PianoWow

I get asked this question often. “Why call yourself PianoWow?” and “You’re going to have to explain your name to me.” Well I play piano. Mostly I play jazz, but I can fake just about anything, including classical, rock, country, etc.

So that explains the first word. The second is a little weirder. When I was in highschool, I was playing several classical pieces that were really very difficult. Chopin’s “Fantaisie Impromptu“, Lizst’s “Love Dream (Liebestraum) in Ab”, and Rachmaninoff’s “Prelude in C# minor – The Bells of Moscow”. These pieces simply cannot be read off the page. They must be practiced, and practiced again, and memorized. But you don’t memorize the notes: your muscles memorize the exact position and movements of your hands. So the mind is free to wander or concentrate, or whatever. Several times, I remember just sitting back and watching myself playing, and thinking, “Wow! Am I really playing this?” “Is this really me?” So wow became a personal descriptor of my own playing. Arrogant, I know. But it stuck with me.

When it came time to think of my first online moniker, I put the two together, and there you have it: PianoWow.