June 25, 2012

Been getting into my first musical love, the BEATLES, again. What started it is playing on the piano yesterday some of their songs. Brilliant. Picked out eight songs that are originals that I'll hopefully be presenting to a collaborator soon. Who knows....wouldn't it just be something if one . . . yea, even just one gets published? Yea, yea, yea !

Sorry, but....

....it's been a frustrating day with music. Fighting with GarageBand, not a focused day.

GUITAR

The guitar is calling me again. Met a neighbor who has been a successful lyricist and may do some collaborating there. May go to a local music store today to check it out. The piano, in my hands, can be such a source of good feeling as well as frustration... Looking to get back into songwriting which I haven't gotten into in a bit.

When You Wish Upon a Star

Here's how it sounded this morning: May need to copy and paste the following link to your browser: https://www.box.com/shared/62488e63509967533d01

June 21, 2012

Was up early this morning and had the opportunity to work on the Disney song....worked on the middle section; also worked on ending it an octave higher with non colored chords in left hand.

First Day of Summer

A little frustrated getting my fingers to cooperate fully with the clusters I'm working on in "When You Wish Upon a Star." Wish I could move quicker from cluster to cluster.

Working on Wishing

Working on When You Wish Upon a Star, using my notation. Sounding ok! Not convinced I'm into the larger, Black Gospel type of chords, at least not yet.

Father's Day, 2011

Nice dad's day today. Daughter #1 hung up signs in the stairway greeting me; got a nice card, Amazon gift certificate, out to dinner, then Rita's Water Ice. Trying to walk one hour a day; today took a walk to some local stores including purchases of stationary to help with my notation system that I'll try to use on lead sheets. Played around with some of the system integration. On the back burner, is maybe learning Sudnow's stride voicings for at least the dominants. Chilling tonight listening to Blues Piano on Pandora. Worked earlier on p. 12 and 13 of the Improvising Blues Piano book by Tim Richards. Summary of Piano Stuff I'm Doing: 1)Learning to play songs using some ideas I learned from the Sudnow Method for Major Chords and Minor Chords; utilizing the Moody System to play notes associated with Dominant and other chords. 2) Using the Richards book.

Notation

Working on a notation system that I can use to signify on lead sheets what Moody clusters I choose to use. Pounding that practice of the clusters (four for each note). Waiting to work on five more notes out of twelve that I've been working on.

The Clusters

Still working on getting the Moody clusters ingrained....

OVER THE RAINBOW

Here's how it sounded yesterday....may need to copy the link below and paste it to your browser: https://www.box.com/s/b20c8783a5d9c8a61aea

Over and Over the Rainbow

Its about the 47th time I've worked on it, but worked hard tonight on getting "Over the Rainbow" down. Still struggling, but it's OK. Talked to an old friend today who is awesome on piano; he suggested, and I tried with some success, to sometimes play in a higher octave. Still struggling with when to use Moody vs Sudnowish clusters.

Its Getting There

Ok......getting there. Will use Moody System for mostly Dominants and Sudnowish Rules for Majors and Minor 7ths. This will involve the following: 1. Memorization of Sudnowish major chord notes. 2. Memorization of Sudnowish minor chord notes. 3. Memorization of four Moody chord clusters for each note. I'm coming along nicely with the above three tasks. What the ultimate goal will entail, though, will be having the ability to play changes QUICKLY while reading from a lead sheet.

C o n f u s i n g (Part 2)

I can't just do the Sudnow Method alone, because I'd like to play by ear. And because the dominant voicings are too much of a pain for me to deal with. And because if I just learn a song, and it sounds beautiful, I forget it quickly. But I love it's sounds. Moody stuff offers me the advantage of a play by ear system that makes sense to me. But the issue for me regarding just using this method is what to do when dissonance isn't desirable. Still trying to make sense of integrating all. Not as easy as it may sound "on paper."

Confusing!

Tried a bit tonite experimenting with some Sudnow-like chords. Yuck. It confused the heck out of me, and wasn't really giving the true Sudnow sound. Back to most my original Sudnow-Moody combo. The Moody stuff, to me, is so refreshing. No highbrow music terminology mumbo-jumbo...truly (to me, anyway) a revolutionary way of looking at music ad being just music, without the usual approach. Will still combine the Moody/Sudnow approaches, but not quite in the way I envisioned it today.

June 7, 2012

Trying to memorize some Sudnowish chord stuff.

June 6, 2012

Still working on getting those Moody clusters. Played a little by ear too, using the clusters. Will probably get a different Moody volume soon to work on some non scale tone clusters.

June 3, 2012

Just about got four clusters for each of the C, D, E, F, G, A, and Bb notes using the Moody system. Getting there....getting there.....