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Half a lifetime is just about it Hello to bluekeys! Welcome to the ABF - those folks who ride around in the back of semis with big yellow letters on them (the semis), playing the piano! I love the blues, tho I don't play it much. You might find Gilbert's latest thread on learning the blues and see what they've got posted. And do you and Blues Babe know Marcia Ball's playing? New Orleans honky tonk and blues to die for.

These days I only fall off the piano bench because I'm laughing so hard

Cathy

Bluekeys, I read you technique link by the Irish guy last night. Pretty much rubbish. I'd be careful if your trying to play like that.

Hi bluekeys

Welcome to the forums


Nice blog BTW


regards


Lee

Thanks once again to all the nice folks who've welcomed me.

jotur-- I'm not familiar with Marcia Ball, but I'll definitely check out Gilbert's blues stuff. I've been trying to put together some simple riffs for blues improv and maybe that will help.

kbk-- No, I'm not putting much stock in the "Irish Guy." I just happened to have read it while I was setting up the blog and was adding links fairly indiscriminately. I'll probably remove it eventually.

Lee-- I checked out your blog too. You play beautifully. I only hope someday to do as well.

Jotur: Sure I know Marcia Ball! (Well, not personally, of course.) Love that New Orleans-style piano blues, especially Fats Domino (The King, IMHO!) and Dr. John.

Bluekeys: Yep, love dem blues, especially piano and harp. On the latter, Carlos del Junco, Mark DuFresne, and Kim Wilson are my Main Men. Didn't you say you play harp?

Blues Babe, it sounds like we have similar tastes. Add Allain Toussaint, Prof Longhair, Bill Payne (Little Feat) and Otis spann to your list (also a big Pinetop Perkins fan). I haven't seen many live (I was a harp fan first) but I did spend a magical evening leaning on Jay McShann's piano in a little Toronto bistro in the '80's.

I'm the harp player.

Don't know Mark Dufresne, but you can add James Cotton, Little Walter, Sonny Terry, Billy Branch, Paul Butterfield, George Smith, Sugar Blue and Rod Piazza to that list. They're not strictly blues harp players, but Brendan Powers, Norton Buffalo and the magical Howard Levy are monster harp players.

I have an old (1940's) record somewhere with a couple of piano-harmonica duets on it. I don't know who the piano player is, but the harp player was Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller). It would be a kick to play both parts, though tough to get those kickin' SBW "Wah-wah"s without hands... maybe with yoga lessons and my feet... :p

Welcome to the forum! It is a really supportive place.

Great blog! I like the comments about how frustrating it is to work on a piece and then still make mistakes. I have played the piano and organ off and on since childhood and experience the same thing. I am increasingly convinced that so much of that problem is some sort of anxiety - at least on my part. I know that a difficult (for me) section of a piece is coming up, and I anticipate that I'll have trouble, and guess what - I do! On rare occasions, I've been able to 'let go' for a little while of that anticipatory anxiety and have actually gotten through some tough spots without too many errors. Reminds me of the scene in "Mr. Holland's Opus" where he is working with the girl who can't learn the clarinet. He takes her sheet music away and has her close her eyes - suddenly she can play the piece!

On yet another tangent, I think learning a new musical instrument in middle age is a great thing for your brain. I am a geriatric psychiatrist and can tell you that many studies show that those who keep their brains and bodies very active have a lower risk of Alzheimer's disease. Some day, when you are able to get that acoustic piano, consider it preventative medicine, not a luxury!

Welcome to the Forum, bluekeys.

I am a piano teacher and I have 5 adult students right now. The adult students that do well are the ones who remember to practice.

I have some adults who are usually too busy to practice. Sometimes I wonder why they come. Do they think I will wave a magic wand over their heads and turn them into pianists?

Be realistic. It's hard work and it will take many years but the end results are limitless.

Thanks for the comments, Steve.

Yep, those bugaboos are mostly in the head. I was recording today and noticed the best way to play 95% of a piece cleanly is to make a mistake in the first 5%. Once the file's hosed and the pressure's off, it's easy to play clean.

As for music keeping the brain tweaked, I swear my memory is better since I started playing. 'Course I don't guzzle a pint of Evan Williams every day now, so that might have helped too.

Anyway, glad you liked the blog!

Bluekeys, the next online recital date is February 15th. Be ready.

Uh oh, pressure. I commit to nothing. I listened to some of the Nov Recital and didn't hear too many "beginners," at least as I would define them.

Yes, they have a somewhat 'fluid' definition of beginner here. It can get a little embarrassing. I think you missed the preludes recital.

How would you define beginners, then? Just curious.

Someone who plays as badly as, or worse than I do? :p

I'm an adult student who sometimes fits into the "too busy to practice" group, but I still go to my lesson. Why? Not because I expect some magic wand to turn me into a pianist, but because I have an understanding teacher who knows my motivations for playing and can teach me more in an hour than I can learn on my own. I've also already paid for the lesson, so why not go? It's an hour out of my week where I can totally connect with the music and don't have to think about anything else. If I haven't practiced, we spend time "practicing" during the lesson and I don't consider any minute of that lesson to be less valuable than when I practiced at home. Adults have so many different motivations for taking lessons, and it is hard work, but the only "magic" I expect from my lesson is the magic we have together as teacher and student, and I've never been disappointed.

One of our "beginners" had seven years training under the Soviet music system. It's truly terrifying.

I think pasta hit the nail on the head. Of course by that definition (relative to me, not pasta) we wouldn't have much of a forum.

Seriously though, the term is too subjective to define, and the community has been wise not to discourage participation by anyone who is "too good." If I decide to contribute in Feb it will be because I've done work that I'm proud enough of based on my own background and experience that I don't mine sharing it with others. Hopefully that will happen.

BTW, mahlzeit, you've done some great work on recording, midi, vst, etc. I plan to review it diligently as I try to get my YDP223 to play samplings hosted on my pc back through the piano in real time. That stuff's all new to me, so any advise on where to begin would be greatly appreciated!

Boy, bluekeys, you seem tough on yourself. I checked out your website and listened to some of your samples. While I agree that they sound very tinny, most of the playing was --no other word for it: good!

I didn't listen to a lot, so if I don't mention something, I didn't listen to it.

The Minuet was good and your Invention #8 has inspired me to give that one a shot.

The Mark Harrison stuff is OK, but it sounds tense. If you slow it way down and focus on making it swing, you'll have more fun and it will sound great.

As far as not being able to play flawlessly when recording yourself...well, if it's brain-damage then there's a lot of us "walking wounded" lurching around the ABF: do a search of "red dot" in the forums and you'll see that your pain is shared.

Yeah bluekeys, those recordings are good enough to be a part of the recitals!

You should post some of them in the monthly piano bar threads!

The piano sound isn't too bad but it appears there is some kind of chorus effect on, which is distracting. You should, however, enable reverb (lots of it) which makes everything automatically sound less mechanical.

Hope it helps!

Thanks guys, you're doing wonders for my confidence.

Meanwhile, I'll try pumping up the reverb on my recordings, plus I just posted a question to the digital board to see I can get my piano to use different samplings. Barring all that, I may go back to recording in midi and do a conversion to mp3 using different tones. I really don't want to buy a new piano yet (unless I can get a good price for my old one).