Classic piano recital performed by Billy Mikoyan

Friday 23rd of May, Billy Mikoyan will be playing on Orange Island. Join us on the Music Area at noon SLT!

Who is Billy Mikoyan?
Billy Mikoyan is an avatar in SL that came into being (rezzed) November 4, 2007. I started performing music on SL in March of 2008. I am self managed and plan on staying that way. I play all over the place in SL but you will often find me playing on Avgi or listen to my classical piano recital on Tuesdays at the Better World Gallery.

What did Music bring to you?
Music has brought me where I am today. I am a RL professional musician, but have no interest of discussing that much in SL. When I first started as a child, I had no idea it would actually become my life’s work. I am not just a pianist. I play many musical instruments including some ethnic instruments. I have, at one time or another, dabbled with every orchestral instrument in order to better understand how to compose for it.

Music is basically what I do. It is something I have to do, something I have always done just about ever since I can remember. It is a way of life.

What do you mostly play?
I mostly play classical piano and rock-n-roll. It is a toss up. I do both quite often. The rock-n-roll is easier and I think I sometime have more fun. I can interact with the audience much more and that is part of the fun in SL. Classical is a bit different. It is more difficult and requires more focus and concentration. I really can not interact with the audiences while playing, or hardly even look up at my screen.

Classical wise I love the sonata form and especially the piano sonatas of Mozart and Beethoven. I like Baroque too and play some Bach and other composers of that era on rare occasions. I am not a big fan of the Romantic era, but will do Chopin and a few others once in a while. I am a huge fan of 20th and 21st-century music because it is usually not tonal and one does not know what to expect next in the progression of the music.

How would you define your musical style?
I am very eclectic in my tastes of music. I have studied music very seriously for many years. I am a theorist and some may know what I mean when I say I am a Schenkerian. That has a tremendous affect in the way that I perform music. I often speak in technical terms because that is most often how I think. I will play classical as well as the good ol’ Rock-n-Roll!

Music is music. It is all made of similar harmonies and scales, unless one starts talking about “atonal” music, which I most often prefer to listen, but most people are not too much “into” or ready for the “experimental” type music, or really will not listen to it for any great length of time.

Even into the 21st-century, most people still have 18th-century “ears” with which they listen to music. Rock-n-roll uses the same harmonies and scales that Bach to Beethoven and beyond them has used for centuries. Classical music has much more flesh, substance, and history, where as rock-n-roll is just bare bone, but there is certainly something appealing about it!

Most people can not help but “dig” a good rock-n-roll tune, and if you know what I’m talking about, then you know what I’m talking about! But it really is the same for classical music too. A classical piece of music can evoke great emotion and reach into the heart and soul of the human psyche.

May 20, 2008 at 12:01 pm | Uncategorized | 1 comment

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