MADHATTER PIANIST/TEACHER MARK BIRNBAUM

RECENT STORY NY TIMES (AND VIDEO) HIT NY TIMES AND ENTER MY NAME--PRINTED BELOW
Mark Birnbaum - Pianist
Doctor of Musical Arts - Columbia University '82.
Staff Pianist on TV ch 9 Joe Franklin from 1989-93. WWOR-TV.

Explore a geometric, yet flexible way of learning harmony & melody.
Find the Discipline within your Freedom.

Website - ragtime markbirnbaum (check google-windows internet explorer is best) -Music reviews, sound clips, articles, etc. -
New cd's '-Duality Wrecks' - - 'Weather Watch Free Jazz' -- & "Accordion/Piano"....with sound clips on cd baby (as Accompanist to Accordionist Dr. William Schimmel)
Youtube - great clips from tv shows.

Ragtime,/Blues/Jazz/ & Classical Piano..
Improvisation!
Freedom- no speed limit..no brakes...
Let's Rock-
Showing up - is everything.

the Zone .. faster by going slower...
Breathing and Posture...
Sustain a note...
Discipline within your freedom.
Improvise.. swing - .. New Jack Swing.

Jazz is Zen...
Blues is the basis of Jazz.
Bach is King.

A Piano Lesson is a Magical Mystery Tour -
Be a one-man-band; the piano is your orchestra.
Relaxed arms & fingers .
The Organ & Harpsichord are our friends.
Look good while playing-
Visual images are important.

Piano Improvisation is... Composition in Real Time.
Piano work embodies... Edison, Gandhi and the Warrior.
We include everything = Bach , punk rock .. free jazz

Think Melodies - simple and /folk-like.
Scales - harmonies - modes - within a system.
Simplicity ... the core of complexity.
James Brown, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Sinatra...up and beyond...

Listening - Bach, Blues, Basie , Beyond - Punk- the '80's, Hip-Hop//Soul-Funk-
Rhythm - Internalize that pulse!
American music is dance/groove music.

Jelly Roll, Duke Ellington, Joplin, James P.Johnson, Fats Waller, Art Tatum,, Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner.
Phrases - Ornament/embellish as the piano sings.
Your personality in sound is it -

Improvisation.=taking chances
Sixty Five Dollars for Sixty Five Minutes---- hardcore/in the moment.

What you bring to the table, we magnify.
Serious students only, please-

212 802 8380



Like His Platform Boots, His Music Keeps Moving
By COREY KILGANNON
Published: April 3, 2010

PHOTO: Mark Birnbaum, a familiar sight on the East Side, in his apartment. A video of Mr. Birnbaum is at nytimes.com/cityroom. (PHOTOGRAPH BY COREY KILGANNON/THE NEW YORK TIMES)
If you have spent time on the East Side of Manhattan around the United Nations, there is a good chance you have seen a man walking around looking a bit like Elton John circa 1977.
This would probably be Mark Birnbaum on his daily constitutional. Mr. Birnbaum walks Second Avenue flamboyantly dressed in platform boots, hand-painted blazers and all sorts of feathered boas, with cigar clenched in mouth and ornamental cane in hand.

''The street is my inspiration, and if you want to remain immersed in New York, you have to walk its streets,'' said Mr. Birnbaum, who grew up in Brooklyn and has lived in Manhattan since 1977. ''I'm a New York street guy, and Manhattan has the best energy in the world.''
Mr. Birnbaum, 58, who teaches piano out of his studio apartment on the 20th floor of his building on East 48th Street, calls his long daily walks integral to his playing, teaching and composing, a tie to ''New York's street vibe.''

''I dress like this every day of the year, whether I'm staying inside, teaching or not,'' he said of his outfit, which includes a top hat, sparkles on his face and colorful strands in his hair.
Mr. Birnbaum said he realized the musical importance of the daily walk after meeting the immortal ivory tickler Vladimir Horowitz, who told him, ''Make sure you walk 40 blocks a day, because if you don't walk, your fingers don't run.''

Mr. Horowitz was living on Madison Avenue at the time, and Mr. Birnbaum said he walked in that area about 50 times until he finally saw the maestro and strolled with him.
Mr. Birnbaum also ran into Richard M. Nixon at a grocery on East 65th Street early one morning in 1980. The former president, Mr. Birnbaum said, ''was squeezing grapefruits and explaining the virtues of pink versus white grapefruits as if he were conducting foreign policy.''

Mr. Birnbaum specializes in teaching jazz piano, especially ragtime and stride, ''with some Bach and punk rock and free jazz thrown in,'' he said. In his listing on Craigslist -- ''A Piano Lesson Is a Magical Mystery Tour'' -- he claims to have ''invented a geometric, yet flexible way of teaching blues, jazz, ragtime and classical piano.''
''Jazz is Zen. Blues is the basis of jazz. Bach is king,'' the listing says. Many of Mr. Birnbaum's students are United Nations employees.
On a recent weekday, Mike Heller Chu, 35, who works in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations at the United Nations, showed up impeccably dressed in suit and tie for his weekly lesson. Mr. Birnbaum was decked out in sunglasses, glitter boots with eight-inch heels, necklaces and pendants dangling over his bare chest, long feathers waving above his head.
Mr. Heller Chu sat at the piano, which had a pile of empty cigar boxes on top. He began improvising a jazzy, vampy solo, as Mr. Birnbaum paced nearby, his cane in one hand, an unlighted cigar in the other.

Mr. Birnbaum exulted with a yell during well-played passages, and urged his student at other times to ''throw in that Gershwin-y thing,'' or add a Coltrane lick, or pound out a James Brownian rhythm.
Growing up in East Flatbush near Ebbets Field, Mr. Birnbaum imitated the recordings and piano rolls of Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton and James P. Johnson. He graduated from Brooklyn College and received a doctorate in music composition from Columbia University.
He has made nine records, although none are exactly big sellers. His life used to be full of high-paying gigs, and he was the pianist and a regular guest on ''The Joe Franklin Show.'' These days, he relies on teaching for a living.

Among his many compositions is a rag called ''Eubie on Second Avenue,'' in honor of Eubie Blake, and of walking on the avenue.
''When I walk, I get maybe 100 people who say hello to me every day,'' he said. ''You have to be an improviser to live in New York, because anything can happen. Walking itself is an improvisation, in New York.''

WFMU BROADCAST MAY 12 WED!!!!!!!!!!MARK BIRNBAUM PIANIST

5.04.2010

Seven Second Delay Live 5/12

Seven Second Delay returns to the Upright Citizen's Brigade Theater in Manhattan, Wednesday, May 12th from 6-7pm for a live radio broadcast.

Joining Ken and Andy will be author/musician RICK MOODY, ragtime pianist and platform shoe-wearer MARK BIRNBAUM, and director of the forthcoming film "Ginger is the New N-Word" about anti-red head bias in the culture at large FLOYD CHAMBERS.

The UCB Theater is located at 307 West 26th Street in Manhattan, near the corner of 8th Avenue. Admission is $5, but if you save your receipt, the admission fee will be refunded to you at the end of your life.

WFMU RADIO WITH MARK BIRNBAUM WED MAY 6PM

UCB Theater is located at 307 W. 26th Street

MARK BIRNBAUM ON WFMU WED MAY 12 6PM

IT SHOULD BE FUN ON WFMU - BROADCASTING FROM UCB Theater is located at 307 W. 26th Street--
TUNE IN!