Welcome to Wedgebill Music, the home page of Greg Smith, Australian composer and pianist.

PUBLICATIONS
– Sheet music
– Recordings

COMPOSITION SERVICES
– Composition
– Arrangement & Orchestration
– Transcription

EDUCATION AND RESEARCH
– Tuition (piano, aural, harmony, analysis, music history)
– Analysis
– Anecdotes
– Articles, papers, and program notes
– Quotes
– Research services

COLLABORATIVE PIANO
– Accompaniment and solo performance

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Featured content

Berlioz on editorial license
“You musicians, you poets, prose-writers, actors, pianists, conductors, whether of third or second or even first rank, you do not have the right to meddle with a Shakespeare or a Beethoven, in order to bestow on them the blessings of your knowledge and taste.” – Hector Berlioz, on tampering with fine creations (in this case, […]
The origin of the interval
Plays in the Jacobean period (16th century England) were divided into acts to enable the theatre company to manage the candles. Source: Martin White, University of Bristol. “Shakespeare by Candlelight”, The Times, Cited in The Australian, 30 November 2012.
Searching for expression
When my students compose, I prefer them to be mistaken if they must make mistakes, but to remain natural and free rather than wishing to appear other than what they are. I remember a day when Stravinsky was dining here. He took his neighbor at the table by the lapels, violently! His neighbor crushed, said […]
Handel’s speedy method
Morrell gave Handel the words of Cleopatra’s air “Convey me to some peaceful shore” in Alexander Balus, he cried out “Damn your Iambics!”. Morell offered to change them to trochees and went into the next room to do so, only to find about three minutes later that Handel had set them as they stood.” Dean, […]
Ruth Slenczynska’s advice on musical lines
Make your musical lines as long as possible. Rachmaninoff said, “Small musician, small ideas; big musician, big ideas.” After an artist has played a program many times he can soar so high above the music that he conceives the whole event in one arch of sound. Make each phrase prepare for the next; make many […]
Teaching method
Rafal Blechacz on interpretation
Most of all, I give myself plenty of time to get familiar with the composition, to “grow into” its concepts. The composition “congeals” under your fingers and in your heart; each phrase becomes yours, and the artistic expression, which emanates from the piece, becomes your expression. Artistic intuition also plays an important role, although it […]
Accustomed to being ignored
Josef von Spaun recalled the following incident involving Franz Schubert at a concert. Schubert had just accompanied Baron Schönstein, at the house of Karolina Maria Kinsky (Princess, née Baroness Kerpen) when everyone loudly acclaimed Schönstein for his performance while taking no notice of the composer who had accompanied him, the princess sought to make amends […]
Rachmaninoff as a young student
From 1882, nine-year-old Rachmaninoff moved to St Petersburg to study at the conservatoire. In the comfortable knowledge that, even if he did not practice, his efforts were more successful than those of his classmates, young Sergei grew lazier and lazier. In the end he did nothing at all, showed a marked preference for shirking his […]
The true success of the journey
To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour. — Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque, 1881 Stevenson, R. L. (1895). Works. United States: P. F. Collier, Vol. 2, p. 119