With a Little Help From My Friend

I don't know how many times I tried this and it got increasingly frustrating. There was no reason why I couldn't get a good recording. But over and over again it wasn't working.

Late last week I found out that my father-in-law wanted to take the kids. Perfect. Plans are ready to go. Kids are off to The Children's Museum, and I'm pumped. Lots of time to concentrate, no ambient noise, and it should be done in a couple takes. Not so fast, my friends.

Instead Sunday afternoon rolls around and the kids get back home. Jacob runs off to play with his friend Kevin, and Shannon's running around the house like a demon. I'll go ahead and entertain her with some piano, and hit the recorder just in case I get lucky. One take. The Rose. Win. I just needed my inspiration back.



And since I hadn't mentioned before, this was a special song for me. It was one of the first ones I learned that was real music, and not just a page out of Alfred's. I spent many a lunch at the music store where they let me practice because I wanted to perform it as a gift to my wife. It was our dance song at our wedding. Ironically, I'm the sentimental one when it comes to stuff like that, but she appreciated this one.

SSDD

That song I promised last week? Call me a slacker. Or busy. Or a terrible piano player.

I'm not sure what to make of it myself. I got close to a good recording yesterday, but there was enough sketchyness that I'd like to improve it.

The good news is that Moonlight Sonata is sounding very nice, though it's definitely still rough on pages 3 and 4. There's a section where it does some chord runs, (see, if I was a good piano player I'd just rattle off the notes), 3 up, 1 down, and I'm working on playing them like the triplets they are rather than eighth notes. All in all though, it's one of the few things I'm generally happy with right now as I can see clear progress.

In absence of anything substantive, here's a bunny with a pancake on his head.

What's the step just before progress?

I'm pretty confident I can get a recording of The Rose tonight. I played it fairly well at practice yesterday and then again last night. However, I was too busy with prior obligations to attempt a recording. Nothing special is on tonight's agenda so I fully expect to have new music for you tomorrow.

Practice was so so. I currently have the same five pieces I was working on last week and he only had minor advice for them. There wasn't much point in doing the same thing this week, so he gave me a jazz piece to look at the chords on. It looks pretty difficult to me, but the left hand chords should do me some good.

I regressed on Corpse Bride last time I attempted it. Moonlight sounded good. I haven't worked on Misty for a while now. I'm not sure what you'll hear after The Rose.

Gimmie my patterns!

The title means nothing. It's just some good karma. I'm totally going to win this contest.

Anyway, sorry for the lack of updates, but there really hasn't been anything to say. Class was canceled last week, so I'll be making it up this week. I've attempted a few recordings but none of them were solid. Several pieces are close to finished and are worth putting the recorder on when I practice them. I could get lucky and get through it.

One of my changes to my practice plan is to have a notebook of pieces that I've enjoyed and want to keep current on. At the beginning of each month I go back and play each of them until I can get through it. Hopefully that will keep it so I can play them at a moments notice. Watermark is the only one giving me trouble, but last night it was a significantly better than on the 1st.

Part of the slow progress is the breadth of the pieces I'm practicing. I'm actively working on The Rose, Corpse Bride, Moonlight Sonata, and Misty. The good part is that I should finish them all soon and can get regular recordings up. The downside is it takes longer to complete them. However, I have heard that in many learning techniques, there's only so much progress you can make in a day before you have to sleep and let your short term memory process the skills necessary and put it in long term memory. Anecdotal, of course, but often pieces get a lot better when I come back to it a day later.

I do want to put a quick plug in for a fantastic piece of music I heard this weekend. I found a Dutch band called Within Temptation on Pandora while on the Lacuna Coil channel. After picking up a few of their albums, I noticed that the CD/DVD combo of Black Symphony has 38 reviews, and 28 are 5 star and 4 more are 4 star. It's absolutely that good. Listen to some of the clips either on Amazon or on the WT site I listed above. If you appreciate it in the least, get Black Symphony. The live performance backed by an orchestra is an absolutely incredible musical work.

Chugging along

The songs I'm cleaning up are all more complex than what I've posted previously, and I really haven't been working on any of the easier stuff. I was going to attempt to record The Rose last night, but I don't think I would have gotten a quality take and we've had a bug going around the house so I figured rest was a better idea than frustration.

Instead I downloaded some Sarah Vaughan and listened to her and Billie Holliday.

The idea was that I wanted to hear Misty over and over again so I could get a good listen to a professional rendition, but I love hearing old recordings like those. Theres just a feel that you can't get from modern studio music.

So all in all it was a good evening spent. I should get to record something tonight.

Here's a way to make your teacher nervous

Go in and tell him about this wonderful new method of learning. It will make him even more nervous during a recession.

So, I came across The Sudnow Method of learning piano, and I must say that I'm quite impressed. I'm picking it up quickly and it's helping me with theory as well. I'm sure it made Larry nervous, but after working through some of the details and how I plan on using it, I think his mood improved. I know to a certain degree, he likes to employ a lot of the methods him self.

Warning: Technical detail to follow
Warning 2: I've had hardly any formal theory training, so most of this is interpretation and if you feel I'm wrong, I probably am.

Most (all?) modern pop/country/folk/non-classical (fwiw, classical isn't stuff written pre 1930. It's in movies all the time. See: Elfman, Williams, Zimmer) is written in a chord progression played by an instrument(s) and a melody line that is sung or during parts of the song soloed by an instrument. Different forms of music generally have different chord progressions. Floating around recently has been the 'all pop music sounds alike' youtube clip which features the ever popular I, V, vi, IV. So you take those chords, couple it with a rhythm, add a melody line and bam. Instant hit.

So, in it's basic form the Sudnow method is a jazz piano chord progression where you play two notes in teh left hand, root and either 5th, 7th, or octive. On the right hand you add a melody note on the top with the 3rd, and assorted other notes of the chord depending on certain rules.

What I like about it is that I'm learning to play left hand accompaniment without reading. I'm not playing an F, A, C and a Bb, I'm playing an Fm7. It's helping with other pieces such as Corpse Bride as well. It's not nearly as hard to read one staff and a chord as it is to read two staffs.

So, Misty isn't too far down the road to performance, and I think ya'll will like the sound.

H00ray?

Oh! I'm so excited. I get to put Musette up!

Ok, not really. None of my computers have a firewire port and that apparently is the only way I can get good video off the camera. It seems a trivial thing but publishing video of the playing is significantly better than just sound. Maybe I'm just dictating myself.

Next up is The Rose I suppose. Piano class is tomorrow and I'm debating whether or not to have my teacher evaluate a method I have been reading about. It's kind of a long post. You Piano World folk will recognize it, but I'll tell more about it later.