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Of Holiday Rhumbas and Lisztified Ragtime

I am absurdly excited today. The kind of excited where I sit down at the piano “just to try something” and suddenly it’s 45 minutes later and I’m pacing around the room narrating my own ideas out loud.

I have two videos to share, which means two musical updates!

Update #1: Silent Night Rhumba Has Become a Thing

This Jonny May arrangement is ridiculously fun. I daresay it's even more fun than Bare Necessities, probably because Bare Necessities, no matter how fun it is, is still hard to play. Silent Night Rhumba isn't easy, but once the groove locks in everything else kind of happens naturally. Like the music knows where to go and I just need to get out of the way.

My plan for the full piece is:

  • Simple version first (video here)
  • More interesting version next (video below)
  • Solo section that I'm still working on
  • Either a repeat of the more interesting version or go straight into the outro

Here's the more interesting version, which I shared on social media last week:

My goal was to have this ready in time for Christmas, and I'm on target to have it by Christmas Eve. Yay! I'm so excited to add this arrangement to my repertoire!

Update #2: You Are My Sunshine Rag (a.k.a. YAMS Rag) Is Also Coming Alive

This one is especially fun because the arrangement is finally … mostly finished. (Honestly? It will never feel fully “done,” but I guess that's just how this works.) So now I’m practicing it like a “real” piece: slow practice, metronome, interleaving, clicking it up methodically.

There's a crossed-hands section that repeats back-to-back: first in F, then in B-flat. I wanted the two versions to feel distinct, not just transposed. I experimented with a jokier B-flat section full of slides, but I wasn't crazy about it.

And then ...

And then!

I thought about Liszt.

Naturally.

So I decided to Lisztify my YAMS Rag.

Here is my idea: I play part of the melodic line in the bass, then echo it in the treble, all with my right hand. If you're listening but not watching, it sounds impossible--like, "How is she playing that with only two hands?" And if you are watching, you get to see my right hand sprinting back and forth between the bass and treble while my left hand calmly keeps the off-beat like nothing unusual is happening.

This video shows the idea in its not-yet-fully-realized form:

I am genuinely delighted by this. It makes the piece harder, yes, but also much more me. And the wild thing is that the idea came together in about 12 minutes of work this morning (following a few minutes of imagining it while I was in the shower). That doesn’t mean it’s finished; it just means it showed up fully formed enough for me to grab onto it. I think it’s going to settle in quickly.

Piano Life is Very Good Right Now

I am so excited about these two pieces. They're joyful, rhythmic, physical pieces--the kind of music that makes people dance in their seat without realizing it. The kind of music that makes people happy even when skies are, in fact, gray.

And yes: Jonny May deserves a lot of the credit. His arrangements are the reason I can sit down at the piano, follow a spark of curiosity, and end up somewhere that feels both playful and real.

More soon. Probably very soon! In the meantime, enjoy the videos!

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