My Signature Sound

In any song I write, I have what I'll charitably call "my signature sound." I wrote about it a few weeks ago. It's the repetitive, broken-chord sound, root-fifth-root-fifth-root-fifth pattern, ad nauseam. I know it sounds crazy, but I never could figure out what else to do with my left hand. So anytime I played anything where the music wasn't dictated to me on a page, I would fill in the accompaniment with this signature sound.

A few days ago, I posted a tune/accompaniment that I came up with while working on major severth chords. I didn't realize it until a day or two later, but it's kind of a big deal this little song uses block chords instead of the old broken-chord signature sound in the left hand. This is huge! I'm choosing not to kick myself for not getting to this point when I was in my teens. At this point, I'm just happy to be returning to the fundamentals and filling in the gaps that have held me back all these years.

I don't hate my signature sound; I'm just bored with it. I've been bored with it for a long time, and I'm glad to have the chance to finally do something about it. But I do still enjoy some of the songs I've written/arranged using it. This video is of me playing my "signature sound" arrangement of "The Lovers' Waltz," by Jay Ungar and Molly Mason. I probably should have used more of an oom-pah-pah style waltz accompaniment, but ... all I knew was my signature sound!

When I first heard this song (it was featured in Ken Burns's 1990 Civil War documentary/miniseries), I wanted to get the sheet music but couldn't find it anywhere. That's why I came up with my own version of it. Hope you enjoyed it!

Comments

Rethinking Bare Necessities

Today's breakthrough moment (there are actually two of them) focuses on "Bare Necessities." As you'll remember, I discovered Jonny May's arrangement back in early March and immediately decided to learn it. I printed out the music, started the course, and proceeded to learn the stride section, posting a few videos of my progress. Ha. I bet those videos make it look like I was making progress. I guess I was ... but not really. And I realized something this weekend that I hadn't before: Because I was thinking of "Bare Necessities" as a "fun" piece, I wasn't practicing it seriously or diligently. I wasn't treating it as something I wanted to master. This mindset might work with an easier piece, but this arrangement isn't easy. The result: despite a little progress at the outset, I wasn't moving forward. I was stalled. Breakthrough #1 The first breakthrough was realizing that if I truly want to learn this piece and play it well,

March Goals Recap/Looking Ahead to April

It's April 1, and time to revisit the goals I set for last month. I practiced a total of 50.45 hours in March, averaging 1.62 hours (or just over an hour and a half) per day. Realistically, I practice about 45 minutes to an hour a day on weekdays, and I usually get at least one longer practice (or multiple shorter practices) in on one or both days of the weekend to bring the average up. CLASSICAL GOALS Chopin, F Minor Nocturne March Goal: Have entire piece by memory and performance-ready. I have about 90% of the piece by memory, but I still have some work to do before it's performance-ready. The only two sections that I don't quite have are "The Agitation" and the "stretto" section with the seventh chords. I'll work on both this week and will have them both memorized before the weekend. April Goal: Finish memorizing, and polish, polish, polish! My focus now is really on phrasing and dynamics. I have the notes down, even in the difficult passages. Fro

Maple Leaf Rag Breakthrough

Oh, Maple Leaf. Where to begin? At the Beginning I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I learned the A and B sections of Maple Leaf Rag back in the 1990s. I can’t tell you if it was early, mid- or late 90s, but it was during those 10 years after I’d graduated college, when I was playing a good bit of piano but not taking regular lessons from anyone. I don’t remember teaching it to myself at all. I just know that, at some point, the first half of Maple Leaf Rag was part of my two- or three-song repertoire of pieces I’d be able to play by memory over the next 25 years. It was always sloppy and I knew it, but people loved it, and so I played it if there was ever a piano around. Back in January, I decided to properly re-learn those two sections, and to finally learn the C and D sections of this wonderful piece. I worked on these over the next month or two, learning (and-relearning) the notes pretty quickly ... but it took time to memorize, and also to get everything to tempo surpassing a

Picking Up the Pieces

Search This Blog