Scotty earned his bachelor’s degree in music at the University of Dayton (where he was friends with my dad!). He is originally from the Pittsburgh area and went to Upper St. Clair High School. He and his wife, Amanda – the executive producer of the Lockdown Livestreams – have three children (who are also very talented too!): Wilson, 13; Claire, 12; and Emily, 10.
When did you start your interest in music? I was forced to play piano when I was five years old. My parents said, “you have to play the piano.” And I was like, “aww.” Actually, I was really excited about it, and after I did it for a little bit, I just loved it, so I’m glad that they told me I had to do it. And that’s how I first got interested in music.
When did you start your interest in the piano? I always watched my dad playing the piano and I loved it. When I was teeny-tiny, when I was maybe three years old, I had a tiny little toy piano. I would sit down at the toy piano and pretend to play, and my dad would play right next to me for real. So I just pretended, but I always loved the piano. The piano is such a great instrument, and when I was growing up we had a big piano in our house and it was just a fancy thing I always wanted to be able to do but (my parents) said, “You have to take lessons before you even sit down and try it.”
Why did your “Lockdown Livestreams” start? Well, I started them because everybody was at home and some people were by themselves. We were all told we had to stay inside and we couldn’t go anywhere or do anything, and we were really lucky because we have technology that allows us to connect with each other. Even though you’re in Pennsylvania right now, and I’m in Florida, we have this technology where we can see each other and we can talk to each other, and I thought it would be really great to share my gift of music with people using the technology that we have at our disposal. That’s really why I started the Lockdown Livestreams, because I really thought, how fun would it be to play music for my friends and my family who are all alone and by themselves in their house and It would be really great to make some music for some of my friends. And I was very excited to have so many people join me and it made me feel really good to be able to share the gift of music.
If you hadn’t gone into music, what career path would you have followed and why? There were a lot of different things I thought would be fun, but if it wasn’t going to be music, I would’ve wanted to be a teacher, because I had so many amazing teachers when I was growing up that I thought what a great gift it would be to try to be a cool teacher like all the great teachers that I had. That’s what I really thought I could do. And when I started college that’s what I actually started to do, I went to college to become a teacher, but I soon realized that I wasn’t as good as all the great teachers I had and I wasn’t going to be as great as them, so I focused more on music at that point.
What’s your favorite song(s) to play? I love so many different types of music. I think the only way I can answer it is that my favorite song changes from day to day, and from time to time, and depending on what mood I’m in. My favorite song to play always changes. Some of my favorite bands and singers are Jimmy Buffett and the Beach Boys, just because they have really upbeat, fun music. My favorite classical composer is an American composer from the 1800s, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, and he’s a great composer, I love his classical music.
I love Frank Sinatra music, and I love Michael BublĂ© music, those are some of my favorites to play, because I like to pretend to be Frank Sinatra when I sing and I like to try to do different voices like that. Another favorite is anything that makes the audience happy. So even if it’s a song that I’ve played 1,000 times, it can be a lot of fun for me just to see the audience enjoying it. And believe it or not, Sophie, there are songs that I’ve played 4,000 times.
What’s the hardest song to play on the piano for you? There are songs that I wish I could play – those are too hard for me to play. That’s a really good question, because if you practice hard enough you can do anything. Some of the classical songs I play are really tricky and I have to force my fingers to do tricky things, so I would say the classical music is really hard. And the songs that have a lot of words are always really hard too, for me to try to remember all the words. Like when I first learned “My Shot,” from Hamilton, it was SO hard, I was trying to remember all the words and they go by so quickly! There’s another song your mom and dad would know called “It’s the End of the World as We Know It,” (by) REM, and that was a really hard song to learn because there’s SO many words.
Another song that was really hard to learn is “God Only Knows,” by the Beach Boys, and it’s a really, really beautiful song, but the notes and the chords were really tricky when I first learned it. And now that’s one of my favorite songs to play, even though it was one of the hardest to learn. And there’s another song called “The Blue Danube Waltz,” and that’s a tricky one too because it kind of jumps all around. My left hand is jumping back and forth and my right hand is jumping back and forth.
Author's note: Thank you Mr. Scotty for letting me interview you! It was so much fun! It was my first Zoom interview! It was awesome! Buhbye! (PS: fans, if you want to hear Lockdown Livestreams, follow Mr. Scotty's Facebook page!)
The Kilwein family! (l-r) Amanda, Emily, Wilson, Claire and Scotty
