Dan Becker Releases An Emotionally Lush Set of Piano Pieces
- R.A.G.
- 6 minutes ago
- 4 min read
A gorgeous and moving new release from Dan Becker delivers a series of piano pieces that feel cinematic, built on an emotional backbone, and create these beautifully woven moods delivered by performances with heart and attention to dynamic touch.
Some of these pieces are almost magical. They create such a space for you to jump into and swim through. These are pieces of music that definitely have that feeling of movement and flow to them.
One of the most beautiful aspects of music like this is that it lets your mind sort of run free.
The pieces and instruments, performances and sounds, create those moods so the atmosphere is there, but it also lets your mind go wherever it wants to and allows you to envision things in your head as songs unfold.
The record is called Echoes of Silence, and starts with a track called "Quiet", which is absolutely breathtaking, especially towards the middle of the track. This is a great example of what I mean by a sense of magic. Your imagination is part of the music, and although you know these pieces have depth and meaning to them, you relate them to your own life almost automatically.
Songs like this made certain memories pop up in my head randomly. Some that I haven't thought of him quite some time, which is definitely thought-provoking and makes me feel like we all need music like this to see what happens to us when we listen.
It's all about what you feel when you're listening to the songs.
"Solace" is a wonderfully woven piece as well. It's got a bit of a waltz feel going on, and most certainly swallows you up and delivers certain aspects of emotion that range from a bit of sullenness or sadness, to hints of Joy glimmering through.
The way Dan performs on the instrument is really what makes it all work as perfectly as it does.
It's about how softly he hits the keys in certain sections or how hard he hits them in others; along with these melodies and notes that, at times, are almost just hinted at, which change the mood or feeling behind the piece in different parts.
"Penance" is probably one of my favorites and definitely sticks more to that wall style than even the last track did with the lower keys performing that rhythmic aspect, giving it a little bit of drive and balance. This was another one that really becomes engulfing, but in an amazing way.
Another attribute to this release that comes and goes throughout its course is the melodies that are almost like hooks that he goes back to, and these little chunks are the parts that stay in your brain. They bounce around in your head for hours or even days after the songs have ended, and the only way to satiate that is to go back and listen again.
Songs like "Lullaby", the record's closing track, display this perfectly.
So, you can hear the element of other influences in songwriting within these beautiful piano pieces, and I feel like that's an amazing combination.
That cinematic threshold is huge, and I feel like some of that influence probably came from film scores, but also classical music itself.
You can hear this combination of what feels like classic composers and current ones mixed together, but most importantly, the record has layers in terms of its emotion.
It's not about piano technique, even though it's amazingly performed.
It's about how Dan wanted to sit down and create songs that came from within. These are songs that are like chapters in his life, and it is once again, a combination of a certain element of sadness or loneliness, blended with the glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.
Now, this is one version of the EP. It is the main version, I suppose, of The Echoes of Silence record.
There's also another version called Echoes of Silence (Felted).
The performance feels the same, the songs are pretty much note-for-note exact, but the only difference is that the texture and tone of the instrument are softer, more delicate, almost muffled, as if you're listening to it with your ear to a wall or while being underwater.
This is actually not so uncommon in terms of a technique pianists use, where they actually put something between the hammers and strings of the piano itself.
For those of you who don't know too much about it, when you hit a key on a piano, there's a hammer that hits the string inside the instrument's body, and that's what creates the sound. So usually, they will put a piece of felt between the hammer and the string, creating a muffled version of that note. It is less sharp this way.
This is so cool. I think it's meant to deliver a little bit more of an impact in terms of the emotion. It works perfectly for this record because of that sadness within it and the moods it creates.
I honestly like both versions equally.
In general, I would suggest listening to the original Echoes of Silence first and then moving to the felted version so you can hear the difference.
Either way, don't miss this. Listen to it with headphones on so you can soak in everything, and see what happens when you listen. See where your mind goes. This record is a beautiful escape.
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