Picking Up the Pieces

February practices are going pretty well, particularly considering I haven't had as much time for piano this month. I've done a pretty good job of balancing things, and my percentage goals have guaranteed that I would spend more time on You Are My Sunshine and Amazing Grace -- two songs that I fiddle around with now and then, each time thinking, "One of these days I need to really work on this." This morning I focused on Amazing Grace. Here is a video where I explore some of my improv ideas. I'm having so much fun.

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...