Picking Up the Pieces

For years I have wanted to write a ragtime/stride arrangement of "You Are My Sunshine." Years ago, I came up with a very basic ragtime arrangement that I've long enjoyed playing, but I wanted to come up with something more interesting than just the tune and the oom-pah bass. Thanks to PWJ , I now have the tools to do that! One of my February goals is to take this song ("YAMS") more seriously, to put some good, focused work into developing a lasting arrangement. I've fiddled with it a couple of times since the start of the month, and this morning I was able to put about a half-hour into it. In this video, I explore some of the ideas I've come up with. I'm shamelessly stealing from some of Jonny May's ideas in "Bare Necessities," but imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right? At this point, I'm using training wheels, and both "Bare Necessities" and "Jingle Bells Rag," as well as my Scott Joplin rags, are t...

That's my sweet #34. February started on Saturday. So did the volleyball tournament several hours away. My daughter didn't play until Sunday, but we still had to leave by mid-day Saturday since we had an early team dinner. I managed to log a whopping 40 minutes of practice Saturday morning--22 minutes on the Bible of Blues Riffs, and 18 minutes on Pineapple Rag. We got home from the tournament at about 9:30 Sunday night. I unpacked and changed into my pajamas, and then I went downstairs to practice for a few minutes, even though I was bone-tired. I never made it to the piano. Ruthie Cat was on the couch next to the piano, meowing at me to please come and cuddle with her. So I lay down on the couch to cuddle with her ... and we both woke up an hour and a half later. By then everyone was in bed, so I just went upstairs and went to bed myself. This morning I worked on Liszt (30 minutes) and the Bible of Blues Riffs (15 minutes). Tonight the plan is to work on arranging and improvi...

January was not a great month for piano practice. By the time I go to bed tonight, I hope to have reached the 40-hour mark. I normally practice at least 50 hours a month, sometimes 60. Despite my mere 40 hours, I did have a few accomplishments. Learned the entire Liszt piece and can play it, slowly, from beginning to end. Memorized about half of the Liszt. Became much more proficient at playing the two quasi cadenza sections of Liszt. Learned all four sections of Pineapple Rag. Memorized the first two sections of Pineapple Rag. Practiced Bare Necessities enough that I can play it again Learned Czerny Ex. 2. Made it through Lesson 4 of the Bible of Blues Riffs course. In addition, my blues improv of a few weeks ago was recognized yesterday as one of five "standout performances" on the PWJ Members Facebook page! So, it wasn't a terrible month for piano. And I knew going into it that it wasn't going to be a heavy practice month. And it wasn't--I ended up with not one...

This morning, I had exactly 30 minutes to practice. I set my timer to 30 minutes and got to work. The goal? Play through the first cadenza 25 times, and then play through the second cadenza 25 times. I've put so much work into the grand middle section that I feel like I've neglected the cadenzas a bit, so I wanted to make sure I didn't lose them. As I completed my 25th play-through of the second cadenza, my timer buzzed. Perfect timing! I'm very happy with how far I've come with these. They were both pretty difficult to learn; just figuring out the best fingering was a time-consuming challenge in itself. It's still not at the speed that you hear on recordings, but the movements are becoming more and more automatic. I will get there! This video shows the two cadenzas. I did one take of each and then combined the videos into one. Enjoy!

 I feel like I could write so many blues songs about this past week! "First-World Blues" would probably be the most appropriate title, but I have so many more in mind. Six-head Blues Alopecia Blues Itchy Back Blues Outta Zoloft Blues Home Alone Blues Working Mom Blues Leave Me Alone Blues Leaky Coffee Pot Blues Car-In-The-Shop Blues Bloaty Prednisone Blues Silent Desperation Blues No-Time-For-Piano Blues Dirt-On-The-Carpet Blues Lost-My-Hearing-Aid Blues God's-Given-Up-On-Me Blues There is just so much to choose from! This video doesn't have a title. It's not a song. I'm just noodling at the piano, feeling these melancholy blues that have set in. Sad as I'm feeling these days, I'm grateful to be able to play this way.

I started Czerny Ex. 2 (Op. 849) a few weeks ago but had to stop because of the ganglion cyst in my left wrist. I started it again this week, and it is such a delightful piece! It's not particularly hard (as long as you don't play it at breakneck speed). Here is a not-perfect performance of it. I had just played it slowly and decided, on a whim, to try to play it at close to the recommended tempo. As you can see, I'm not quite ready for that! But I still think it turned out OK.