show was something we came up with about three years ago that recognizes artist in the area. And they can be artist that people nominate throughout the year. We have just like you would have on a... let's say a People's Choice Awards or the CMA Awards Show that you see on TV. We have different categories that fans nominate throughout the year. We have people actually in these categories from coast to coast to have seen them either on the Internet or they been by and done a show here at the store. We have categories like Instrumentalist of the Year, Songwriter of the Year, Entertainer of the Year, Composer of the Year, Vocalist of the Year, Lifetime Achievement Awards, which have been really good and, we started a new one last year, the Horizon Award. John Haggard 4:47 So in other words, it could be anyone across the United States? Sherry Carlisle Smith 4:52 It is. Because of our web presence and our social media presence, we have a lot of artists that are coming coming through Nashville that actually use our show room to do shows or pickup shows or actually to perform in the show room here at live events. So we have quite an array of artists that are local but ones that are also east coast or west coast. John Haggard 5:17 Okay so you said fans do the nominations Is that right? Sherry Carlisle Smith 5:21 Throughout the year, the fans will say at the MPS Award Show, I'd like to nominate Jon Jones for Entertainer of the Year. So what we do is we take the nominations and then the ones that get the most nominations, they are put up in the top 10. Then the top 10 we announce about six weeks before the show and the fans actually vote. They go to our Facebook page - Miller Piano Specialist, they go to messenger and, Dakota, who works here, will put the votes in a hat when they come in. They can vote twice a day either in the show room or online. And then those are sent off about 24 hours before, well, the top 10 are voted on. And then about three weeks before we'll announce the top five. And then the top five vote till 24 hours before and we send the votes out. And they're tallied. And we know the night of the show. John Haggard 6:23 All right, so you can you go online now and see what's going on. Sherry Carlisle Smith 6:27 You can go online and vote right now. You can go online and vote and you can go on our timeline and see the top five nominees for each category. John Haggard 6:36 Alright, so the website to get there is www.millerps.com. Is that right? Sherry Carlisle Smith 6:42 It is. John Haggard 6:42 Okay. And then once you get there, what do you look for? Sherry Carlisle Smith 6:45 Well, they're going to vote on our social media page. Miller Piano Specialists Facebook. John Haggard 6:52 Got it. Alright, so who's the sponsor of the annual Miller Piano Specialists Award Show? Sherry Carlisle Smith 6:59 Well, of course Miller Piano Specialists started sponsoring it in the beginning and Yamaha got involved and we started working with Yamaha. So it is a Yamaha since we are the authorized dealer for the area. They help in sponsoring this event. John Haggard 7:16 All right. Well, you know, there's so many award shows out there today. So why do another award show? Sherry Carlisle Smith 7:22 Why not? John Haggard 7:23 Well, there you go. (laughs) Why not? Sherry Carlisle Smith 7:27 Because we feel like doing this. We're supporting talent. Things have changed, John. What used to be labels and what used to be, you got picked up by a label, and they press records or they press CDs or even eight tracks back in the day. People are found on the Internet now. Deals and people have gotten piano deals, writing deals, book deals, from showcasing at Miller Piano Specialists and actually having their stuff out there on the net. And that's what caused a stir. And we have been very blessed and fortunate. And the people that have come in here that we just kept saying, keep going, keep going. And it's amazing when you see the award show what people have accomplished, and a lot of it is through the Internet. John Haggard 8:23 All right, so just a little bit off topic. And you kind of brought this up as you were speaking there. Is it true? I have heard, and like you said, back in the old days, you had to have a major record label, and all the promotion team and everybody behind you in order to make it, so to speak. But can you today, because of the Internet, and like you said everybody's found on the internet, could you become a star without having a major label deal? Sherry Carlisle Smith 8:50 Yes and no. What do you consider a star? John Haggard 8:54 Well, I don't know. I was going to ask you because you're, you know, you're in the business. But maybe somebody who could sell I've heard stories where people have been able to sell over a million songs on the Internet and never have a record deal. Sherry Carlisle Smith 9:07 There are two or three really big success stories. And one of them was an artist that actually did a lot of functions in the store for us and a lot of benefits for us, that actually using social media. And she was just written up in Music Row magazine. If you saw the figures that she was making from her front porch, and now from the shows and the recognition she's got, she's traveling all over the world performing. If you can make a living that is more than what some executives make, and you can do what you love. You're a star in my book. John Haggard 9:50 Yeah, I mean, that's really something because again, the Internet is sort of the, I guess I would call it the leveler. You don't have to have millions of dollars behind you to get a lot recognition. Would you agree? Sherry Carlisle Smith 10:02 I agree. It's knowing your fan base and your social media. John Haggard 10:07 All right, so back to the third annual MPS Award Show. So are there commercials throughout the program just like an award show? Sherry Carlisle Smith 10:15 There is, it's so much fun! We have it's it's laid out like a two-hour award show. So we actually have entertainers that will be singing. The Red Ridge Riders will be with us. We also have commercials and we do these kind of like Super Bowl. We take Yamaha products and different items. Some are serious, some are funny. It's like everybody can't wait to the Super Bowl to see what commercial is going to be aired. Remember there was the Bud frog or, you know, that kind of thing. So we have got, every year I think we can't top the year before, but with the help of Deborah Sheridan does videography and photography, and some of the wonderful magic she does and the wonderful products of Yamaha and the crazy crew here at Miller Piano Specialists, I think we've topped the last two years. So the commercials are going to be fantastic. You're going to love them. John Haggard 11:12 All right. So as we think about that, and you know, you mentioned the Budweiser frogs. I'm just going to go off topic for a sec and then come back to the award show. But I met one of the Budweiser frogs. He worked for a company called Hummingbird. You remember Hummingbird? Have you heard of them? Okay. His name was Ronnie, I can't remember his last name but you know, he did jingles and all that kind of thing. And he told me he was one of the one of the Budweiser frogs. I mean, what a phenomenal, neat idea that was. Sherry Carlisle Smith 11:42 It was and it drew and then after the commercials are done, this will be aired live on on our social media, Miller Piano Specialists, so you can tune in. We only take 60 reservations. So there's very limited seating, I am about half full right now. And I still have some that haven't turned in that are in the show that will be here. So if you're going to make a reservation please call 615-771-0020 because we want to make sure it is what we call a black tie event. Now in national black tie could be jeans and boots and a jacket. It could mean sequins. It could mean anything. John Haggard 12:30 Well that's true in Nashville, it could mean anything. Sherry Carlisle Smith 12:35 And we are so blessed. A lady at Black Diamond culinary that does a lot of our catering that will be opening a culinary school, like said with catering. And she has been catering all of our functions. So we are blessed. We're going to have a really nice little spread with Black Diamond, culinary food for after party mixer. John Haggard 12:58 Alright, so now who are some of the past winners? Sherry Carlisle Smith 13:02 Some of the past winners we've had... last year was really neat to have the Horizon Award and Rachel Webster was one of our winners. We have seen her grown up and become a piano player on a lot of these streaming radio stations. We've had a vocalist Angela Peterson has been one of our past nominees, and award winners Ed Bazell, Eric Bikales. Our Lifetime Achievement Awards that we started last year actually, were the Jordanaires as we talked about and DJ Fontana. And their families all came in recognition and there was a video kind of, of what they have done throughout the years and Franch Forbes came from Yamaha and he actually presented these awards to the families. John Haggard 13:52 Yeah, so now you said there are only 60 seats there. Sherry Carlisle Smith 13:56 Yes. John Haggard 13:56 All right. So and you said you can see it streaming live on social media? Sherry Carlisle Smith 14:01 Yes, on Miller Piano Specialists. John Haggard 14:03 Okay, so where do you go? What social media? Where could folks see the show? Sherry Carlisle Smith 14:07 They would go to our Facebook page, Miller Piano Specialists, and they would watch it, it will go live at about 10 till seven. We may, you might want to start kind of looking about 6:30 pm because we are going to, this year, incorporate a little red carpet and some interviews. So that will be happening somewhere between 630 and seven. The show will start at seven. John Haggard 14:31 The show will start at seven. The red carpet 6:30 pm to 7:00 pm and then... and that'll be live as well. Is that right on streaming? Sherry Carlisle Smith 14:37 Yeah, we're gonna have live interviews going on, yes. John Haggard 14:40 All right. So anything else that folks should know about the Miller Piano Specialists Award Show? Sherry Carlisle Smith 14:46 It's just a night of recognition and fun, and recognition to artists that are well-deserved, and trying to support the music community. They have been so good to support Miller Piano family here and it's kind of, the musicians hang out, singers hang out. And we are blessed to have Yamaha and their line to represent to the community of Nashville and all the Middle Tennessee. John Haggard 15:13 Alright folks, you've heard it right there. That Sherry, Sherry Smith everybody, the general sales manager at Miller Piano talking about the third annual MPS Award Show that's going to be Thursday, October 24. At 7:00 pm. One more time, Sherry, if somebody wanted to make reservations, what's the number to call and how can they get there? Sherry Carlisle Smith 15:32 Please call 615-771-0020 and you can make reservations with Dakota or Sherry. And also let me tell you too; parking gets very limited sometimes. You may park in the back and we have a back entrance. But just remember after 6:30 pm, you can't do that, because we'll be having equipment brought in through the back. But you can park around back if you're coming early. Doors will open about 6:00 pm. John Haggard 16:01 All right. There's also a transcript of today's podcast in case you wanted to pick up a particular piece of information. It's right there for you here on the website. I'm your host, John Haggard, and we'll see you next time.

We are excited to announce that on Friday, September 20th, we will be holding a special Yamaha High Technology Event in-store with Michael Inman and Craig Knudsen! See details below, and be sure to listen to the great podcast episode with Sherry Carlisle Smith (General Sales Manager) below! Be sure to reserve your spot! You can make your appointment today by calling (615) 771-0020. Details: Date: Friday, September 20, 2019 Time: 10:00am - 3:00pm Guests: Michael Inman and Craig Knudsen Reservations: (615) 771-0020 More Details: Listen to the podcast with Sherry Carlisle Smith below! Sherry Carlisle Smith and the Yamaha High Technology Event In this episode of the Miller Piano Podcast, we talk with General Sales Manager, Sherry Carlisle Smith about the Yamaha High Technology Event with Michael Inman and Craig Knudsen coming up on September 20, 2019! This is a great episode, where we get to know Sherry, her background, her love for music, the amazing technology that Yamaha has to offer, and also details on how you can get signed up for the event. Make your appointments today by calling 615-771-0020! Transcript John Haggard: 00:12 Welcome to the Miller Piano podcast on a special event we think you will have a lot of interest in attending if you want to be amazed about the high technology that Yamaha has in its pianos. I'm your host, John Haggard and one thing for sure, Yamaha Pianos have come a long way in just a few short years compared to other brands out there. On the podcast today we have Sherry Carlisle Smith. She's the General Sales Manager at Miller Piano in Cool Springs. Welcome to the podcast, Sherry. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 00:41 Hey John, it's good to be here. John Haggard: 00:42 Glad to have you here. We're excited about this upcoming event, which we are going to be talking about, but before we talk about that event, tell us a little bit about you Sherry. Like where did you grow up? Sherry Carlisle Smith: 00:54 Well I'm a transplant. I was born in Kentucky and it really, I guess I grew up in southern Indiana. John Haggard: 01:00 Alright. From the Bluegrass State, but grew up a little bit north of there. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 01:03 I did. My Dad was a preacher. John Haggard: 01:05 Wow. Okay. So what church? What denomination? Sherry Carlisle Smith: 01:09 Actually General Baptist, but we went to all denominations. John Haggard: 01:12 Gotcha. And so that means you've been a good girl all your life, right? Sherry Carlisle Smith: 01:17 He was General Baptist. John Haggard: 01:19 Haha. And so, and you went to a high school where? Sherry Carlisle Smith: 01:25 I went to two different high schools and I started out at Boonville High School in Boonville, Indiana and I actually graduated from Pike Central High School up in Petersburg. John Haggard: 01:35 All right. And then what about college? Was that next for you? Sherry Carlisle Smith: 01:38 It was I went to a baptist school, actually it was OCC at the time and now it's Oakland City University. John Haggard: 01:47 Got It. All right. So before we talk about Miller Piano and what you're doing there today and what's coming up, what do you like to do in your time off when you are away from work? Sherry Carlisle Smith: 01:56 That's a very good question because if you asked my family, I'm a workaholic, so I'm a 24/7 worker. So when I'm at home I'm still doing music, writing playing the piano. I guess the one thing I call my, my normal self is I love to work in the yard. John Haggard: 02:15 Okay. You mean like planting or cutting grass or pruning? What, what in the yard? Sherry Carlisle Smith: 02:19 Flowers, Planting. Yes. You name it. Mowing, not so much. John Haggard: 02:26 Okay. I got Ya. All right, so I guess you have family living in the area? Sherry Carlisle Smith: 02:32 I do. I do. And I have a daughter around the corner so, and she does a lot of activities with me and actually she works here at Miller Piano specialist as well. And a a student at MTSU. John Haggard: 02:44 Okay. Now what's her name? Sherry Carlisle Smith: 02:46 Dakota Smith. John Haggard: 02:47 All right. And so she is working with you at Miller and is she saying, oh mom or what is it that she does there? Sherry Carlisle Smith: 02:54 She's our utility player. She does a little bit of everything. She's a major at MTSU so she, she's been engulfed in music all of her life and she does everything from inventory to backup sales. John Haggard: 03:09 Got It. All right, so just whatever mom says, get doing it. I understand how that works. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 03:14 She's got a job. John Haggard: 03:15 Absolutely. So as you think about Miller Piano or just the piano business in general, what's the coolest thing at Miller Piano that you see something that you know, no one would normally imagine but it keeps bringing you back to work. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 03:31 What keeps bringing me back to work is the people I meet every day. Because I firmly believe in any business and any job if you truly love it, but especially in music, people don't walk in unless they love music and people cross my path and I crossed their path for a reason. Whether they end up buying from me or not, we have crossed paths for a reason and I may not know then. But I know later on and my clients are my extended family. That's what brings me back. John Haggard: 04:03 Yeah. And you know, thinking about that very thing, I say, well let me go see the Facebook page for Miller Piano. You've got a lot of activity going on out there. What would people see on the Facebook page for Miller Piano? Sherry Carlisle Smith: 04:15 Not the normal Facebook page for a business. They are going to see everything from the most creative photography to live concerts, to streaming radio concerts. On our live shows that we do twice a month. We have artists do concerts and our family, our extended family that, that purchase pianos, we have a category for them or they have their, their piano and their pictures. You're gonna see a lot of things. We do show the latest in what's coming out in what's on the floor and our specials. But that Facebook page is more than just a business trying to sell you something. It's an extended family network. John Haggard: 04:58 Gotcha. All right. So tell me about the first piano that you ever played in your life. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 05:03 That I've ever played? John Haggard: 05:04 Yeah. Can you remember that far? Sherry Carlisle Smith: 05:06 Yeah. Okay. John. actually, yes, it is still in our family because no one can part with it. You can't play it. But the first thing my mother asked when she got married was for a piano and a sewing machine. And my father took her to the local store in southern Indiana and bought a little, what we call Stencil. A spinet piano and it looked like had been painted black for $200, and that was the very first piano in our house. John Haggard: 05:38 And so how old were you then when you remember that piano? Sherry Carlisle Smith: 05:43 Oh my gosh. Probably three or four. John Haggard: 05:46 And you started playing on the keys? Sherry Carlisle Smith: 05:48 I started playing at five because mom did not like to play in church, so I got to take one year shaped note lessons. And I learned quickly how to play by ear because my dad didn't read music and when they stuck me up in that country church to play, he didn't sing the way the notes were written. So I ended up learning to play by ear. John Haggard: 06:14 Now when you say shaped note lessons for someone who doesn't read music, what does that mean? Sherry Carlisle Smith: 06:20 That is years ago on old hymnals especially, every note had a shape. So if it was a G noted how to shape if it was a C note, it might be a triangle or a square or a octagon. I mean, there was different shapes of notes that related, just like in Yamaha's technology, they have a learning tool and some of their top technology that actually goes with color coding. So you know that every purple is a certain note or every yellow, which is great with children that have dyslexia or, or different different learning abilities that they need. This color form innovation is very good for learning how to recognize those notes and put a name with those notes. John Haggard: 07:09 All right, so you've actually really been a musician basically all of your life Sherry Carlisle Smith: 07:14 Pretty much. John Haggard: 07:15 All right. So tell me from age five. All right, so you, you're, you know, doing this, you're playing the piano. I mean, as you grew up and what you did and if you were involved professionally or if you were on the road with anybody, what, tell me about that. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 07:27 Well, my dad was in a gospel quartet, so about three, I remember them standing me up behind the piano to sing with the Gospel Quartet and there's actually pictures of it. And then I started playing piano in church. I was constantly swinging on the swing set and I remember just making up songs. We lived in the country, lived on a farm, and so I started writing at a very early age. Dad. we sang as a family. So we started recording in Nashville at 14. And then at 16, I think I put together a little country band and at 18, I actually got my first single deal here in Nashville. John Haggard: 08:09 Wow. Okay. And then from there, so as you roll through the 20s, tell me about that. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 08:14 Well, I went to college because, you know, the adage is get to a good profession because you need a job if you're going to be a musician. John Haggard: 08:23 Right. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 08:24 Start now. So I graduated college moved to Nashville and actually worked for a couple of places. But I guess my real first job was at a Claude P Street, which a music store that held had Yamaha pianos. And they taught me the business. But my mind was, I'm going to be an entertainer. I'm going to be an entertainer. And I sang and sang and played with different groups. And one night an agent brought the Jordanaires out to hear another woman sing to go on a tour. And I happened to sing first, that night opening and they said, that's the sound we're looking for. And they hired me and I did seven years with them. And that's what started everything. John Haggard: 09:11 Wow. That the you are at what age? When the Jordanaires hired? Sherry Carlisle Smith: 09:14 Oh, in my twenties. Probably. John Haggard: 09:17 So you were on the road… Sherry Carlisle Smith: 09:18 I'm not going to tell you exact. Don't get me on that! John Haggard: 09:21 Right. But you were on the road, I mean, seven years. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 09:25 I was on the road seven years with them and we were doing different variety shows with some tribute shows. They did their own shows. It was just kind of a variety of what we did for seven years. We did a lot of recording and I did the charts in the studio or did the high part Millie Kirkland part with the guys. And then from there I did work with David Brazelle, Jimmy Fortune Johnny Paycheck, which was wonderful. I worked with him until he passed. Did a couple shows with Jones. Everyone in my life, that was my legend growing up. I was so blessed to have the privilege to work with them in one way or another. So when people say back home, did you make it? I made it the day I moved to Nashville because my musical dream has taken me all full circle to Miller Piano. John Haggard: 10:28 Wow. That is a full circle story. You know, before we talk about the Yamaha high technology event that you have coming up at Miller Piano, that's going to be on Friday, September 20, technology, people love technology. I mean we have it in our phones, in our refrigerators, our microwaves. I mean everything is, you know, Wifi this, Wifi that no matter what it is. Just a kind of a brief recap if you will. I'm reading through some notes here about what's really cool about Yamaha. So one of these pianos is the Clavinova, it says featuring Play Assist. Now you can play within minutes, no prior piano experience and no piano lessons. I mean really that's almost sounds like that can't be true. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 11:10 No, it is true. In the Clavinova series, they have built lesson programs into their pianos. It depends on, I call this my musical zoo because there are Clavinovas and just like there are different animals in a zoo. I have them divided out just like you would hippos, elephants or giraffes. You have CLP's CSP'ss or CVP's. So depending on the needs. And that's a big thing we do here is sitting down and talking with you when you come in to find out what you need before we find out what your favorite animal is or your favorite Clavinova. What's going to work for you. John Haggard: 11:50 Interesting. Yeah, but I mean to say that you can play within minutes, no piano experience, no piano lessons. I mean, what can you play? I mean just like A, B, C, D, E, F, G or like what? Sherry Carlisle Smith: 12:00 They have a function on the CVPs called follow the lights. That is excellent. And I can actually even set you down, John and have you playing with one hand, two hands by following the light on a CVP. On a CLP with a wonderful technology, we can actually, on certain models, have you bluetooth, use your own iPad, iPhone or Android. And we can have these programs playing through your piano to learn to play. Or the other animal, our CSP has streaming lights that actually stream, just like, a good example would be like you're a guitar hero. The kids were all doing guitar hero playing the guitar. This is the same concept, only much better and much farther along in technology with Yamaha on a piano. John Haggard: 12:59 All right? Now the high technology Yamaha Clavinova also says here featuring pitch correction. So if you sing off key, it will automatically make you sing in tune. Now, how does that happen? Sherry Carlisle Smith: 13:13 It's the secrets of technology, but I sure wish Yamaha had done this back years ago when Karaoke first started. John Haggard: 13:22 Yeah. Wouldn't that be something? Yeah. We probably have more stars out there today who could really sing. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 13:27 Yeah. No, it is amazing what it does. And we did a very cool thing. If you go to our youtube our videographer here actually had a trake and she has only heard a monotone voice for years out of herself. And Yamaha, the wonderful world of Yamaha and Craig Knudsen, who we're gonna talk about later actually put her on one of the Cookie Karaoke's and she's sang Puff the Magic Dragon. And she heard a voice for the first time. For head and neck cancer patients. This is awesome. John Haggard: 14:06 That is so cool. And there are Yamaha hybrid pianos, one known as the Yamaha Silent Piano. That's a high technology, real acoustic piano with strings. Cool thing about it. No sound comes out unless you want it to. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 14:22 Yamaha. I call it two types of hybrids. Once again, going back to my zoo, we can have a hybrid piano with strings, with silent feature, or we can have a hybrid without strings, which is our Avant series. And it was a very cool yesterday, Ronnie Milsap came in and bought one of the stringless hybrids. The hybrids with strings. It plays just like a regular piano. You can get these in vertical, upright or grand and you play it just like a regular piano. But the moment I engage the digital format, when I push the pedal on an upright to the left in the center, or if I pull the lever on the grand piano, the hammers miss the strings by a fraction so the player does not miss that action feel like a digital, you would miss maybe the feel of those hammers engaging. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 15:20 You don't miss that when you're playing these hybrids, but it misses the strings by a fraction into a fiber optic and it will go into a nine foot Concert Grand sample among 18 other samples that you can play. You put your headphones in, you can record on the piano, acousticpiano, you can record in the digital format, you can plug speakers into it and play it outright into your home. A good example on these silent or hybrid pianos and another one is a Trans Acoustic, which is a little different. But another thing in our Institutions and our Universities. They're finding that, oh, we have got a recital coming up and we forgot to get the piano tuned and we can't get it sooner over here. So they put quarter-inch Jackson pump it through their PA, put it into that silent mode and then the ninth concert grant is being heard in the audience. Perfect. Pitch, the player is not losing any feel. Only technology like this comes from Yamaha. John Haggard: 16:34 You known, that just really is amazing. Truly amazing. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 16:38 I am telling you what, keeping up with the technology growth of Yamaha is an everyday and that's another exciting thing about getting up. The first thing I do is grab my phone to see what's new. John Haggard: 16:49 Yeah, yeah. See if there's been any breaking news. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 16:53 Right? Okay. From Yamaha, guess what! John Haggard: 16:55 Yeah, yeah. Here's, here's what's up. So, all right, well let's get excited. Let's talk about the Yamaha high technology event. It's coming there. Miller Piano, Cool Springs. And Franklin Friday, September 20. And I also understand that you're going to have two representatives from Yamaha that are going to present the latest Yamaha technology live. So you said Michael Inman and Craig Knudson. So tell me about them a little bit. Who are they with Yamaha, what do they do? Sherry Carlisle Smith: 17:24 Michael Inman is our district manager with Yamaha. He was in sales for years and he is a super, super guy with knowledge. Like yesterday I needed a quick hook up and Yamaha is so good with their tech support. But poor Michael, I have his cell phone. So I called him really quick to double check a hook up and he's like boom, boom, boom. And it was good because we pride ourself here. Even though we're a small mom and pop, we try to know everything from finding the right piano to installing it for you. So in doing that, you know, when we get into a position where we need to know something, we need to call somebody quick. Yamaha's great. Like I said, I just happened to call Michael yesterday and he is great when it comes to knowledge on the Yamaha pianos the Clavinovas, and technology. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 18:16 The other person that's going to be joining us. And we're so fortunate to have him. He is like what I call our Yamaha Guru. Craig Knudson. He works and has worked for Yamaha for years. He has, I think an MBA from, I mean one of the big schools. You can look up his bio, but he is a super smart, intelligent guy when it comes to technology in music. He also works for the Piano Guys and travels with them doing technology with the Piano Guys. John Haggard: 18:50 For folks who don't know the Piano Guys, tell us about that. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 18:54 Piano Guys is a group of guys that play piano, you may see a lot of their videos. Yamaha is actually using one of their videos on our technology with Disklaviers, where you can see their videos and the piano is playing, but you may see them on a mountain, like a literal mountain that you don't know how the piano got there with cellos around it and piano playing and they may have the top off so you can see the strings. They're incredible. Please look them up, you know, unbelievable musicians. John Haggard: 19:32 Friday, September 20, all day. So tell me the hours that they're going to be there. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 19:34 They are going to be here from 10:00am to 3:00pm and we are taking appointments because we've got several institutions and different people that are wanting to make one-on-ones, which is great. I would call in and immediately t0 (615) 771-0020. Talk to myself or one of the staff to book a 30 minute timeframe with the guys. Because like I said, they're booking up fast and they have a couple outside things that people would like for them to come to, institutionalize. And you can get one on one and this is something that is free and money cannot buy the knowledge and the answers these guys can give you. John Haggard: 20:20 They're going to be talking about also the Yamaha Disclavier. Now what is a Yamaha Disklavier? Sherry Carlisle Smith: 20:26 A Disclavier is our high technology self playing piano. John Haggard: 20:31 All right? So people know that as a player piano. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 20:36 That a self playing what we call self playing is a little different than a player. People think of player, they think of roles and the old time roles and upright and the technology of years ago where you put a floppy disc in or you put a CD in. The technology now has gotten so great with Yamaha that we can actually, if you had bought a Disclavier maybe five generations ago, I can still update you to the latest firmware and technology. The Disclavier actually works with your Internet and your home internet system. So it will update itself. It will play 37 stations streaming radio of genres of music. So if you like Gershwin, Elton John, the neat thing about the radio stations is the streaming stations, the last four continuously change. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 21:32 So we have a monthly holiday station, maybe grammys. You know, the different award shows. So they have standard stations and then ones that you know, will alternate. But there's also along with that 199, or a hundred concerts per month that you can tune in live with your own television and your own Disclavier when they send you an announcement of what's coming up or it will go on demand for so many days that you can have a house party. And for instance, Elton had one not long ago. And Sarah McLaughlin had one and we had people having house parties and advertising and Elton was literally on their TV above the piano, playing their piano in real time. John Haggard: 22:23 Wow. now wait a minute, let's get that. So Elton John, if I had a Disclavier, would be playing my piano?! Is that what we're saying? In real time. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 22:32 That's what we're saying. John Haggard: 22:34 Now how cool is that! How cool is that! Sherry Carlisle Smith: 22:34 It's very cool. And you have so many different artists and it's not just concerts. They have they also have big, big competitions when they have the worldwide competitions of these classical players. The jazz, Monterrey Jazzfest, they've done that. There are so many neat things. Chick Corea did a thing on there one time. There's so many neat things that this will do. And I told someone the other day, well actually at an institution I said, you're only scratching the surface of what this monster piano and technology will do for you. John Haggard: 23:15 Alright, so now the Disclavier, the Yamaha Disclavier, if you look at that technology, which you have been talking about, obviously there are competitors out there in the market. Everybody wants to get in on the action. So what makes the Disklavier I guess different or maybe superior or it can do that others can't do. Tell me about that. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 23:35 I will tell you that. That is one thing that, and I have people come in all the time that want to buy a Yamaha and they want me to put a another player system on because maybe it was less money adding them together. Okay. What you are getting when you get a Disclavier is Yamaha in production. When I was in Japan, I saw this. It's either going to be a straight acoustic or it's going to be a Disklavier. So at birth, these mechanisms are on the piano. They're birthed on there. This technology, so if you put picked out just a regular grand and you wanted some kind of player put on it, that piano has to go to a shop. It's cut into and it changes the whole dynamics of that spruce wood and the ringing of that beautiful sand has been changed and altered. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 24:26 The worst thing I did in the 80s was take a Yamaha guitar. I wanted a pick up. I didn't buy it on the guitar, had them drill a hole in it. It was never the same. So I encourage people, yeah, I can do that for you… but unless you twist my arm, I'm not going to do that for you. Because of what you're getting in the latest technology. The Disklavier, your TV and radio subscription is only $199 a year… for everything. No one else on the market has that. John Haggard: 25:01 So for $199 a year, when Elton John has a house party and I have a Yamaha Disklavier at that event, he will play my piano live over the Internet. That's what you're saying? Sherry Carlisle Smith: 25:13 That's correct. John Haggard: 25:14 That's pretty cool! Sherry Carlisle Smith: 25:17 In fact, we did something really cool about two years after that. It took us two years to do it, but we went to the Metropolitan and we were doing at Miller, New York meets Nashville and a lot of New York entertainers were coming here. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 25:32 We took a group of girl singers and a piano player to the Metropolitan Room in Manhattan. And we literally did a national meets New York classic country and people in Miller Piano, 65 people that came to Miller saw the piano keys, move on time, watched us on the screen, heard the vocals participated and people anywhere that had a Disklavier and I didnt' know this until later, I think they flipped a switch. So other people watched in other places. I didn't know we were just going to do it between the two places. And I think it ended in a few other places. But yes, it's technology that… And Yamaha designed all this technology for learning. We kind of twisted it and made it a lot of fun, but they designed this to do long distance learning with teachers so that one teacher could be one place and have seven students anywhere in the world and could actually teach remotely if their student moved somewhere or they moved somewhere, could teach a lesson where the pianos moved, the keys moved on each end. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 26:42 She could say passage 4, say this is wrong. Let's Redo this. In fact, you can actually audition, I believe right now at Julliard with a Disklavier from your home. John Haggard: 26:54 You know, that's really neat because what if, let's say you had a favorite teacher in your hometown or the teacher leaves your hometown or you go to another hometown. What you're saying is virtually he or she could teach you on your piano from wherever they are. Am I right? Am I understanding that right? John Haggard: 27:11 That is correct. And that is on a teaching level, on a level that is on a musician or writers level, these instruments are also maybe compatible and we won't even get into that on this, this discussion. But writers, we used to go west coast meets east coast and they would take a bunch of writers from Nashville and fly them out to the west coast. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 27:37 And this was a costly thing and it was fun. And there is nothing about taking away from people being together. But with Yamaha technology, I can co-write with writers that have moved to different parts of the country and I can see them on the screen, talk to them, play something. They go, ummm, I don't like that. And they play something back co-writing and what people can do and the investment in this piano in the long run, it pays for itself 10 times over. John Haggard: 28:09 Yeah, it really is just so cool. Cause, I was going to ask you, hey that technology and everything sounds great and there may be somebody in the family who's like, well I like to listen but I don't know that I want to play. So I was going to ask you, what are the benefits of having, other than all the fun you're talking about and Elton John being able to play that piano in his house party, your piano right here in your house. What are the benefits of having a Disklavier in the home? Sherry Carlisle Smith: 28:34 In the home? First of all, you've got a regular piano, so if your daughter, your son wants to just play or you want to hear or someone comes in that plays, that's one way in the home it's utilized. The second way is the piano plays. And I have people that buy it that work at home that just want that piano music playing. I have business people who use the video and the audio radio streaming for parties they have in their home, children and learning. There are lessons and there are apps and applications now that are free on your, like I said, iPad Android, iPhone also there is a silent feature on our ST Model. So one big thing when when I had my children were little was and they would play on the piano, the acoustic I had at the time time and I'd hear that wrong note and I would say sit there 30 minutes and it was like pulling my teeth, and I'd hear a wrong note and I was in the kitchen and I go, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 29:41 You know, so that's frustrating to the child. So what I tell people is let them learn technology. This is where the universities, the schools, the education is going, let them play the piano, but tell them to go play, not practice. Put the headphones in, play, anything you want, play with the technology. I don't care. Just record the piece that you're gonna play for your teacher. When you're done. Pull out the headphones, let mama hear it. And they stay way over an hour. They learn technology but the last 20 minutes they are really going at it. Cause Mom's going to hear when I pull these headphones out, John Haggard: 30:25 You know that makes a whole lot of sense because you know all children are different. Anyone who has more than one child or rarely two that are the same. And so there can be some shyness like you know, I don't want to do this because I'm gonna to play the wrong chords and mom's going to say no, that's not it. So they would actually stay engaged I think is what you're saying here Sherry Carlisle Smith: 30:43 It is. It is. And it's if I told you to go practice something that practices work, I teach an adult play by ear class, the Nashville number system and I have 16 students online and in the showroom. And I never say practice. I say go play. And I'll tell you another thing with any of these pianos, John. Never close the key fall board that goes over the keys. Yeah. Because when that child walks by, it might just be for two minutes, but if that lid is open and they see the keys, that's an open door that says, Hey John, come in and play for a little while. Come see me. If that fall board is down and they don't see the keys, nobody's home. Why don't you stop? John Haggard: 31:32 What great advise parents, if you're listening there, that fall board, leave it up. Cause there's the invitation that only it's like lights are on. Come on in. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 31:42 It's just a little dust. Dust it off. You know. John Haggard: 31:46 So I think you've already answered the question I had, which is why are universities and various institutions adding the Disclavier to their schools of higher learning? I mean, I think it's pretty obvious now based on what we've talked about. Sherry Carlisle Smith: 32:01 Yeah. They're adding, actually they're adding Disclavier or they're adding Silent Pianos and they are adding Trans-Acoustic pianos because they, and it was well said by one of the Deans here in our area, who purchased. He said our, our students that are wanting acoustic and the classical, they have that wonderful craftsmanship piano that Yamaha made and that acoustic form. The students coming in that are taking the recording or they're wanting to get into, you know, in the MIDI or the interface and stacking and layering. They're using the digital format of that piano, so that instead of buying two pianos, they paid for one piano and got two pianos. John Haggard: 32:49 Yeah, that is so cool. Now we're talking folks, it's the Yamaha High Technology Event. It will be at Miller Piano Friday, September 20th from 10am to 3pm. Sherry Carlisle Smith, the General Sales Manager. They are saying call now because you'd have for about a half hour of time spent each, not a whole lot of appointments available. So call now. So what's the number to call Sherry? Sherry Carlisle Smith: 33:14 It's (615) 771-0020. Anyone can help you that answers any of our Miller Piano family here. If you want to call and ask for me, that's great. My name is Sherry once again, but anyone can take a timeframe and write it down or leave your number with them and I'll be happy to call you back. John Haggard: 33:35 Okay, so now what, for those who are going to search on the Internet, the address, the exact address and what is Miller Piano next to across from around the corner from Sherry Carlisle Smith: 33:45 They want to go to https://millerps.com, of course is our website. You can find us on any form of social media, including youtube. And we are at 650 Frazier Drive, suite 150. The great landmark is we're right in between one of the greatest places to eat, which is Sperry's restaurant. And on the other side we have Bassett furniture. John Haggard: 34:08 Alright, eat play and sit. I guess. All three stores side by side. Well thanks Sherry. That's Sherry Carlisle Smith. Everybody. She is the General Sales Manager and Miller Piano. And remember the Yamaha High Technology Event coming one day, one day only to Miller Piano in Cool Springs. That'll be Friday, September 20 Sherry encourages you pick up the phone now and get an appointment because the two guys, who are going to be there from 10 to three, the Yamaha pros, the experts, only 10 to 3, so (615) 771-0020. By the way, there's a transcript of today's podcast right here on the website. As you see it, you can get quick reference to all the data that you need. Mark that date down. One more time. Friday, September 20 Miller Piano. Coolsprings I'm your host John Haggard and we will see you next time.