The Great YAMS Octave Debate

Y'all, You Are My Sunshine (YAMS) is getting real.

Despite being sidelined for a few days by the whiny ganglion cyst in my left wrist, I think I can have YAMS ready for the Piano With Rebecca B dry-run recital on March 17 and the PWJ Student Recital on March 19. All of the sections sound pretty good at play-through, and I'm mostly just tweaking things here and there at this point. (By tweaking, I mean technically; I'm no longer in composing/arranging mode.)

I did make one final big decision this morning on the solo section. I'd been playing it in the highest octave available on the piano for a kind of “toy piano” effect. It was fun, but I thought it sounded much better an octave down. At the same time, the solo follows the crossed-hands section where the melody is in the deep bass, so the “toy piano” effect provided both balance and a kind of humorous development.

But high-frequency hearing loss, paired with the fact that I can't wear my hearing aid when I play the high notes because they feel like a dentist's drill in my eardrum, meant that I couldn't actually tell how the higher-register solo sounded.

What is a deaf arranger to do in this situation?

I went to the hive mind and posted this video to my personal Facebook page. In it, I play both versions and ask: Which one do you like? Higher or lower?

And my Facebook friends did not disappoint. They overwhelmingly like the lower version. I'm apparently not missing much by not being able to hear the higher version.

So, the lower version it is. I do go into the highest notes on the piano at the finale, but that's fitting—and I'm not staying there very long. The whole reason I go that high is to set up a final descending glissando that lands on a “button” (a single big chord) with the left hand at the bottom of the keyboard and the right hand at the top.

Oh well, I am rambling. Just watch the video, and let me know what you think!

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