Guitar

Here’s a recording I made today:

https://soundcloud.com/angelo-fiordimondo/can-you-feel-the-love-tonight-cover

Listened to a friend’s guitar stuff and it was really nspiting!

Recent gig

More Piano

A little frustrated at the piano today. Frustrated looking ahead asking myself - how am I supposed to memorize a bunch of songs and here I am struggling to remember just two songs while struggling to learn a third. Will this pay off with regards to a goal of playing more quickly from a Fakebook? Looked at another method (Piano-For-All) to see if it might suit my aforementioned goal better. 

Sudnow / Improvisation

Day two of relearning the Louis Armstrong “What a Wonderful World” song. 

Just not getting into guitar these days. 

Was wondering about learning piano improvisation from a cool book I have on that topic. But I’m wondering if by doing that as well as learning piano songplayong with the Sudnow Method If I’d be trying to bite off more than I can chew.

When I start new musical projects (like my latest resurgence with the Sudnow Method) I can get a jolt of enthusiasm. But I hope I can stay committed to it. I’m somewhat intimidated by the improvisation material because of doubts of my willingness to stick with it. 

But wouldn’t it be cool to improvise on piano as part of the performance of a song arranged in the Sudnow Method way? Wouldn’t that be a cool expression of adding my personal feelings to someone else’s song?

Sudnow / key centers

Started relearning a third piano song (“What a Wonderful World” [the one Louis Armstrong sings]) using the Sudnow Method. Like “Over the Rainbow” I learned this song in the past, and I now want to get it in my hands. 

I find that I best learn using the Sudnow Method when I am able to quiet my ego and harsh self-criticisms and learn slowly. Focus on the task in the here and now rather than grading myself every other 15 seconds.

In my quest to learn more about guitar improvising, I’ve read some material recently that was very helpful. It helped me learn how to better recognize when songs change keys so that I can better shift to an appropriate scale.

For the first time in awhile I posted a song (“Over the Rainbow”) on a forum on the Sudnow Method’s website.

The more I keep getting piano clusters in my hands and the more I keep pushing myself to learn more of them (rather than stay with what I know) I think I have a better chance of learning this stuff more and more. The ultimate goal would be to play relatively quickly songs presented in fakebooks. 

Sudnow Method, Over the Rainbow, 2019

Finished learning Over the Rainbow and man it is beautiful... What a great song and using it with the Sudnow Method sounds wonderful. Stepped up my recording abilities by using Audacity, a real microphone, and my lap top to record it  as taught to me by my son. Usually I would record on my phone using my phone’s microphone. Glad that I didn’t quite rush this recording out to people....waited until I got a fairly good “take.” It wasn’t perfect, but it was ok. 

Not sure where to go from here.  

More Sudnow arranged songs? I’m thinking of making  a list of songs that I want to learn on the piano and going for them. I made the list in the past, and as I remember it, it was not really that long. Wouldn’t it be great to just have those songs in my hand? I liked “Over the Rainbow” in that I made it my own with my particular arrangement of it. It would be cool to do other songs just as thoughtfully.

Wrestling a little with old questions like: “How are you going to actually memorize a number of songs?” And old criticisms like, “You won’t be able to keep this momentum (with the Sudnow Method).” 

But I guess just taking it a moment at a time enjoying making “music from the heart” is what ultimately matters. 

Rainbow

Look at me, trying to relearn “Over the Rainbow” using the Sudnow Method. Also played acoustic guitar in a duo today; went ok.

Thinking of trying out New Age Piano playing. Hmmmm.

Music

Read about conveying love or beauty or something like that in music. I liked that. Figuring out “Over the Rainbow” using the Sudnow Method. It’d be nice to just focus on one song at a time, taking my time, and arranging it in a way that conveys love and beauty. I’ll just keep this up for now.

Getting together with a friend tomorrow to play some acoustic guitar duo music; he’s in our rock and roll band; maybe we’ll play an open mic.

Bought a guitar today, a really nice Fender Carbonita Telecaster. I like it’s sound. It’s got a cool bite to that is meaner than my Casino Coupe. Makes me want to play the blues!

Here it is:

ThreeFold Attack

Going to try to divide practice time into:

1) Piano For All Program

2) The book “Beyond Chord Melody” by Martin Taylor (guitar)

3) The book “Chord Tone Soloing” by Barrett Tagliarino (guitar)

I’m thinking of doing just a little of each three at a time. 

Beard (Before):

Beard (After):

Piano For All / Book 1

Finished Book 1 in the series, and it’s on to Book 2!

Beard

On Recording

Just read on a YouTube comment that Tommy Emmanuel practices ten hours a day. TEN hours. And what do I do? Practice so much less. 

I think it would be beneficial for me to stop doing so many recordings of me playing and devote that time to practicing instead. Let’s face it: recording is a lot more fun than practicing. With recording, I get to add reverb, play with panning, and add numerous tracks. After I record, I then send it out to people waiting for feedback about how wonderful it is. But alas, the feedback isn’t always so great. So when it isn’t that great, of course I don’t like it.

So would it not be better if I just practiced more? Yes. I’m happy to be practicing the Piano For All Program in small bits. I hear that these small bits of practicing are good. But perhaps I’m getting lazy and can ramp it up more practice time.

More doing the difficult stuff like practicing the piano and guitar; less doing the stuff that doesn’t really add to my skills: recording. 

79

Up to page 79 of the first book in the Piano For All Program. Recorded “Popsicle Toes” with me playing solo.  

Piano For All / Book 1

Up to page 77 of the first book in the Piano For All  Program.