Jonny May Feedback on YAMS!

A few days ago, I mentioned that I’d shared a rough version of my "You Are My Sunshine" arrangement with the PWJ community. I got some feedback, which I appreciated, but I’ll admit I was hoping for more pointed critique. I wanted someone to really poke at it and tell me what wasn’t working.

Then Jonny May himself commented.

He said many generous things about the arrangement, which meant a lot. But what mattered more were the specific suggestions he offered for how I might push it further. That kind of feedback is even more valuable because it gives me something to work on instead of something to simply feel good about.

At Tuesday’s “Ask Jonny” Q&A, I worked up the nerve to ask him about possible introductions. He paused, played around, thought out loud, and gradually assembled a handful of ideas on the spot. None of them felt rehearsed. All of them were clever, musical, and full of personality. Watching that process was at least as valuable as the ideas themselves. He even played one “intro idea” that sounded more like an outro to me, which was also helpful.

He also said some very kind things about my playing, which boosted my confidence to somewhere in the stratosphere. I told him I couldn’t wait to get home from North Carolina so I could watch the recording and start experimenting.

Unfortunately, the video isn’t up yet. The PWJ Community Manager, Katie, lives in north Louisiana, which was hit hard by last weekend’s ice storm, and now they're expecting more bad weather this weekend. So for now, I’m working with what I already have.

One idea from Jonny’s Facebook comment was to use more triplet rolls. Someone else suggested rolls as well, so that’s where I’ve decided to focus. This video shows me working through a couple of verses, rolling just about everything I can think of. These aren’t finished choices so much as a way of testing the ground, listening carefully, and seeing what works where.

Comments

Eureka! Secondary Dominant!

I am such a nerd, and I love being a nerd! Today I was working on Section 5 of You Are My Sunshine, specifically on getting this section up to performance level. In other words, I was practicing being a performer , not an arranger . But then, of course, I came up with another idea. I had just played the delicate sixths and descending rag rolls of "when skies are gray" (I chord) and then moved to the parallel octaves of "you never know, dear" (leading to IV). The shift sounded abrupt to me. Harsh. It needed something. It needed musical WD-40. Something to ease the hinge between textures. And then I stumbled upon it! Right before moving to IV, I can slip in a V7/IV — a secondary dominant! So I tried it, and it sounded so good that I actually yelled "Secondary dominant!" out loud in my house like I was Archimedes discovering water displacement in the bathtub. It's such a small thing. One little chord. But it smooths that transition, leaning the harmony ...

The Rusty Lock and Key

I'm in a room. There's a door in front of me. On the other side of that door is a whole world of adventure and imagination and joy and delight, but for the moment, I'm locked in this gray little room. The door itself has a lock that is all rusted. I've tried to open it in the past, but I've never gotten very far. Sometimes I try to scrape the rust off the lock. I also have a rusty old key that I occasionally try to polish. Each time, after I've made a little progress, I'll put it into the keyhole in hopes of opening the door. It turns a half a millimeter or so, but the brief excitement at my progress dies quickly when I realize, once again, the lock isn't opening. I set the old key aside, and from there I can forget about the door, the lock, and the world outside, for months—years, even. But then something happens—I hear birdsong, or I catch a glimpse of color—and I pick up the key and start picking away at the stubborn rust. That dark little room is my ...

Well.

It looks like "A Sort of Notebook" is an ex-blog. I'm not going to post a link to it because it's been taken over by spammers. It's Saturday night and I love merlot. No, I'm not drunkly. I went to a 50th birthday party tonight and had two lovely glasses of merlot. Then we went to a toy store. (I should never go to a toy store after two glasses of merlot, and after running eight miles. I bought some yellow teeth, a remote-control fart machine, two crazy pencils, and a present for my future niece who has yet to be conceived.) We went to an art gallery earlier that happens to have a grand piano and I played the Bach Prelude. Oh my, but it's sounding nice! Deborah (my piano teacher) has a grand (I can't remember the manufacturer. Forgive me.) that she wants to sell me for $8,800, or $100 a key. Hubster thinks that's too much. I told him it's a steal--we get the pedals, and the wood, and the wheels, and the bench for free! Lightning struck last nigh...

Picking Up the Pieces: A Piano Practice Journal

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