A Pianist’s Impressions of G-Phil (a desktop app for macOS and Windows introduced in 2023 by pianist Vyacheslav Gryaznov), written by Shreyas Verma.
One of the many benefits of being a pianist is never needing to worry about finding an accompanist when the time comes for any kind of performance. The majority of the music that we learn is meant to be practiced and played solo (which I have to admit can get lonely sometimes). There are however certain times when a pianist will need an accompanist to be able to perform a work to its full capacity.
Vyacheslav Gryaznov has created an app, G-Phil, which utilized technology used in film scoring, to create virtual recordings of the orchestra part for many piano concertos.
Piano concertos, in my opinion, are some of the most fantastic and grand works written across all genres, instruments, and time periods. Famous pieces, such as Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, transcend beyond the realm of classical music and become known even to the general public. Any pianist who sets out to learn one of these beasts will undoubtedly put in countless hours at and away from the piano to be able to perform it well. Although that would generally suffice for a solo work, in a piano concerto, the pianist must understand their part and the orchestra’s part equally. Especially when playing the later romantic piano concertos, there are often many times where the pianist isn’t the soloist but rather adds texture to the orchestra which is playing the melody.
Now, unless you are a quite famous pianist, or you have won a concerto competition of some sort, it’s very unlikely that most pianists will have the opportunity to perform a concerto with orchestra, regardless of how much effort was put into learning the music. This is where Vyacheslav Gryaznov’s technology comes into play.
What Vyacheslav Gryaznov has done is create an app called G-Phil, which uses the same technology used in film scoring, to create virtual recordings of the orchestra part for many piano concertos. Prior to its development, there were very few recordings on YouTube, only of the most famous piano concertos however these recordings were often difficult to work with for many reasons.
For starters, the recordings would have a set tempo for every section of the piece which made it difficult for musicians to impose their musical preferences whilst playing, as they would be forced to follow what was happening in orchestral part.
G-Phil eliminates this issue by separating the concertos into several different sections and giving you a range of tempos you can choose from, making it a much more customizable experience. Another issue with regular recordings is that piano concertos always have sections where the pianist plays solo and being able to time how long you play for so that you end when the orchestra begins again is virtually impossible, but with Gryaznov’s technology, musicians have the ability to cue exactly when the orchestra will enter with the use of a keyboard or a foot pedal.
G-Phil also has a much wider variety of piano concertos available to customize as opposed to what was available on YouTube. Gryaznov has developed the orchestral parts to all of Rachmaninoff’s piano concertos, all of Ravel’s piano concertos, multiple of his own works, several of Mozart’s works, and there are many others that are in the process of being created. As I was working on preparing for an upcoming concerto competition (where I will play Grieg Piano Concerto), I was introduced to G-Phil and it was extremely useful in my preparation process. The software itself is very intuitive and easy to use, and the concept is something that all pianists would benefit from using in their practice.
