April 30, 2012 (Farewell to April)

Not a lot of time spent today creating or playing music. Playing "Over the Rainbow" sounding pretty good. Worked a bit on "All the Things You Are" and looks like I might have to bite the bullet a bit and learn a new Moody cluster for the "G" note. Farewell to April...see ya tomorrow, May.....

New Song

Looks like my next song will be "All the Things You Are." I am a bit concerned because it looks like the extent to which I will have difficulty remembering a song is directly related to the amount of song that depends on my utilization of some of Sudnow's ideas. Moody's system just has the student memorize consistent clusters. Sudnow's system, though, has a more complex way of doing things. I won't change my strategy, though, and abandon Sudnow's ideas. No way. His stuff has potential to sound quite beautiful! Perhaps continued practice will help here. Just a bit concerned that I'll have the same problem that my merging of the two systems was hoped to have minimized: The Ability to Play A Lot of Songs !!!!

Hello to the UK !

One of my piano buddies lives in the UK and gave me some very good feedback about my Over the Rainbow. In essence, the feedback consisted of the opinion that sometimes it was too dissonant. So I played around with the song today. I concluded that sometimes I can use the dissonance when I'm in the mood or when there's a big chord out there; on the other hand, I don't always have to cluster every note. Thanks to my UK Piano Buddy!

Over the Rainbow 2012

Here is how "Over the Rainbow" is sounding today: https://www.box.com/s/eb952ad399a72e2b84c7 Note: You may need to copy and then paste the link above to your computer in order to play it.

April 28, 2012

Hello out there to one of my piano buddies out there who recently sent me an email! Thanks for your support!! Last night our band played at a local bookstore. We played two sets, and it went quite well. I played my acoustic guitar which was miked to the PA and I sang some; we had a singer, keyboard player who also sang, and another guitarist who also sang. The other guitarist played electric guitar, and he played the bulk of the nice sounding leads. One of the highlights was a very nice version of "Summertime." Today I'll be giving a guitar lesson to a neighborhood youngster, and I plan on getting more piano practice.

Enjoyment!

Well. It works. Combining the Sudnow and Moody strategies has been working nicely. I'm on to something here. "Over the Rainbow" is sounding quite nice! Been listening a lot to the Rolling Stones lately... Friday night my band is playing at a local bookstore. Songwriting has been suffering lately since I've gotten back into the piano, but I won't give that up. Thanks go out to David Sudnow and Gregory Moody for making the piano accessible to adult amateurs. And thanks to my piano buddy out there who has been encouraging. It looks like I am actually playing piano.... Beauty!

Feedback and Reflections.....

Got generally good feedback from the folks who listened to my "Over the Rainbow."I think I am really onto something good combining the two approaches. The secret for me might be to keep practicing playing different clusters for notes in quick time. Interesting mixing dissonance with less dissonance. Want to not add new Moody clusters yet. Want to get used to quicklyusing the ones I know now by learning how to change between them quickly. And want to get really as familiar with them as I am with the first position "C" chord before moving on too quickly to tackle other clusters.

April 24, 2012

Working on "Over the Rainbow" using my combined approach. Sounds ok!

April 23, 2012

Managed to have a productive yet frustrating piano day. Finished learning my Moody clusters (for now, anyway, as more can be added), and played part of one song using my combined system, and it sounded quite good. But then I played part of a different song, and, well, the dissonance got on my nerves. If I keep using this system, I'm thinking I'll sound really the same with all the dissonance. Wonder if it's dissonant depending on key of song. Made a recording of the second song and sent it to five friends asking them if the dissonance was too much...

April 22, 2012

Feeling the pull of the piano again, so I've been focusing on my Sudnow/Moody stuff. Getting back into it today. Major chords called for? I'll use Sudnow inspired chord. Minor chord called for? That's Suds inspired again. Dominant style or more complex than that called for? I'll try a Moody chord. Like everything else worrhwhile, I'm thinking that the success of this integrative method will depend on the amount of practice as well as the quality of the practice. The problem is juggling this with my other activities.

April 21, 2012

Played wedding ceremony today as well as during cocktail hour. Learned more about soloing: Simply knowing the key to a song will not guarantee good notes to pick during a solo. So will go back to the Barrett book "Chord Tone Soloing" rather than just learn from a scale book. Missing playing piano a bit; may go back to me Sudnow/Moody system...

April 17, 2012

Songwriting! Got two tunes; finished recording very rough version of "The Cost" today using Mick's music and my lyrics. I keep changing parts of "I've Waited So Long For You." It's time to put that one away, but I keep changing drums, violins, etc. Move on!!!
Not sure about the lyrics I'll be putting to Mick's next tune, but I think mine will be another retread of an older song I wrote called "Another Sleepless Night."

Want to continue to work on developing my lead guitar technique; would also love to try out one of those Gibson Les Paul Special and/or Junior that is a double cutaway and is TV yellow. I'm really attracted to Gibson double cutaways, but not the SG Model that has horns too pointy for me.

This weekend I'll be playing for a wedding ceremony as well as during cocktails with another member of our band.

April 13, 2012

Recently recorded an original song called "I've Waited So Long For You" and send it off to my collaborator Mick for consideration...we have three tunes now that we are to work on....

Happy Easter; April 8, 2012

Played for two Easter Masses today; went well. I was the main event for "Oh Mary Don't You Weep," and it went over well! It'd be nice to have a Mass of mostly Old Black Gospel music, and we are lucky to have a pastor who enjoys that type of music.

Worked on the third major scale pattern today. Still trying to collaborate in songwriting with Mick.

Happy, blessed Easter to all.

April 4, 2012

Still working on the first two major scale patterns.

April 3, 2012

Working on the major scale today (guitar). I think I have two positions known.

Lead guitar

I think I'll use this book: "The Guitarist's Scale Book" by Peter Vogl.

April 2, 2012

Played a recent gig with 3/4 band members that went quite well. Really sounding nice since adding the new bandmate on vocals.

But the breaking story is me meeting up with an old friend yesterday who I haven't seen since about 1980. This is the guy that got me into the Rolling Stones as well as the blues, I believe.

Was really good to talk to him (I'll call him "Mick") as we have a lot in common. To summarize, we will be trying to collaborate on songwriting. He lives over two hours away from me, but with modern technology, that should not be a big obstacle.

He gave me a couple of CDs of his work, and the guy's stuff is awesome.

Will keep updating.