Season 4 Episode 17: "Tuned In: Memoirs of A Piano Man" feat. Jim Wilson

This episode is proudly brought to you by our sponsor, PH Media Studio, championing unique artistic self-expressions through custom-designed websites tailored exclusively for their clients. Welcome back to another episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. So here's a little question for you today, to my listeners: What do Van Cliburn, Lang Lang, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Carole King, and Chick Corea have in common? Ta-da! That's Jim Wilson, an award-winning Yamaha recording artist, concert piano technician, and author of his newly published book, Tuned In: Memoirs of a Piano Man: Behind the Scenes with Music Legends and Finding the Artist Within. And he is also, of course, the honorable guest of today's episode. I had an interview session with Jim a few days ago, actually, and then during the conversation that I had with Jim, you will hear a little glimpse into his book, and also he will share some really incredible stories, crazy stories of Jim's professional relationships which some blossomed later into personal friendships with some of these musical icons that I mentioned earlier, from, you know, classical music industry to pop music industry. Anyway, so having a conversation with him really reminded me that it takes a village to do what we do, right? And Jim will get deeper into the tech side of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song and how he is helping iconic artists feel the sense of freedom while they're performing or while they're working on their songs or working on their compositions. And well, also it's important to mention that Jim is also a recording artist and he has recorded 10 smash hit albums and you will hear his journey and creative process of being the award-winning musician during our conversation. All right, let me quickly introduce Jim by reading his bio. Jim Wilson is far more than a gifted piano tuner and technician. His life story is a testament to resilience and transformative power. Raised in a broken home in Amarillo, Texas, Jim defied the odds to become a multi-award-winning recording artist. His book, "Tuned In: Memoirs of a Piano Man," combines showbiz glamour with profound personal tragedy and lessons learned along the way. It's not just a memoir; it's a guide that entertains and inspires with invaluable insights for musicians and fans alike. Jim's musical journey began at age 7 with a guitar, leading him to compose music by age 9, Moving to LA in his early 20s, he quickly became a go-to piano technician for top artists and played a pivotal role in developing the first MIDI adapter for acoustic pianos in the 1980s. The sudden death of his closest friend prompted a life reevaluation, propelling him into a successful solo career with the encouragement of his mentor, With 10 albums, 4 hitting the Billboard Top 20, 2 PBS specials, and over 75 million streams of his music, Jim has made a significant mark in the music world. He is also a lifetime member of the Recording Academy. All right, so before diving in, a warm welcome to new listeners and big thank you to our faithful TPP fans. Please don't forget to rate and review the show on your favorite podcasting platform. Dear TPP fans and listeners, I am thrilled to welcome you into this exciting episode with Jim Wilson. Please enjoy the show. You are listening to The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song, where we talk to the brightest minds in the industry about how they are bringing the piano into the 21st century. So welcome, Jim, to The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song with Jim Sivak. So honored to have you.

Oh, what an honor to be here, Yukimi Song. Thank you very, very much for having me.

Thank you. First of all, congratulations on the release of your autobiographical book, Tuned In. I see you've also caught the attention of People magazine lately.

Yeah, man, that was— it was released on April 1st, which is April Fool's Day. And so I kept thinking, is this a joke?. But sure enough, it came out. It's like, oh man, it's been such a journey. It's been a 4-year marathon, you know, writing this book. And then to have that People magazine honor me with this wonderful, wonderful article on my whole journey. And it was just, it was a dream come true.

But, you know, well deserved with your, you know, impressive track record of your career. And that, you know, as I make my way through your captivating memoir, I'm about 3/4 of the way through, and it's clear why your story is making waves. You're not only a Billboard-charting recording artist, but also a highly sought-after piano technician and servicing the who's who of the industry. Wow. And then and also pioneering the first MIDI adapter for acoustic pianos. So today's conversation will delve into your memoir and the diverse aspects of your career. However, as a classical pianist myself and host of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song, I would like to start with this topic. Yes, you as a piano technician, and you've worked with— you know, the introductory portion of your book, your story begins with your interaction with Paul McCartney, of all people. And you've also worked with legendary figures like Van Cliburn, Lang Lang, uh, Chick Corea, Quincy Jones, Barbra Streisand, Elton John, Phil Collins, Keith Emerson. So what was it like to work with these legends? Well, let's start with Lang Lang.

Um, I know that the, the, uh, slant of this, um, the direction of your, your podcast is toward classical music, and I do have a few little fun nuggets, I think, of that you might enjoy of me getting to work with these incredible artists, Lang Lang and Philippe Entremont and Van Cliburn, etc. But just to set this— set the table a little bit, the reason that I got into piano tuning, I had wanted to be a singer-songwriter, and I thought a couple of bands I was playing in back in Amarillo, Texas, the keyboard players could also tune pianos. I thought, well, that'll be a great way to support myself in Los Angeles while trying to make it as a singer-songwriter. We'll get more into that later, but that's how I came to be a piano technician. And one of the very first artists that I got to tune for, I thought before I moved to Los Angeles, uh, I'm going to go back to Amarillo to kind of get my tuning chops together. I had heard that Van Cliburn was coming to Amarillo.. And I thought, oh my gosh, I really would love to see him perform. And so I go to the Amarillo Symphony office. To my good fortune, the receptionist is out to lunch and the manager says, I'm so sorry, there's nobody here, but I'll go ahead and help you. And what do you do? And I said, well, I'm a piano tuner. I literally had just been 2 weeks out of— after piano tuning school. Oh, really? Well, it just so happens that we We now need one where, you know, our piano tuner left the country, left the city, whatever. Would you be interested? I said, yes. Well, could you tune it tomorrow? So I did the, it's kind of an audition tuning for them. They really loved it. The very, very first artist that I tuned for was Van Cliburn. And back, you know, when I was first starting, it was a 4-hour ordeal for me tuning pianos because, you know, it takes a long time to develop that certainty. I could get the results that I wanted, but it just, it was a much longer process. So they had this Steinway Concert Grand and I tuned for the, it was a brand new Steinway Concert Grand. I tuned the piano for a Vans concert. And would you meet with the artist? He has some concerns about the tone of the instrument. And, you know, voicing is one of the last things that you develop mastery with when you are learning your piano technology chops. So he said he found The Piano Pod a bit dark. Now, after decades of experience, I feel very confident to deliver whatever tone they want, if it's brighter, you know, more mellow, whatever. But, and fortunately for me, I was able to get just the amount of additional brightness that he wanted with kind of the low-hanging fruit, just kind of lightly filing the hammers. He was very, very pleased. And after— at the end of that whole thing of a couple of concerts, he wrote me this wonderful little endorsement: Dear Jim, thank you for the wonderful, you know, attention to detail on the piano care, etc., etc., which I turned into a wonderful little endorsement and flyer. But you might find this funny that— so it's Van Cliburn, Emperor Concerto, big night. I'm in the audience. I've just tuned the piano. I'm waiting for the big thing to begin. And Van Cliburn comes out, big applause and everything. The tail, puts the tails out and he sits down on the bench and he kind of takes a minute. He nods to the conductor and he looks up and he sees something. He goes, wait a minute. Oh my God. What? What? What? And the piano lid and the piano lid prop should be at right angles. I see this a lot, and there's another receptacle that's intended for the short prop. Somebody had put the lid prop in the wrong receptacle, and now it was at the wrong angle. So Van got up from the bench, went over, went around, and changed it to the thing, to the correct angle, and then he started. But, you know, everybody's heart skipped a beat, especially mine. But man, what a thrill to hear your work as part of this incredible event. You know, Emperor Concerto, my God, you know, just one of the masters, you know. He was very, very sweet and very accommodating. And what a gift to be able to see somebody like that up close and personal.

Right. But it's like, that's like one of the very first gigs as a piano technician. You already hit the top from the beginning. That's, that's amazing. So, but much later then, how, how was it to work with Long Long?

And well, Long Long was— that was an extraordinary thing. So maybe, I don't know, uh, 5, 6 years ago, Long Long and Herbie Hancock were doing concerts together at the Hollywood Bowl. And they skipped a night in between. So it's like, let's say it was on a Monday night and then a Wednesday. On the Tuesday, on the day in between, Long Long was doing a— he volunteered to do a commercial for a PSA for the World Wildlife Federation, I believe. So they had this Steinway D at a rehearsal hall. Would I come tune the piano? Yes, of course. And then, would you mind staying after you tune the piano so that the artist can check it out? Yes, I would love to meet Lang Lang. So I tuned this Steinway D. He comes in and he's very— hi, pleasure. You know, he's very— and he's just kind of arriving, you know, and there's a whole set full of people to shoot him and take video and just very politely nodding. And he sits down to play the piano and he's kind of continuing to get himself there. So he's looking at the lights and then he's looking at the— nodding to the production manager, hi, good to see you. And then he'll look at me like his tuning sounds great, you know. And then, but what he's playing, Yukimi, is is Ave Maria, and which I think was the encore piece that he'd been playing. And he's doing this, this crossover thing. He's never once looking at the keys, but— and he's kind of— his attention is on getting himself here at this set and kind of looking around. And, and while he's playing Ave Maria, and to be that close to that level of mastery, I was I was verklempt because just to see this artistry, this effortless mastery where he's just playing this piece with such beautiful nuance without even thinking about it. I was choked up just standing there, you know, I could barely keep it together because it was so stunning. And they look at me and nod, just beautiful. It's like, oh, you think that's beautiful? I'm in the presence of a master here. It's really extraordinary. And we had a chat afterwards about the action of that piano, which it was not my responsibility, you know, I was just there to tune it, but he was, he found it a bit firm. And to my amazement, no piano technician had kind of taken a minute to walk him through and say, Here's what downweight means, and here's what upweight means, and here's— here's— let's do some things to your piano to give you a more inviting touch. As long as we're on that topic, downweight means how many grams of weight does it take to push the key down. Upweight means once the key is down, how many grams of weight is the key capable of returning. So in a perfect world, you have a kind of low, medium to low down weight, meaning it's easy to push down. So maybe 50 grams, 52 grams of down weight. And, but you still have a nice, uh, healthy up weight, meaning maybe 28 grams, where the key moves down easily but it returns quickly. So you can, you can have many different combinations where it's a really high down weight and a really low upweight, which probably tells us that you've got excessive friction in the action somewhere. Or if you have a really high downweight and a really high upweight, not to get too into the weeds here, but to walk your listeners through, I, I bet that they'll appreciate. If you think of a seesaw, right, and let's say you have a sumo wrestler on one end and a baby on the other, well, obviously, you have too much mass on one end, and when you push down on the baby end, it's going to be very hard to push down, but it's going to be quick to return. So that's too much mass. Now, so it's always going to be mass, friction, or geometry, which is the issue with a heavy or sluggish action. I just told you mass, so let's take off the mass off this one end. Now it's perfectly balanced, but let's add some friction. Let's say the seesaw now has rusty hinge. So it's going to be harder to push down, but it's slower to return. So that's the basic idea about touch weight. And as I said, it's always mass, friction, or geometry. If it's geometry, well, it's a piano action, as we know, is not as quite as simple as a seesaw. It's in fact 3 seesaws on top of each other. So you got the first one, pushes up on the next one, pushes up on the next one. And if those intersection points are off by even a millimeter and you get the geometry wrong, suddenly it just, it's really sluggish and you, it really messes things up. So I had the honor of being the first technician to walk Deer Long Long through that. And what a, what a sweet, sweet guy. It just, he was, You know, it just has this childlike energy about him. And he was, oh, he was just so fascinated with when I was showing him, you know, with the gram weights, how you can do that. And, and, uh, what a sweet, sweet man to have that level of mastery and to be just like a child about the whole thing. It's beautiful.

But really shows that how little as pianists— I'm not pointing fingers at, uh, you know, Mr. Long Long, but you know how little I know as a pianist about the instrument.

Nor do you really need to. And I get that. And I never want to walk people down a path that they're not interested in. But if I— if they show some sort of curiosity about it, I'm— I've kind of had some experience with simplifying these really complex subjects and into nice little nugget-sized bits of information that they can digest. And walk through these ideas. And especially if it's your life, you want to at least be able to be conversant, I should think, with the caretaker of your instrument. I find this sluggish and, you know, and then we get into the world of tone and that's another thing where us technicians and you concert pianists, we want to have some kind of common ground where we can say, you know, Well, when you say it's bright or when you say it's dull, perhaps we're talking about that it needs some additional kind of vibrancy in the tone. And then in fact, it's already kind of a little bit on the bright side, but we just need to add some depth to it. So there is kind of that communication barrier and that's where it is good to have some common ground of knowledge to be able to communicate concepts, you know.

Right. So then being the piano technician for such big names must come with not only the highest quality skills as a technician, but also requires unique set of challenges and expectations, right? And what are some of the unique technical issues you've encountered while tuning pianos for let's say Van Cliburn. Well, that's the first one. So maybe, um, like Chick Corea, for example. Perfectly.

That's, that's perfect to segue into Chick Corea. Uh, I had some extraordinary fortune when coming to Los Angeles. I, I moved from— after about— I did piano tuning school in Perkins School of Piano Tuning and Technology in Cleveland. I did a year and a half in Amarillo of kind of perfecting my skills. And then I decided it was time to move to Los Angeles, January 1979. Drove my van 2 days, and then I arrived in Los Angeles at 6 PM on a Monday. My friend says, let's go hear this band, they're great studio musicians, they get together just for fun. So that was at 9 PM. So within 3 hours of arriving in Los Angeles, I had now met these guys who would all become friends and champions of my work. This one would lead to, uh, Seals and Croft. This and that one would lead for me working for Supertramp, and then that one would lead to another person who would connect me with Chick Corea. And I began tuning for Chick Corea within months of arriving in Los Angeles. Chick Corea is a legendary jazz pianist and just an extraordinary— I was so, so grateful to be in his presence. He's just such a master at what he does. And so he had 9 pianos, and I tuned his pianos for 14 years. One of them was— he had a Hamburg Steinway D, he had a Bosie 9-foot, he had a Conover Giraffe piano, some odd pianos. He had a Kawai in the pool room console. He had all these different pianos. And then he had one that was custom made. So we're talking about technical issues that you get to run into. This guy in the Pacific Northwest, Mark Allen, was a really good woodworker. He decided that he wanted to make his own piano. Well, it turns out it's kind of complicated, it's kind of involved. He did a really great job with the woodworking part of it, and I believe he took a renter action and tried to put it into his his piano, but he didn't get the geometry quite right. Remember, we just walked through the 3 main reasons you're gonna have an action that's not working right. It's mass, friction, or geometry. Well, in this case, he got the geometry wrong. Well, let me tell you, I was in over my head when he said, Chick said to me, he's like, God, this really feels heavy. Now this is kind of interesting here because in fact it was the opposite. So I just told you that 50 grams of down weight is kind of a nice, uh, medium level of down weight. So in other words, you keep putting gram weights on the key, and when it finally starts to move down, that's how many grams of weight the down weight is. Well, you would expect to see when you get 55 60 grams, 65 grams of down weight, that's really heavy. And he said, this really feels heavy. So I put the gram weights on it. It was about 40 grams of down weight, which is actually quite light. Well, why would he experience it as being heavy? There was very little up weight, meaning that you push it down, but it's really slow to return. So that's the experience of a pianist when they're playing the piano and it's slow to return and you just feel like you're kind of walking through mud, you know, where it just doesn't return, it doesn't respond, doesn't have a crisp return. This really feels heavy, Jim. So fortunately for me, I was a member of the— am still a member of the Piano Technicians Guild. And I turned to a couple of masters who've been at it a long time because, you know, there, there are different levels of, of mastery that you accumulate over the years. And you learn tuning and then you learn regulation and then you learn voicing and then you learn tone, touch regulation, you know, reweighting actions, etc. So I called my friend Richard Davenport, legendary technician, and he determined that the geometry was wrong. So we, we took this piano, and it was, it was quite a challenge. We finally got it to where Chick was happy with it. And, but it's such an honor to be able to work for such extraordinary masters, but it's a responsibility because you are the caretaker of their vehicle for artistic expression. And the onus is on you to deliver if you want a little bit brighter tone. And sometimes, you have to kind of walk them through what— it's kind of like Steve Jobs said, "The people don't know what they want until I give it to them." As arrogant as that sounds, there is something to edifying people and offering a little bit something different than what they think they want, and they go, oh yes, that's what I was looking for. I was looking for more depth of tone. I was looking for more vibrancy in the upper harmonics. But, um, yes, it's— it can be a bit of a challenge sometimes.

Now, you, um, in the book, uh, but of course the story with Mr. Chikoria is one of my favorites because you have such a wonderful relationship with the client, which is, you know, the big giant jazz pianist. And he would have— I think he gifted you something very special. Maybe I don't want to give, give my audience too much of a spoiler here because I would love for my audience to read an actual book. But that's, that's wonderful. And then you also have a, you know, interaction or period of interactions with Mr. Elton John. And then, you know, I really like the story of the Greek tragedy. Yes. And then, so that's really where I realized the impact of being a piano technician. How— so how do you believe a piano technician contributes to the overall performance of a musician during concerts and studio recordings?

Well, I suppose, Yukimi, it's not unlike when you go to see a film. And you're extremely moved by the whole experience and it has an incredible soundtrack, it shouldn't sort of jump out at you like, oh, you know, oh wow. In other words, the soundtrack should be something that really enhances the whole experience. And if they've done their job right, it's kind of a transparent thing that's just there. So same thing with servicing the piano, you want the piano to sound great. The senior thing at play here is the artist sitting on that bench and what they are trying to communicate with their art. They've spent, you know, as Malcolm Gladwell says, the 10,000 hours, you know, of just drilling the exercises and scales and etc., etc. To where it becomes this effortless mastery thing where you, you're just, you're just playing and the pianist is kind of part of the audience, you know. So ideally, whatever I do should be second to whatever they're doing. It should only support that.

And what was it like to work with Mr. Elton John, by the way?

Well, there are celebrities, and then there's royalty, and then there's that class of Elton John, Paul McCartney, those icons, you know, the icons that will quicken your pulse, let's say, you know. But He's such a smart, smart man, and he's really intelligent and very just this wonderful razor-sharp, almost Groucho Marx level of delivery of comedy. And he always takes it on himself to learn about everybody in his universe and what they like, and he'll be conversant about that. And it's a little intimidating at first, but Fortunately for me, with every one of these people, I wasn't kind of like, I just saw them in a coffee shop and I walked up to them and said, oh my God, can I have an autograph? Which I'm not going to lie, I've been there too. I'm on that level too. And it's very intimidating. But fortunately for me, certainly with the MIDI adapter, I was ushered in at a high level always by one of their peers. Jim Wilson's got this really cool thing that he does with pianos. It's this MIDI adapter. It allows you to hook up synthesizers to your piano, or you can go MIDI signal out of your piano into your computer, et cetera. So I was kind of ushered in with high praise and welcomed, you know, so that's a different experience than just kind of walking up to them on the street. But Elton, I went to his home outside of London and near Windsor Castle, and it was just even driving down the driveway, it's like, my God, this is somebody's private residence. You know, this huge mansion and mansion and this rows and rows of different kinds of cars, and there's a Mercedes, there's a Rolls, there's a Bentley, etc. And he's legendary, he's an icon. And but if you, if you're present and you're like in the moment, there's, you start to develop a bit of a rapport with them. And, you know, we're all just humans at the very core. And if you can kind of get into that space, It's a fun ride. It really is a fun ride. And it's not always that easy, but I have been able to find that space with him and kind of joke around. And he's really funny. And like I said, razor-sharp wit. Yeah.

Yeah. I read the part and it's incredible that being able to be that close to that icon, almost like I would have been in a super imposter syndrome, not being able to even like say a word in front of—

believe me, I've been there. But sometimes, you know, when you, when you have to deliver, it's, it's not like, hey, can I have your autograph? It's like, okay, tell me what you're gonna do to my piano. You have to jump into that mode, and once you finally find a little bit of footing and Okay, I know this, I know what I'm doing. And then you can speak with a little bit of confidence and you're offering something of value to them. It gives you the right kind of— it frames the experience.

Yeah. Then also, I'm just curious about Paul McCartney because my entire family, like my parents and my uncle, they own like an entire thing of albums by Beatles, you know, and then they were so proud of, of, of that. So, you know, The Beatles, they, the group had such an impact on, uh, it was a global sensation that back then, and then, right, and it changed the whole entire industry worldwide.

The planet is extraordinary. Yeah, so as I've said a few times, you know, there's meeting a celebrity, there's meeting royalty, and then even a little bit higher than Elton John for me, Paul McCartney. Because anybody who was around for that earthquake that happened on February 9th, 1964, The Ed Sullivan Show, it was an extraordinary thing that happened. And I guarantee you, there's any artist of a certain age, certainly in the pop and rock world, what got you into music? I guarantee you, if you ask that question, you're going to hear a whole lot of people who say, I watched The Ed Sullivan Show, and the second I saw them, I knew that's what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Because they blazed, they broke through the status quo. The status quo at that time was Here's the artist, the Pat Boone, and, you know, the A&R man pitches them a song and they, you know, they sing, you know, this. And there's songs out there like "How Much Was That Doggie in the Window" and these cute little things. Well, here are these guys who broke the wall down and said, no, we're going to write our own songs. And, you know, we're going to have our own look and we're going to sing our harmonies and And just, just amazing. So any, any of us who were around to have that in our musical DNA, where it just penetrates so deeply that it just, it's part of you. When you meet one of those figures from the musical version of Mount Rushmore, you know, way more than just a celebrity or somebody that you've seen on film or whatever. It's extraordinary, you know. And the very first time I met him, I was in England. I was doing work on— actually, I was flown over there for a movie called The Little Shop of Horrors. And Steve Martin— this is ages ago— and Bob Gaudio, who was producing the soundtrack for that, he says to David Paich, the keyboard player of Toto, Hey, I'm looking for something kind of different that I can do in this movie. And Page— this is way, way early on in the MIDI adapter world scene— Page says, man, you got to get Jim Wilson to MIDI the piano. And wait, what's MIDI? You know, it's like so early on. So okay, so they negotiated to fly me over to do work on the piano for The Little Shop of Horrors. It was being recorded in Pinewood, uh, outside of London. Flew me over, put me up, you know, in a really nice 4-star hotel, kept me there for 10 days just in case something broke down, which it wasn't going to. But I figure, as long as I'm going over there, why don't I shake the bushes and see who I can— who else might be over there, might be interested. My client David Foster, a big record producer. He had just been working with McCartney on an album. I, I told David, I'm going to England, would you want to tell Paul about this thing? Well, of course, it's, it's something you want to be able to tell people. There's this cool new thing you can do. So McCartney said yes, and I'm over there in England doing some, some other work, as I said, for Little Shop of Horrors. And then there we go. I'm taken from, picked up by limo in my hotel in London, driven, driven. I was driven. I'm from Texas. I can say that, Yukimi. I was driven to the south coast of England where the studio is, The Windmill. It used to be an old windmill. It's actually got the windmill and it's very cool. Sure enough, in walks Paul. Hey, how you doing? You must be Jim, he says. To my amazement, I actually heard human words coming out of my mouth because you're just so— I'm guessing you must be, I want to say, Paul. I got a laugh out of him, which kind of eased things. It kind of helped quite a bit, but even still, It's just, just to, um, you know, to be in the presence of somebody who's changed your world, who's changed the face of the planet with their music, you know. I, I know so many songwriters, and many of them, you know, if they— if you have even one big hit, I mean, that's like you have made it, man. But to have a dozen, to have 100, not just hits but classic songs that are part of our musical DNA. So when you are in the presence of that person, it's just so overwhelming. But I, you know, was able to have a little bit of a conversation and I'm going to be doing this to your piano. We'll install this MIDI adapter. And by the way, it was, you know, it was a Homburg Steinway B. And I noticed that the touch was a little bit sluggish and me being the cheeky Texan that I am, I said, you know, I noticed that the action's a little bit stiff. I can do some things there. It needs some regulation and voice. We can help out the tone. Yeah, how about it? So he— they leave me there. It's a Friday evening. I work well into the night, like 6 to 8 hours on the piano because I really, really want to deliver and just give him an extraordinary touch, tone, and as well as this MIDI adapter. And tuned it, of course. So he comes in the next morning, it's Saturday. I'm now kind of past the initial shock of, my God, that's a, that's a Beatle, you know. I'm past that and now into, we'll just be here, and I, I need to get myself together to be, be able to clearly explain to him what I'm gonna, what I've just done to his piano and how the piano, how the MIDI adapter works. So the moment kind of goes on and it's this kind of nice little thing. He's in a playful mood and we sit at the piano together on the same piano bench and showing him how it works. And he's playing the MIDI, playing the piano, which now I've hooked up to another synthesizer. So we're going MIDI signal out of the piano into a synthesizer that has some kind of string sounds. Oh, this is lovely. And he plays, and you know, you can see him just kind of lighting up. And it is quite an amazing thing when, for the first time in the piano's history, you were able to hear not just the piano but something else coming along with it. And he's really lit up by it, and it just turns into this kind of wonderful moment where he's in a He's enjoying playing this.

We're happy.

We have a good— we developed this wonderful rapport. And, and it's this conversation that goes into all sorts of things, all sorts of areas about Jimmy Page, about Yoko, about, uh, my family, about his family. And, oh, my, my aunt is up in Liverpool. You must look her up one day. And, and, um, it was just this incredible magical hang that ended with him after 4 hours going, anytime you're in the UK, just give us a bell. And I did, and I went to his home studio like a dozen times. I used to call him with, with jokes. And yeah, so, you know, at, at some level, we're all just peoples, and, uh, you know, if, uh, if you get in that right zone, it's, it's a It's a lot of fun.

So before, you know, I have so many questions about with these people, but can you discuss your involvement in the development of the first MIDI adapter for acoustic pianos? So I'm thinking MIDI. So then I thought it was like transferring from, you know, one digital keyboard into, you know, digital sphere or something like a computer. But then you can also hook up like this, my piano.

Yes.

Is with the silent feature, which is also connecting acoustic to digital. I'm not quite sure what it is. And then also, when I was a child, I had a Yamaha grand piano. And then my mother thought, oh, once my daughter would marry or something and then I will be alone. So I need the piano that plays some music for me because I don't, you know, my mother didn't play the piano. So she bought this thing, silent piano, player piano, player piano. And then so Yamaha had this, a disk clavier that connects, you know, this machine to the piano. Then she, the machine itself was like a size of like a mini fridge. Back then.

All right.

Yes. And she would—

yes, yes, the Wagon Grand. Yes. Right, right, right.

So I want to know this technology, that more than that, how did you get involved? I think with this MIDI thing, your career really took off even further. Yeah. You know, being able to meet Elton John, Paul McCartney, even like I read, um, Barbra Streisand ended up being in your apartment experimenting, you know, the media. Well, she—

Barbara, Barbara was indeed, and she still is. She, after 35 years, she's a, uh, client. And I was there just a couple months ago, and I, I told her assistant Renata, I said, Renata, my little maintenance sticker in here indicates this hasn't been tuned in a few years. I, I said, I presume it's been tuned since. She said, oh no, you're the only one that we let to touch this. Like, wow, okay. But no, Barbara has been a client for many years, but Carol King is the one who was— she became a client, and we actually took a road trip together, which is another story. But her being in my apartment, that's— well, that sounds like an interesting setup right there. Let me clean this up real quick. So she needed to hear— she was going to be working on a film. She's a composer as well. She was going to do her first film, Murphy's Romance, and she wanted something different for it. She wanted to use the MIDI piano. She was going to rent my piano. Could I come over and try it? So she came over to my apartment to hear my Kawai KG-2, which is what I had at the time. A really good, you know, good solid instrument that I installed this MIDI adapter. And so she loved the sound of playing the piano and then doubling what you're playing on piano with like, for instance, a Rhodes sound or a string sound. And she wrote the— I left, she says, hey, I'm kind of inspired right now and I had to leave. Do you mind if I stay and play? I said, sure, just lock up when you're done.. And so when I came back, she— there's this little note on my piano, Jim, I got the song. So she was trying to find the inspiration for writing the song for the end credits of Murphy's Romance, which she did. But you asked, how did I get into the MIDI thing? Well, in my book, Tuned In: Memoirs of a Piano Man, available at all fine retailers, wherever you buy books. In the book, there's a recurring theme which I called the power of one. And what I mean by that is how one moment, one gesture, one little chance encounter can change the destiny of your whole life. And there have been many of those in my life, but in my book, I describe four of them. And one of them was when I was tuning the piano on the set of Name That Tune, which was an old TV show. And obviously the piano was kind of a very important part of that because people would go, I can name that tune in 5 notes. Da da da da da. So, but as I was tuning the piano on this empty set of Name That Tune, I noticed across the way there was this guy. Setting up a Fender Rhodes piano. And I'm kind of late to my next appointment, and I think, gosh, I wonder if that's Chuck Monte, this guy who had done this cool modification for a Fender Rhodes to make it sound brighter, etc. I'm really late, I don't have the time to go talk to him, but I'm just gonna do it anyway. So that decision right then, that turned out to be something that would change my life because Chuck had heard about me. Oh, listen, I've got a piano at home. I would love you to come work on it. I did. I did regulation voicing, this full 8, 10-hour job, a day-long procedure. He was blown away. He would put me in touch with these two guys up in San Jose who were working on this, this new adapter for acoustic piano. To go a little bit further left here, Steve Solani was working at Sequential Circuits, which is a synthesizer company. The head of Sequential Circuits was in communication with the head of Roland. Both companies were kind of in competition with each other, but these guys had this brilliant idea. What if we were to have a protocol of when you play your synthesizer, we can take a signal, go out of that, and trigger my synthesizer? So this really brilliant idea of how can we work together to create something that, that, you know, a rising tide raises all ships, which they did. Steve Solani was working at Sequential. He got wind of this new protocol that was being developed called MIDI, Musical Instrument Digital Interface, that would allow you to communicate between synthesizers. He got the idea, what if I take some of their switches and put them underneath the piano keyboard? And so even before MIDI protocol was fully announced, and before the very first synthesizer, the DX7, that had MIDI capability, before that was out, he was working on this thing. He needed a piano technician to kind of offer input. I became that guy. I got flown to San Jose many, many times to help with the how this would best fit inside a piano underneath the keys. I urged him to come up with lower profile switches because the switches that worked in a synthesizer They did work underneath the piano keys, but it really kind of felt a little bit spongy. That and a number of other things. And so I became the guy who, for the longest time, Yukimi, I was the only guy on the planet you could get this MIDI adapter from. And kind of all the studios here in LA, once one studio had it, they all had to have it. And then, as I said, the, the whole thing of getting flown to England to do work on the piano in The Little Shop of Horrors soundtrack, which— here's the funny thing about it— if you watch that movie and you listen to the piano, it's like you can't really tell that it's there. So, so, so that I got flown over there to work on that piano, and the end result is you really can't hear that so much, and— but it did put me there in the UK and it gave me the opportunity to do this work for McCartney, Elton, Keith Emerson and Phil Collins and sort of, and 35 studios over there. So when I first went to London, they originally said, hey, we want to have you here for 17 days to install it. And then we want to have you here in case it breaks down. I said, it's not going to break down. I didn't want to be away from my business in LA that long.

Long.

So I negotiated them down to instead of 17 days, I'll just stay at 10 days in this 4-star hotel. Well, and the— at the, uh, the— I ended up selling so many MIDI adapters and installing so many over there that I end up— ended up staying 3 and a half months. So I'm over there for 3 and a half months. Every studio over there, like I said, just long list of artists. And of course, everybody— it's not like I'm selling them— I'm working on fixing their refrigerator or something, and a lot of good repairmen is a great thing, but I was, you know, doing some kind of cool thing to their piano, which is the vehicle of the artistic expression. So it was really a heady time and getting to be ushered in at the highest level, um, and be received by all these people, uh, with wonderful wide open arms. It was a really incredible time.

Wow. Now, so what is it about you that attracts so many A-listers? Must be so good at what you do, you know, and you have to know technology and everything, of course. You know, your reputation as a technician, reputation as a person. But what is— and then, you know, I've read the— some stories with A-listers going, you know, dining out or whatever.

Like, yeah, must be something so special that it's an honor that's not lost on me. And I'm well aware that the first order of business is I'm there as a service person taking care of their piano. But if, over the years, I've become known for being able to deliver a good result, which I'm— that's the part that you earn. And then the part that comes to you as the bonus is what people, how they receive you. And ultimately, there's It's not just being able to deliver a good result. I do take it on myself to try to communicate as clearly as possible certain concepts about their piano. And if they're curious, I will try to walk them through. Here's, you know, I find that— are you happy with the tone? I always start with that. If they say, yeah, I love it. And if they say, why do you ask? Ah, just curious, you know, but if they say, I find it a bit bright, it's like, good, now the door is open for me to communicate about that. Because if I find the tone harsh and metallic and they, they love it, it's like, okay, then yay. If you ever find that you want to make the tone a bit more rich and warm, I can— there's a thing called voicing. You know, so many people think, well, it's a Yamaha, so it sounds like this, or it's a Steinway, so it sounds like that. Well, yes, there are certain traits, the tonal traits that each piano has, but that continuum of, you know, one extreme being dark and maybe even dull and dead, and then as you move on that needle, it's kind of warm but a little bit muted. And now in the middle is that it's warm and rich but focused and clear. And then you keep moving to where it's now bright and this harsh metallic. And I found that, you know, one man's ceiling is another man's floor. And for instance, I don't know if you remember Roger Williams. He was a pianist who played these kind of contemporary thing. Autumn Leaves was his big, big thing. Very, very sweet man. He wanted his Steinway B to just be really very, very warm and muted. And the other extreme is Eddie Van Halen, who had a number of pianos, and, God, can we make this piano any brighter? And it's, it's already so harsh and metallic. You think, oh God, really? Okay. But, you know, it's to each his own. And your original question was, you know, what brought me into these circles. It's number one, you, you know, want to learn your craft and to deliver the best quality result that you can do. And that reputation opens the doors. And if a personal relationship grows out of that, yay. And if it— sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes you specifically, you are summoned there by their assistant, specifically at a time when the artist isn't going to be there, so that— and you're put in the category, you know, with, you know, The Piano Pod, the house is going to be painted, the piano will be tuned, all the garden work will all be done while the artist is away, so that when they come, you know, they don't have to mess with any of that. I get it, and that's totally fine. But, um, in many cases I've had the extraordinary honor of being able to get to know them and have a personal relationship with them. And it is a fine line, it's a bit of a tightrope, you know. If that door kind of opens a little bit for you, then I do enjoy being in the presence of the movers and shakers, and it's rare air to be in that jet stream, to be in the creative space of a Paul McCartney or an Elton or one of these legends. It changed me. It really kind of— to go a little bit further off piste here, there's a thing in the spiritual world called shaktipa. So when you are in the presence of an enlightened master, somebody who has spent their life just really fine-tuning their being, they are vibrating at a really high level. And when you are in the presence of somebody like that and you feel that energy, well, something inside you awakens that's oh, there's a different way of looking at life. And when you're in the presence of a McCartney or somebody like that, when you get into that space, you sense that something is— there's a different way of being that's possible. And I found that with McCartney, especially when I had the opportunity to be in a more creative space, which you may be coming up on here in a little bit. I'll, I'll hit pause on that story for now.

Before continuing this fun episode with Jim Wilson, I'd like to take a moment to highlight The Piano Pod's valued sponsor, PH Media Studio, whose generous support helps us make this episode possible. Attention, The Piano Pod fans! I have exciting news just for you. Our website has undergone an incredible transformation. Ta-da! Welcome to the newly revamped website, featuring exclusive interviews with celebrated pianists and educators, showcasing podcast episodes, and captivating YouTube content. There's a lot to discover for every piano enthusiast just like you. With an intuitive design and smooth navigation, your journey through thepianopod.com is more fun than ever. And meet the creative force at the heart of this transformation, Poki Wang, with his latest venture, PH Media Studio. Poki has reimagined The Piano Pod's digital space into a sanctuary for all piano lovers. So head over to our website to immerse yourself in the piano universe and discover the magic firsthand today. And if If you are an independent artist like myself and want to elevate your online presence, look no further than PH Media Studio. Trust me, you won't be disappointed. So go to phmediastudio.com to see his amazing portfolio. So get in touch with the amazing Poki Huang today for more information. You have such an extensive career as a pianist and recording artist, and we'll get there. But before that, I want to— but I know your start was actually not as a pianist. You started as a guitarist and turned songwriter. That's what— that's the reason you went from Texas to LA, correct?

Yes, yes, yes.

And then you have this really— I don't know, like, out of this world stories in the book, and which I'm not going to spoil. But what's the start? I, I— let's start with how did you discover the love for music?

Well, I guess the direct answer for that is, um, my mother really loved her folk music and her Joan Baez records, and that kind of got imprinted in my musical DNA and like Shenandoah, you know, Shenandoah, I long to hear you far away. There's something about that melodic shape and my mom's love of that that got really baked into my DNA. And I can still hear echoes of that kind of a melody to this day. And I want to hit pause for a second and just say mad, mad props to your listeners who I know there's a lot of classical pianists in there. I have such high regard and envy for people who have that level of mastery. So as far as piano and guitar, I did take piano lessons when I was 6. My mom wanted me to take it, and I just remember kind of walking away from that thinking, if music is about these stupid little dots and sticks, I don't want any part of it, you know? And oh, how I wish I would have stuck with it. I wish I could, you know, could— I just, I have such envy for people who, you know, put this music down and they just go, all right, let's read, and, you know, they just blow through it. Well, I, I'm not that way, you know, and as I observe, you know, there are people are kind of wired a little bit more right brain or a little bit more left brain, and I think that people who are a little bit more left brain do have a little bit more facility with of looking at the printed page and interpreting that, as opposed to some people like me who are a little bit more right brain and have a bit better facility with listening to it and figuring it out. What is that chord? And I wish, you know, in the perfect world, it's the integrated thing where you can read like crazy, but you can also hear and you can go, okay, he's going to the 6 chord there, that's a 3 minor, that's a add 2 over 3 there, you know, you can hear these things. But like I said, the piano, I thought, if music is about those dots and sticks, I don't want. And every good boy does not necessarily do fine. So, and as I mentioned, one of the themes in my book is the power of one, how one moment can change your world.. And in my case, so I'm about 7 now. The piano thing is a failed experiment for me. And my mom says, hey, you want to join me for a little errand I'm going to run? I said, sure. Yeah, beats doing homework. And jump in the car. We go over to a friend's house, a man named Toy. How about that for an interesting name? And So I'm there while my mom and Toy are talking about grown-up stuff, drinking Chardonnay, and I'm left to my own devices as a bored 7-year-old. I'm looking around the room and I see in this corner this guitar sitting there. I look over there, not watching. I just go over there and I just kind of pluck the guitar. And then I put it on my knee and I play it. And, uh, something lit up in me because it's just the resonance. And, and this is me on my own. This isn't somebody saying, you gotta study these scales, you gotta do this, you know. And, uh, as we were leaving—

take your time.

Isn't it funny that after all these decades This gesture still moves me because as we were leaving, this Toi says, hey, I saw you playing that guitar. Do you like it? I said, yeah, it's amazing. He goes, take it, it's yours. And with that one gesture, Yukimi, he just this lovely gesture. He had no big intention behind it, but he changed my life, which is, uh, something that, you know, you never know what, what thing that you're— what, what gesture you're doing, what gift you're giving. You never know the, the ripples in the pond that are going to happen after that. So honestly, whatever art I've created in my life, whatever difference I may or may not have made to somebody with my music, it kind of all traces back. Ground zero for me was that little moment where he says, 'Take it, it's yours.' And over the decades, I would come to realize the the profound sort of metaphysical meaning of that. Whatever it is that you want to do with your life, whatever it is that you aspire to, the only obstacles between you and that are in your head. Take it, it's yours. You know, if you want it, reach for it, it's yours. And so that's ultimately the message of my book is that all these stories and then ultimately, you know, there's a profound thing that happens in my life that changes my whole destiny and makes me pursue my dream with a passion, you know, that ultimately my my wish with my book and with my music is that it adds some value. But if my story gives one person the tiniest bit of inspiration, then, then it's all worth it to me. And if I can hear my grandkids saying, you know, they want to reach for the brass ring, then I hope they'll, they'll hear me saying, take it, it's yours.

Well, you know, thank you for really opening up and sharing all the stories and even feelings. And as I was reading the book, it took me— your journey. I mean, I was— I feel like I was just really looking at your life. And it's a really fun, incredible book. So I would like my audience to have a read, you know, take a look. Yeah. And then just experience. And anyway, so You know, from that young Jim Wilson, and then decided to, after graduating from high school, and they decided to pack up everything and decided to move to LA and being a songwriter, then, you know, became a piano technician. I mean, you were a piano technician before moving to LA, but, you know, that skill of being a piano technician became such a, not only gave you the ways to live, because I'm sure living in LA is not easy, you know, to make a living. I live in New York City, it's tough to make a living, right?

The big towns, because they can swallow you up, right? Big towns like that.

Yeah, sure. So, but not only became that your livelihood, but your became your career and having to have all these contacts. That's amazing. But then now, later on in your life, you also became a pianist and then have this successful career. So let's talk about that. I know we're really moving fast, too fast forward, but now you have this record of 4 hitting Billboard Top 20 record and also 75 million streams on music streaming services and more. So how did you get into this piano career? So you, you took piano lessons when you were 6 and you quit, but they came back. But how did you come back? And I, I remember, if I'm correct, reading correctly, um, Chick Corea taught you piano, no?

Yeah, that's awesome. Well, to back up from that, so, you know, piano lessons were not for me. Guitar, I could study it on my own terms and now I could take things apart. When I was 19, my stepfather gave me an old clunker piano and I thought, okay, well, I can. So I took my James Taylor riffs on guitar and what we call hammer-on, you know, if you're in the key of D, you go, you play the E before you hit the F sharp.

Right?

So you do the little hammer-on, the flick. So that kind of became a cornerstone to my whole piano style. And I was 19, and then years would go by, and I started composing a little bit. My original dream to move out to Los Angeles was to become a big singer-songwriter. And I always joke that I wanted to become the next Jackson Browne and instead became the next Jackson Browne piano tuner. And so yes, indeed, I started tuning for Chick Corea and just was treated to see these incredible mini concerts. You know, it became our routine that after each tuning, he would come out and he'd play the piano and Hey, and he became to respect my musical opinion, and he would play me something new that he was working on, or he got into the Mozart phase, you know, he was playing Mozart. And so I'm not just sitting there listening, but I mean with my head into the piano where the microphones would be. So it's this glorious, you know, just you're completely enveloped. It's this incredible sound by one of the masters. It was amazing. So at one point he was curious. He's a very smart, he was a very smart man and very curious about many things. Hey Wilson, would you be interested? I really want to learn how to tune a unison on my own. Would you be interested in trading a piano lesson for a tuning lesson? Wow. So, you know, I showed him how to hold the tuning hammer, how to set the tuning pin, how to set the string, etc., etc. So he showed me this one little exercise which I've shown dozens and dozens of people, this wonderful exercise, Yukimi, and we can go a bit into the weeds on this one because this is the right place for this. The exercise itself is nothing. It's like a child's things. It's a 5-finger exercise. So your, your left pinky is on the C and then an octave higher your thumb is on the C. So 5, so, and you're going in contrary motion. The right hand is going ba da da da da da da da da da. And while the left hand is going ba da da da da da da da da da. So you're going contrary motion. Actually, sorry, this one is ba dum ba dum ba dum. That's the exercise, but it's contrary motion. While the right hand is going ba dum, the left hand is going ba da dum. So, okay, so it's contrary motion. That is the pattern that you're playing, but that's not the point of the exercise. The point of the exercise And here's the trick. You put your metronome on like 40 or 50 BPM instead of ba dum ba dum. It's really slow, really slow. And you are sitting there ba dum dum dum dum dum dum, et cetera. And what you are focused on is burying that click so that you're not landing on the click before or after. You are perfectly in sync with it. And the other things that you focus on is these are legato notes. They're not staccato. They are perfectly— they perfectly blend into the next. So The C doesn't blend into the G, but there's no gap between them either. So it's this perfect, smooth legato. They're all played with the same velocity, the same volume. They're all played with the— perfectly in time. Let me tell you, if you have any timing issues whatsoever, issues with the racing or rushing or dragging. This will shine a huge spotlight on that. And if you do this little exercise for 10 minutes a day, past the first minute you're going, "Okay, I've got this." No, you don't. Be there in this moment. And also technique. This is where you focus on the fingertips are resting lightly on the key tops. The only note that is— the only finger that's moving is the one that's right now being played. So the, the C in the left hand and the G in the right hand are moving, and you don't want to flinch the other fingers. They're nice and calm and relaxed. In fact, you kind of maybe want to move your shoulders a little bit so that there's a nice fluidity about it. And you're focusing on only the note that's being played is the finger that's moving. And you'll find that the other ones want to flinch a little bit. Well, that's what you gotta— so you focus on that. This is what this exercise will uncover. And so I'm grateful to Chick for this incredible, um, simple little exercise, but it will uncover timing issues like none other. It has for me. And if there's anything that I think I'm relatively good at is I'm happy with my technique. I have a fairly smooth technique. You know, there are pianists who are light years— in fact, most pianists are light years beyond me because I fancy myself more of a composer than I do a pianist. Like I said, I'm really, really envious of probably 99% of your audience who who can just look at any piece of music and just play. And, man, I just have mad props to anybody who's put in those kind of hours to have that level of mastery. But this for me was a great on-ramp to be able to have a nice technique, a really good smooth technique. And for me as a composer, my main concern was to be able to have the ability to play what it was I was hearing in my head.

So then, you know, when did you start writing music for piano? What was the mo— what motivated you to finally really take a leap into this?

Right, right. As I mentioned, uh, Yukimi, I originally came out here, my original dream was Hey, I'm going to be the next Jackson Browne singer-songwriter. And I had so much connection with these great singer-songwriters, James Taylor and, and, uh, and of course Elton John. And, uh, but really the guitar guys, James Taylor and, uh, James Taylor. Did I mention James Taylor? No, not yet. Okay, okay, James Taylor. So I came out here to pursue the singer-songwriter James Taylor, Jackson Browne That was the image, write songs and/or also write hit songs. And so, I kept looking, studying the craft of writing a hit song and the structure, you know, the verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, etc. And in between writing those songs, none of which were really that great, they were good and I got good at them, In between those, I would amuse myself and I would sit at the piano and think, no one's ever going to hear this, but God, doesn't it feel great when I do this like 16th note pattern in B minor? And then I raise the 5, I do a sharp 5. Oh God, isn't that cool? And then I would hear, I incorporate that and there is a bit of piano in my, DNA, you know, Bach. I love Bach, and I listen to a lot of classical music and Beethoven. And in Amarillo, I went into a record store and I said, I'm sorry, where's your classical music section? And she said, you mean like Mozart and those guys? Yeah, yeah, I'll find it myself, thanks. Um, my name is Mozart, so Mozart is in there in my musical DNA too. And And as I became, as I started writing these pieces just for my own amusement, I was pulling from all these different resources. The, like I said, the folk song, the Appalachian kind of melody and how those are shaped, and then pulling in some, some Mozart and all these different influences and switched on Bach was back there. And then I was also obsessed with Keith Jarrett and the Köln Concert I will tell you that I've listened to the Cohen concert so many hundreds of times that I have to be very careful because if I listen to it, it gets stuck on a loop in my brain. It's that deeply entrenched. So pulling from all these different resources, no one's ever going to hear this stuff, but man, doesn't it feel great to just— these things, these piano pieces. And One of the things that really— one of the first pieces of this kind of iteration, I was at Dan Fogelberg's ranch in Colorado. I wouldn't expect your listeners to maybe know exactly who he is, but he's a great, great singer-songwriter, another big influence on me, another hero. And he was— we had these great, great hangs at his ranch in Colorado. I was sitting at the piano and I started playing one of these little pieces that I had worked on, you know, just like I said, pulled from all these different influences. What is that? And I said, oh, it's just a little piece I do for my own amusement. Well, play it again. So I played it again and he goes, God, that is beautiful. Maybe I could do a lyric to it. Okay. Well, I said, that's great, but the only problem with that would be that during this B section, I'm carrying the melody in the bass. So it would sound a little bit weird for the lyric to hang on that melody. Really, it would need kind of a counter melody during that B section. He goes, well, play it again. I did. Boom, right out of the gate, he sang this perfect counter melody to the bass line. So the bass line and the melody kind of interplay with each other. And he never got around to writing a lyric to it, but that would become the illin pipe melody on my first CD, which is Northern Seascape. So we co-wrote this piece together, and it was totally sort of by accident, and it was something again intended for my own amusement. And that would become— those pieces that I was writing for myself would become the cornerstone for Who I am as an artist. And doesn't that kind of speak volumes? It's like, well, there's what you envision yourself to be and what you're striving toward. And there's also what brings you— what brings you the most spiritual gratification also has the best chance of bringing spiritual gratification to somebody else. You know, if it's something that's really true and authentic to you, it's going to communicate a lot better.

Yeah, and I've listened to your albums a little bit for the last few weeks or so since we started talking, and they are very, very beautiful. So some of them are like some sort of like collaborations, and the others are like your solo. And then I hear some, you know, piano with other instruments, and sometimes there are solo pieces. And then what are the— what do these genres? Uh, it's not pop, but it's like, um, sort of mixture of jazzy jazz style, pop style with the classical elements.

Yeah, a little bit. Um, I just call it piano feature instrumentals as a blanket term. Contemporary instrumental, um, in terms of Billboard and the way they categorize things, here are our little categories. And if you're not that, then you're that. And it's certainly not jazz, but they put me into New Age. I'm a tiny bit allergic to that term because— and no, not to knock anybody in that genre because there's some really wonderful calming stuff, but it's usually not melody-driven. And that's the main thing for me is I'm really of the opinion that you should be able to take your composition, walk away from the piano, and sing the melody. So the melody should be strong enough and attractive enough to stand on its own. And I'm very, very much in that school of thought of strong melodies. And those are the things that stay with you. Uh, but so they put me in the New Age category, and my first record made number 21 in the New Age, uh, category, which is really, uh, a hell of an honor. And I've since been there 4 different times.

Wow, that's, that's incredible. So you have really so many fans who are, you know, faithfully listening to your music and, you know, uh, streaming from streaming, right?

Yeah, yes, yes. And, and, you know, at the end of the day, it's, it's not what I set out to do, but I would much rather have this dream of my music connecting with the right people in the right way. And, you know, 75 million streams, I'm— believe me, I'm grateful for that. It wasn't the big, you know, big fanfare 'Wow, he's singer-songwriter playing big tours,' etc. But my music has value to the right people in the right way, and that's more gratifying to me than any other thing I could wish for.

Well, before, you know, going into the next segment, you mentioned that in, you know, while we were communicating before our interview session, you said there isn't a limitless reservoir of tomorrows. Yeah. So could you share, um, how—

what led me to that realization?

Yeah.

Well, as, as we were talking about, little Jimmy moves to Los Angeles with the idea of becoming a singer-songwriter. That's the big mission. And I'm writing these pieces in between that. They're just for my own amusement. And I kind of didn't quite know what was ringing true for me. The old, whole singer-songwriter thing wasn't kind of resonating with me. But the thing that really changed the direction of my whole life, my best friend died of a heart attack at the age of 37. It just grabbed me by the collar. My brother had died a decade earlier, younger brother, of a heroin overdose, and that shattered me. Claude's passing shattered me in a different way because Claude and I were dear friends, and we would get together, we'd do mastermind sessions, and we'd talk about our goals and our dreams., and I could, you know, new house. We'd support each other in our dreams. And I just watched him check off each one of these little dreams like off of a grocery list, you know, it's just staggering to watch him. He became David Foster's right-hand man and just an amazing arranger and producer, songwriter with hits by Celine Dion. It's like, Oh my God. And then we got into the personal stuff of he could just see himself in his new home with his wife that he was hoping to, you know, he wanted to be married and have kids. And he envisioned his little kid running into, Daddy, make me pancakes, you know, all the way down to that. We were the detail and the nuance of our dreams. I thought, ladies and gentlemen, stand back, watch how it's done. This is how you manifest a dream. And then he died. And just 2 months prior to his passing, he played this sonata for me on piano. Well, he, like me, he had achieved a certain success in one arena, but what he really wanted to do, he wanted to step out as a solo artist. And this sonata was like, oh my God, it's so beautiful.

Staggering.

And, uh, and so there I am in the hospital room. I'm holding his cold hand. What the hell happens to those dreams now? And I saw how easily they could just vaporize, you know. And that was really the— that was the turning point for me in my life. And I realized there isn't a limitless reservoir of tomorrows. There isn't a guarantee of anything. So, whatever it is you want with your life, whatever it is you aspire to, get the hell on with it. So, it was that shock, that wake-up call, that slap in the face, that jump into an icy pool that made me go, "Okay. Oh my God, what happens if I get that tap on the shoulder?" Time's up, pencils down, turn in your assignments as is, let's go. I thought, okay, George Winston had had great success. I enjoyed listening to his piano music. If he did it, I can do it. I want to put together a record of these pieces that I enjoy playing so much. And if 10 people hear this record and they go, you know what, Wilson could come up with a nice melody, these are— these, these— this music has meaning for me, I enjoy it. If that's the worst that came of this, then that's what I want to do. So I really got serious and I thought, okay, I started— I wanted to be a little bit more than just piano, solo piano.. And in my universe at the time was this guy Eric Rigler. I'd heard him perform. He played uilleann pipe, you know, the Irish bagpipes they say, and, and penny whistle, Irish flute. And I love that. And I started just sort of pulling from these elements from my universe at the time. And, you know, I was very friendly with, you know, the top LA session cats. And, and one of the first people that I called was my friend Davy Johnstone, the guitar player for Elton Elton John. And I thought, I want him to play guitar on my first CD. And he's such a sweet guy. Before I could even have to muster the courage to say, hey, Davey, will you play on my record? Before I'd even said that, I said, so I'm thinking about putting together an album of piano stuff. And, oh, that's great, man. You want me to play on it? So, you know, it's really amazing, Yukimi, when you are really on purpose and you are on your true life mission and you're moving forward with conviction. It's amazing to watch how the universe just kind of unlocks doors for you. And just Davey played on my first record and Eric Wrigler of The Island player. He just, man, he was, he, uh, came into my life at exactly the right time. And then Dave Caws, this wonderful sax player, and, and it was this interesting little cauldron of, of people and influences. Mike Landau, a great session player, but, and everybody was doing something a little bit out of their, out of their wheelhouse. In other words, Davy Johnstone wasn't doing what he would do with Elton. He was doing this kind of classical guitar, you know, nylon string guitar. Mike Landau would bring over his Roy Rogers guitar, as he called it, you know, and do this. And then Eric Rigler was doing his Irish flute on top of my piano instrumentals. And it was this kind of interesting collection of things. And it's really amazing, like I said, when you're really on right there on your life's purpose, everything kind of falls into place for you. Certainly did with me.

Well, yes, yes, I agree. But I think also you've really worked hard. And, you know, yeah, I say I'm reading your book and coming from, you know, a challenging childhood, and then you really did work hard. And you also have the— probably I haven't met you in person, but have the charm to attract people. Yes, and especially people like, you know, Elton John and, you know, and Chick Corea. Hey there, TPP family! The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song is now into our 4th season, and it's all thanks to you. Since 2020, you've been with my journey with the TPP exploring this burning question: how do we make classical music to resonate with today's audience in fresh and captivating ways. 4 years in, and the journey has been nothing short of magical. The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song with Yukimi Song isn't just a podcast; it's a movement, a space where pianists, composers, and educators brainstorm, debate, and reimagine classical music's place in our fast-paced world. We're together on a mission to ensure classical music doesn't just survive but thrives in our modern age. But here's the thing: to keep bringing you these insightful biweekly episodes, I need your help. Every bit of support goes into the podcast's essentials, from hosting to high-quality recording tech and the countless hours behind the scenes. So do you want to be part of this journey? Click the PayPal link in the show notes or head to thepianopot.com to donate. And as a token of appreciation, I will personally mail you The Piano Pod's snazzy logo sticker. So hit the subscribe button, spread the word, and let's continue our mission and journey as classical musicians. Now let's continue with the show. I want to know what was the inspiration for writing Tuned In?

Well, Yukimi, the pandemic hit. I don't know if you remember that. It was a, this thing called COVID.

Oh yeah.

Probably you've forgotten about it by now, maybe.

Oh, I, I still remember.

Yes.

You still remember? I still remember.

Yeah, I know. It, it was an astounding thing. And, and, you know, you heard about something happening over in China and, and then, well, that's not gonna happen here. And then it, Oh my gosh, it's in San Francisco. And then the next thing you know, just in a short order, shut down the whole world, you know, the whole pandemic. And we were all stuck at home, and I finished some musical projects that I had and some musical videos. And one of the big things on my to-do list for my whole life was writing down some of these stories. And I thought, okay, that roll up the sleeves and start putting these stories down to paper. And ultimately, it became about the bigger narrative. You know, there's writing these fun stories, which I've had kind of a— like I said, it's a rocket ship built for one. And I've had such an extraordinary opportunity to meet some of my childhood heroes and get to interact with them and to to be inspired by them on my musical journey. So I knew that really I needed to get these stories down. Ultimately, it evolved into the bigger narrative of, well, who did I come in the— become in the process of trying to achieve this? How on earth did I even get in there, in this, on the same piano bench as Paul McCartney in the first place? You know, it's because this musical goal that I had, which would evolve over time, as we said. And so my hope with the book, of course, is that people get to be entertained by these fun behind-the-scenes stories with these music icons. But I also hope that my journey as an artist and, and the struggles that I encountered and the obstacles that I overcame that that maybe serves to inspire somebody on their musical mission as well. Musical, whatever, whatever your dream is, because the same fundamentals apply, you know. And one of the fundamentals of storytelling is character plus want plus obstacle equals conflict.. And I did study the craft. And you, you talked about the evolution of this book. I wanted it to be as good as it possibly could be. I studied with two different writing coaches. One was in South Africa. We had, had a, a weekly Zoom and we would go over each thing.

Yeah.

And it was 9 in the morning for me and 6 in the evening for her. And she took no prisoners, man. She didn't, uh, pull any punches. It's like, 'This is all good and these are good stories, but in order for this to land, it can't just be summary, summary, summary.' And she taught me, you know, rule number 1: show, don't tell. So show us, don't tell us. 'I was really angry.' Okay, you're telling us that you're angry. Show me, you know, 'The blood vessels in my neck started bulging,' you know, etc., etc. And So she taught me the fundamentals of that, and I studied the structure of novels. My book is more structured like a novel, you know, Act 1, 2, and 3. And then the inciting incident happens there, the point of no return happens there. So I really studied the craft of it, and it became just like literally everything, every album that I've ever done, everything I get into it, and the more I get involved in it, the better I want it to be. And I want it to be this, I mean, I wanted to have meaning. So, 85,000 words, you know, it's a 4-year marathon. And just going over it, I probably did 10 different drafts. There's the first time through, the blueprint draft, and you go through and kind of make each thing better and better and better. And oh, what a process. And it was released on April 2nd. It hit number 1 on 4 different categories in Amazon and piano sound, the composers, biographies, etc., etc. So it's really, really gratifying to have it be connecting with people and people are emailing me and saying, oh my God, it's mesmerizing. And That's when I know I've succeeded, when I've— when people are inspired by my journey. That's my biggest mission with, with this, is that somebody, somebody finds some value in their lives with it, you know.

So for listeners, um, please check out his book called Tuned In: Memoirs of a Piano Man, available on Amazon Kindle, everywhere.

Barnes Noble. There's the paperback, hardcover, and ebook. I'm working on the coloring book version of it now.

Oh really? Oh my goodness. No, you're too sweet.

But I will be doing an audiobook version of it, and that'll be out later this year.

So, oh, wonderful.

Um, yeah, great. Go tuned in. Memoirs of a Piano Man, and then the subtitle is Behind the Scenes with Music Legends and Finding the Artist Within.

So perfect title. Yeah, perfect. Now, so along with that, uh, I just want to know your thoughts on fame. So throughout your career, you've been surrounded by famous people, and you pursued probably some sort of fame, or because you, you were in Hollywood of late '70s. Oh, still you're in LA I'm sure. So, so, but then you were in that really late '70s, early '80s, that, you know, bubble, you know what I mean?

Yes.

So what's your perspective on fame and success?

Well, there's, there's fame, and of course that's a very tantalizing thing. And when you're living in Hollywood, it's a very image-based town, and it's hard not to get wrapped up in that whole thing of fame and money and what house do you live in and what area and what car do you drive and all that. But really, success for me is measured in, you know, how I've reached people with my art. What the mission of art is, you know, to speak to our innermost spiritual beauty. And music has the power to do that, to transcend. And that's certainly my mission. That sounds very lofty in comparing it to that. And that is my mission. And I'll do it on whatever level it can. If it's an email that I get from somebody saying, oh my God, I've listened to Cape of Good Hope, you know, hundreds of times, it's my morning routine, or you know, and now I'm getting it with my book. You know, people are saying, "Wow, this is— I'm so— I'm mesmerized. I'm drawn in. I'm, you know, I'm inspired to get on with my dream." That ultimately, that's my measure of success. So, you ask about, you know, what's fame and success. The fame thing, it's kind of a little side sidebar thing. But it's— the true measure is creating some level of art that has the power to transform on some even subtle level. If you're amused for a few hours reading this book, or if you're inspired on your journey, that's my mission. And I certainly appreciate you giving me a platform to speak to folks. And I've really, really enjoyed chatting with you. And oh yeah, wonderful curiosity. And obviously, you know, we're made, cut from the same cloth in that we, we love this thing called music. And, and here's to music and its wonderful power to transform.

Yes, yes, great. So do you have any advice for aspiring musicians?

Don't do it. Go back, be an accountant, do anything but music.

I would, I would be the same.

I would give the same advice. You know, it is challenging. Anybody who's jumping into that pool, you know, wanting to be in the arts, be it music, be it pop music, rock, classical music, whatever, acting, painting, the arts, it's the most gratifying thing that you could ever hope for. It's also the most challenging. Thing. And you better be prepared to, you know, as Malcolm Gladwell says, like we said, those 10,000 hours, you know, you got to put in the hours and study the technique and study the scales. Ultimately, I did, by the way, I did study with a piano teacher in Cleveland as I was going to piano tuning school and made me do all the scales and the heavy lifting. And those things are of great value. But, you know, to an aspiring pianist, aspiring artist, focus more on what it is that you want to say as an artist and try to make yourself happy. Wasn't that the ultimate lesson for me? You know, it's like, here I am struggling trying to write these songs that people are gonna, you know, it's gonna make the top 40. And ultimately what would define me as an artist is these pieces that I was composing for my own amusement. And what brings you the most spiritual gratification for yourself, the art that you create, is what's going to have the best shot at bringing spiritual gratification to somebody else listening to it as well, adding value to their lives.

So for our listeners, so please check out Jim's Tuned In: Memoirs of a Piano Man, which is available on all digital retail platforms. And also, I would Really highly recommend to listen to his recordings on all major streaming services, right?

Yes, indeed. A nice landing page if you're interested about the book or my music, jimwilsonmusic.com/tunedin. And that's where jimwilsonmusic.com is where my music can be heard and my videos. And then, and one of the pages on that website is jimwilsonmusic.com/tunedin. It tells you kind of the story behind the book and gives you some links where you can go buy it if you're interested.

Well, Jim, it's been a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much.

I've enjoyed it.

Oh yes, thank you for really opening up to me and then sharing your story. Now, before I let you go, we have one more thing to do, which is the rapid-fire question segment. And I will ask you some silly questions, but I want you to answer them as short responses as possible. However, These questions may reveal who truly you are. So, uh-oh. Oh yeah, I know. So let's start with easy ones. Level 1, question number 1: What is your comfort food?

Comfort food— German chocolate cake. I'm going to try to, with the least amount of, of, uh, thought, I'm going to give you, uh, that's always been a, a fun food. Delicious. Gratifying. Not healthy, but it's okay.

Great. No judgment here. How do you like your coffee in the morning?

With cream and, uh, one cup of, of creamer. There we go. Strong French, French roast.

Cats or dogs?

Both. As it happens, we have a cat, uh, Maxie, who is just the most extraordinary blessing in our lives. She's just the She's just— she— we're teaching her how to do high five.

She's very—

she's constant reminder of the importance of playfulness.

Oh, so, and then, are you a summer person or winter person?

I'm gonna go with summer. I love driving up the California coast to Big Sur. Nothing like it, nothing like it. Beautiful summer day.

Now, level 2 questions.

Oh boy, here we go.

What skills or what skill have you always wanted to learn but haven't had a chance to?

Oh goodness, wouldn't it be amazing to be an astronaut and to go up into space and, and be on the space station and, and to be able to see the Earth from that point of view?

What is your word or words to live by?

Commitment.

What is the most important quality you look for in other people?

Humor. Sense of humor.

Oh, that's a good one. Name 3 people who inspire you, living or dead.

Paul McCartney, um, uh, Chick Corea, and, uh, Gandhi.

Okay, yeah. Now level 3, 2 more questions to go. Name one piece in your current Playlist?

Angel by Sarah McLachlan.

Fill in the blank: music is blank.

My salvation.

Wow, that's a good one. Nobody have ever said that.

I mean it with all my heart. It really was. It's, you know, when that gift of a guitar was given to me when I was a kid, that was like somebody throwing a lifeline to a struggling kid, and it gave me a means to It gave me an identity. I'm, you know, gave me a way to process these emotions that I couldn't quite deal with. It was my salvation.

Wonderful. Wow, that's powerful. Thank you, Jim. So that concludes this episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. Thank you once again, Jim, for joining my show today and sharing your stories, insights, and expertise. So for The Piano Pod listeners and viewers, please visit jimwilsonmusic.com to learn more about Jim's career and connect with him on social media. All the links are in the show notes. And thank you to my wonderful audience and fans for tuning in today. If you enjoyed today's episode, please rate and review it wherever you get your podcast, and remember to hit the thumbs up button and subscribe to my YouTube channel. Thank you if you're watching this. So follow The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song on social to get the latest piano news via Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn. I will see you for the next episode of The Piano Pod with Yukimi Song with Jim Park. Thank you. Bye everyone, and thank you, Jim.

Thank you, Yukimi, for having me. Thank you everybody for listening.

Thank you.