I have always found solo piano music to be some of the most
\nbeautiful out there. At the same time, there’s always a twinge of
\nmelancholy as well. We’re all familiar with what so many news
\norganizations do whenever someone of note dies; in all of their
\ntribute programming, the background music is often just a piano
\nplaying.<\/p>\n
And so, it seemed a bit weird for me to choose
\nNo Words<\/i>, the 1994 debut effort from Jim Brickman, to be the
\nfirst disc I listened to in its entirety following the events of
\nthe past few days. While the music is absolutely beautiful, it did
\nstrike more than a chord of sadness in me – and while I’m certain
\nthat Brickman created this disc to reflect gentle images of his
\nlife that all could relate to, this disc takes on a new air
\naltogether.<\/p>\n
In a sense, this isn’t fair to Brickman.
\nNo Words<\/i> is merely meant to be a collection of 12 original
\nworks that try and capture portraits in the gentle waves of the
\ngrand piano. It is supposed to take you to scenes of waterfront
\nbeauty, images of fields of wheat awaiting the harvest, and even
\noffer a poignant reminder of things which have been lost.<\/p>\n
\nNo Words<\/i> can indeed do this, it is true – but even listening
\nto the disc prior to September 11, it almost felt like there was an
\nunderlying sense of sadness to some of the music. Tracks like “Open
\nDoors” and “I Said You Said” have the power to move a listener to
\ntears if the mood is just right. That being said, No Words can also
\nhave the opposite effect, and serve as a soundtrack to romance, as
\nsongs like “Rocket To The Moon” and “Shaker Lakes” prove.<\/p>\n
Brickman’s style of playing isn’t one of musical mastery of the
\npiano, making it do things that even Beethoven never dreamed about.
\nNo, Brickman’s style of playing is more mid-line (though I don’t
\ndare call it simplistic, having served 10 years in piano lesson
\nhell), emphasizing more of the emotion of the notes rather than
\ntechnical precision. By doing so, Brickman becomes the New Age
\ncomposer for the Everyman, and creates a disc that you could
\nliterally put on the stereo for any occasion, in any personal
\nmood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25965,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6407],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-37171","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-jim-brickman","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37171"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37171"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}