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7 January 2018

Started in the morning, this sunny winter sunday, with in this moment one of my favourite books....
Introduction polyphonic works

Among others in this book a very nice Fuga of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, written in triplets in B flat....mmmmm

What would the world be without (baroque)music?........like trousers without a zipper....

To be continued in the afternoon and evening....

Best regards,
Johan B

Words by Johnny Mercer and music by Rube Bloom.
It was copyrighted in 1940, so quite an early tune.
Quite a challenge to decide on a tempo for this piece. It's been recorded by many...some at very slow tempo (Dean Martin e.g.) and some at an outrageous tempo, which kills the whole tune in my opinion.
The best tempo I think, is around 100 bpm.

Haven’t been here lately. Nothing yet played today. Am still practicing my part of duets am working on with a partner, one is part of an Organ concerto by Handel, My Country by a female French woman, Beethoven variations on a melody by Waldstein and soon to start a Mozart duet. It has been fun. I have also made another attempt to bring back two old pieces that I had forgotten, Beethoven Op 14 no 2 and a Chopin waltz. I have tried these in the past without success, but am noticing more success now. Will be working the Beethoven and Chopin today.

Hope all are well and have a great new year!!!

Since it's the weekend, I'm playing my maintenance pieces:

1. Trumpet Voluntary, Henry Purcell. It's got a lot of trills and it's starting to grow on me. This also was the first piece that inspired me to learn about it's history. It made more sense to imagine a royal procession while playing it.

2. I'm Called Little Buttercup, Arthur Sullivan. Emphasizes the top note of the chord with the right hand pinky. This is a very challenging since I have an old injury to one of the joints on that finger.

Both pieces are from a book which I had acquired some years ago while trying to pick up piano on my own again. It was virtually untouched because the pieces were overwhelming in every way except for the ones I learned back in high school. It's titled The Library of Piano Favorites by Amsco Publications 1997.

I thought it would be a great opportunity to make use of the book and brought it to my first lesson (Spring 2017). It's been a great resource and continues to get exposure to staccato, key signatures with a lot of sharps/flats, different tempos, octaves & large intervals and something called double stemmed notes as in Moonlight Sonata 1st Movement.

Have a great week everyone!

Hi LadyAcadia,

You're doing well. Take care for injuries by playing piano. I know it by experience, feeling pain means 'stop for a moment'.

Good luck with playing Purcell. Did you set your goals for 2018 in another thread of me?

Best regards,
Johan B

Dear Isabelle1949,

Nice to see you here again. Wish you all the best for a musically 2018. Be happy by playing piano. It means so much to me....one day without piano is a not living for a day.....
Last Christmas we stayed in a hotel in another part of the country in a region where our children live. We chose this hotel because I knew they had a nice piano. We have been there before. So,....after breakfest I played for the other guests and especially for myself.....

Best regards,
Johan B

Johann, good to hear from you. Wonderful that you had access to a piano at the hotel. I’m sure it was a great experience for guests to hear you play.

Okay, thanks. I was thinking of Elvis Presley but didn't know this particular song. When you list chord notation to communicate something to play, is it a given that the chords are to be played in different inversions for harmony or is it all in root position? I have one other question, too. Linda

Hi Johan B,
Thank you for the tip about being mindful of joint pain and to stop when it shows up. Yes, I'm signed up for the 40 Piece Challenge. Thanks again!

Hi Linda,
The root position for the chords is the most preferable, but is abandoned all the time in favor of strengthening the bass line. Also whenever the RH melody is in the way of the LH chords, choose an inversion for the LH to shift it further to the left.
This already makes it interesting as a fundamental improvisation for the LH, being able to "think" any chord in any inversion on the fly, and different inversions can be tried out. And that gets easier with time. But for any song, all the inversions can of course be worked out beforehand and memorized.
B.t.w., all chords are 7th chords at a minimum for jazz.

2 questions! Are you in Sweden, really? So if I went to the piano, and I play these chords in root position in the key of C and I would play ii and then a V IV iii and then what is the billx?

Whiter Shade of Pale is what I've been playing today. Love the chord progression in this song and how beautiful the melody feels in the RH.

This piece of music is a jazz standard and I treat it as such.
I.e. jazz is recognized to be major scale based music. Since that is so, we can simplify, and make the notation compact and apply it to any key. We know that the I and IV chords in any major key is maj7---II,III, and VI are all minor chords, the V is dominant 7 chord, and the VII chord is a half dim. or a m7 b5 chord.
Since we know that right off the bat, we can do away with the upper and lower case info in the chord symbols.
Hence, we do away with the classical notion of lower and upper case letter names for the harmonies that is in popular use in classical notation.
If I'm in the key of Gb, I should know immediately that a bVIIx chord in that key is an altered chord. It's lowered by a half-step and the quality is Dominant, which makes it a Fb7 or E7 chord. (The x signifies a Dominant chord). But in jazz you don't think in terms of those chord names...you know the chord quality, know how to play them and go by intervals.
In the same vein, if I'm still in the key of Gb and see VII, I know that in that key it is an F Half. Dim chord.
And VIIo in the same key would indicate that it is an altered VII chord, which will makes it a fully diminished 7th chord, or Fdim7 (F Ab Cb Ebb or F Ab B D).
Typing it out makes it seem way more complicated than it is. After sorting it out it becomes easier in time...which is the original purpose....to simplify the notation as much as possible and being able to play it in any key.

A bIIIx chord in the key of Ab indicates: that it is an altered chord...a III chord lowered by a half-step...and the quality is Dominant. Hence it becomes: Cb7 or B7 (The 3rd tone in Ab is C, and the III chord in the key of Ab is Cm7).

"Fools Rush In" is played in the key of C, so the chords above | II | V IV III bIIIx | II##7 II#7 | II will be:
Dm7, G7, Fmaj7, Em7, Eb7, Dm with a D at the octave (still a 4-note chord), DmMj7, and Dm7

And yes, Sweden

This is one of those songs that brings back memories of a different time, of my youth. It's one of the songs that was ingrained in my consciousness leading me to the piano years later.

I toyed with it a few years ago. The descending bass line was really cool. When I first played it I wasn't quite ready but could probably do a better job with it now. Maybe I'll retry it soon.

RaggedKeyPresser, Thanks. I was flooded with the different notations from different piano styles and guitar music notation and now I will be more confident if I try to analyze Jazz music. I know there is a question about modes and altered chords, my other weakness but I think it will come along for me as I continue to play and learn theory and improve technical skills. Surely the same questions return again and again when we are on the right path. Did you more or less say that Jazz uses Major keys more than minor? Or were you saying that mostly major scales are used in Jazz? Linda

I used "quote" above for the two sentences that my reply was more or less addressing..

Yw
John Mehegan (former instructor in Jazz Improvisation, Juilliard School of Music) was the first to apply this type of notation to jazz. Before that, there was no real organized way of describing it.
He says: "Jazz harmony is diatonic or major scale harmony found in the mainstream of classical music from 1600 to 1900. In other words, jazz harmony is classical harmony following the identical rules and conventions found in a Bach fugue, a Mozart sonata or a Brahms rhapsody.
This is the first serious attempt to apply figured bass (which has existed some 200 hundred years in the classical genre) to jazz.
Jazz is almost exclusively a a major scale music. There are probably only 5 or 6 "authentic" (begin and end in minor) minor tunes in all jazz repertoire."
However, there are minor scale fragments within the major scale ones.

I guess you can tell that I'm a fan of this notation method!
Ever since I started studying this method of notating harmony I have applied it to every situation possible.

Thanks again. I love quotes and I will look for this when and if I get to analyzing jazz standards.

12 January 2018

Hi there,

Some days ago I told you about Wilhelm Friedemann Bach......it's only one step to this.......a suite of Telemann. The Gigue is just 'funny'......I love this kind of baroquemusic.
Telemann, Suite A dur

What did you play today?

Best regards,
Johan B

Today, sight read a few of Handel’s Suite for Piano. Not fast, but as accurate as possible. Then practiced Beethoven Op 14 No 2 with extra time spend on them two against three in the first measure. The Beethoven is a piece I learned about 18 years ago and lost due to my absence from the piano for almost 12-13 years. Plan to work a Chopin Waltz Op 34 No 2 later this evening or tomorrow am, also one I learned many many years ago. Trying to get my old friends back. I miss them.

Isabelle,

The Suites of Händel....mmmm...so nice. Some years ago I started to play thse works after I heard them playing by a Dutch pianist Daria van dn Bercken, who did a Händel-project

Händel at the piano

Daria plays Händel

It's worth to lurk around on her site.

Kind regards,
Johan B