Goal for the weekend

If I can get Corpse Bride recorded it will be a successful weekend. Last night was a very promising practice session, so wish me luck.

More Cowbell?

Lesson was today and it went pretty well. Corpse bride page one was nearly flawless. the bridge and the end not so much. It was ok, I just had to go slow. In Dreams went very well, and he assisted me on the two parts I was trying to figure out how to spice up.

So, I told him that I wanted to work on one hard piece (Corpse Bride), one easy piece for improving (In Dreams), and one curriculum piece so we have something to work on week to week.

He thought that was a fine idea and suggested Styx and Blue Oyster Cult. So, I have two long pieces to work through that are both awesome. Come Sail Away and the Christopher Walken popularized Don't Fear the Reaper.

Good weekend of practice

I got good time in all weekend. If I can do a few more of those I'll have recordings very shortly. The first half of Corpse Bride went exceeding well, and really, it's more like the first 2/3rds.

I do have one problem though. I probably need to get 3 pieces going. I had too many and cut it back to two for recording purposes. One hard piece and one "easy" one. But since it's taking multiple weeks, I don't really have anything to do at practice with Larry. We went over a couple deals last week, but then settled into some chord work. I should go ahead and work on something he's given me too, and just do a new one that isn't performance quality each week. There's a large difference between good enough to progress and performance quality. The last 10% of a song takes nearly 10 times as long than the first 90%.

Here's the plan

I need to start writing more even if there is no progress as it will give me more practice motivation. I'm getting in front of the piano more lately and making some nice progress.

In the next couple weeks I ought to have a piece or two ready, but you know how life has a habit of interfering.

One of the better things I've done lately is some left hand improvisation. I've been playing In Dreams from Fellowship of the Ring. The music I have has left hand as single half notes on nearly the whole song. I started it that way. Which had me playing C,B,A,G. Larry quickly changed me to playing full chords, and it requires inversions. I put it down for a while but came back to it as I needed an easier piece. This time Larry suggested broken chords and coupled with Sudnow's dislike of thirds in left hand chords, I pulled the melody line up an octave and have been playing left hand with root, 5, root (up an octave).

I'll try to record this as an instruction piece, but it may be more trouble than it's worth.

Corpse Bride is much much better. I had a few folks over last weekend and played it for them. It had quite a few mistakes, but was obvious I could clean it up with maybe 4 hours of work or so.

Still Alive

Yes, the blog is still alive. There is little progress to report though.

On the positive side, I've made a lot of progress on Corpse Bride, but not so much on most of the others. Likely, I'm just trying to play too many hard things at once. I should back off trying to do five at once and just do one hard and one easy.

It's been more difficult getting piano time too. I'm just going to have to suck it up and get it done.

Update

Sorry for the lack of updates, but there isn't really that much going on.

I don't remember if I've mentioned it, and I'm too lazy to go back through all 10 posts or however many there are to see, so I'll just repeat myself. One of the changes I made to my practice style has been to build a binder of my music. In the front goes pieces that I have mastered, next are things I'm working on, and finally songs that I'll get to in the near future.

At the beginning of the month, I go through all the pieces that I have mastered just to refresh my memory on how to play them first try whenever I feel the need. That normally takes me two or three days.

Then I go through working on current songs until something calls me away. That can be frustration, family, or previous engagements.

Corpse Bride is currently in progress. It's getting close, but I bet it's another month before it's ready. Moonlight Sonata is about the same state, so I should have them both done by June.

The current piece I'm spending my time with is the very common and overplayed Pachebel's Canon in D. Despite it's overuse, I love the song, and it was the first goal song I had. I can still play the Alfred's version, though I can't remember if it's in book one or two.

This one is a Dan Coates version that my instructor still uses when he does weddings.

All that as it is, when I think of Pachebel's Canon, I always think of this:

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.