Music BooK Shelf

I started in the new year with 15 minutes of piano, mostly scales and chord progressions. Now I can sing along with some pop songs while playing along with some chords, and have discovered how to strengthen my playing by focusing on the easy parts. I also do scales to make sure I’m focused and both hands are working together and placed correctly

I had a big dangerous ugly book shelf that I dumped out a couple weeks ago, which still left the music books in peril, yesterday morning I moved them around for the millionth time, two bunches in milk creates to make perfect shelves and a bunch in bins under the coffee table. I was frustrated.

Yesterday, I brought the cat in from her walk, I noticed a shelf in the “free-zone” of the apartment building, the owner doesn’t want it, but it’s still good enough not to be trashed, I grabbed it. Now all the music is in one place (that’s every music book I own) the bottom part is useless, except that I don’t have to crawl on the floor to look for books.

Because it was labor day, I asked to get off work early and because the books and piano space looked and felt safe and clean and organized, I pulled a book that is usually hard to get at and played some favorites.

The two main ones: California Dreamin’ and Leaving on a Jet Plane. Because California Dreamin’ is very based in repetition I realized (as I wasn’t singing last night) I could really play with the melody and the dynamics- the rocking back and forth of “All the leaves brown” and the rise and fall of “I fall down on my knees and the preacher likes it cold.”

I moved on to Jet Plane where the piano sheet music is  riddled with chord progressions, mostly triads, just like I practice root second third, c g f ect. I was over thinking it last night trying to hear and see the which chords in comparison to what is written.

But what about along with scales and their respective chords, I play melodies with two hands (throw in a little work with their respective scales and key changes) and with those song with heavy chords and changes in one hand or the other, I play those two handed as well? I’m on it, as soon as this laundry is done.

Again, With the Be Present

I played the piano for about 20 minutes yesterday. I started with some scales, moved on to the Melody piece before tackling some vocal, I sang: That’s Why the Lady is a Tramp (went for the high notes first) and then U2’s One. 

The middle of the piano piece is tougher than the rest, sure it’s only a grade one or two piece, and I can probably tackle harder pieces, but the middle always makes me growl, so I play the middle 2 or 3 bars over and over. 

The middle of the piece is always introduced by the three easiest bars in the song. So easy in fact that I really don't have to be too careful with fingering or timing, half notes and rests lead the fingers and the timing. My mind wonders off, ‘goes shopping’ and then bam. Chords and quarter notes and accidentals and new patterns. It matters where my mind is, where my fingers land and how I’m sitting.

So, you know where the problem is? It isn’t learning the “harder part.” I mean, when I play it over and over on its own, I’m good. The trouble is that I’m not paying attention during the “easy part.” Just like singing a song the second time, I still have to be as hyper aware as when I sing it cold, for the first time, I can’t relax because I’ve been there before, because it’s easy, I have to show up and be present, again. 

The pay off is magnificent.

Simple, Black and White, Keys

Today I sat at the piano and sang some jazz classics. At one point I sang “Beyond the Sea,” usually I don’t I don’t usually ‘get it,’ but today I sang most of it and thought: ‘huh, that sounded ok. I’m going to sing it again.” And then I thought: ‘huh, this is not sounding ok.”

Rather than having a tantrum or screaming to myself, what’s wrong with me? I looked at the black and white keys. The answer was really simple. I really only know the first line of the song. So, when I played it the first time, it was basically a sight reading.

I was reading ahead translating the music and words into meaning, and really focusing my ears and body with connecting with the piano and emotions. I didn’t mind any mistakes I just held the note longer sat up straighter, played the high notes inside my head voice for a decent sound. It sounded good, but took a bit.

The second time around I thought I knew the song inside out, I relaxed, let myself be distracted and got frustrated that the notes didn’t sound right. The notes were better the first time, because focus, and I didn’t get frustrated if they weren’t, I kept going.

What if I take that lesson into the real world when I step away from the piano. What in my life is frustrating me because I’ve been doing this for 4 decades it should be easier by now? When if I spend more energy being more engaged rather than disappearing and then getting enraged because it didn’t turn out the same as when I was present and aware and empathic.

music lessons

The Pocket

I heard a Neil Young song last night I thought I had a copy of in my Neil Young sheet music, I did not but I played and sang “Ohio” a few times. I hadn’t realized what the song was about until I saw a documentary a month or two ago. I knew the song was important and a protest song, but I didn’t know a lot about the shooting. 

I began to cry, I get it I got it, 50 years later it’s even bigger. Because they’re not sending their Soldiers out to get us (not so much in Canada an USA) but we can still hear the drumming. They are still killing us. Stephen Pinker explains that to be a dictator, you need war, weather and or illness, those activities put fear in the mind of “the people,” they are more willing to let the leader do whatever is needed to save them and their families.

One cures cancer (some, not all) by eating right and living a healthy lifestyle, in a healthy world I will never know the likes of, but how much money has been made trying to sell a pill when you’re dying then prevent it before it gets in your body. The state of the earth has been a power and money grab since the industrial revolution. They don’t have to send their soldiers, there’s four dead in Hants County because leaders of the world have left us out in the weather for too long. 

Why can’t we believe in eating healthy as a child? Why haven’t we stopped climate change, the way we live? They control not only our money, but how to think in schools, commercials, books and social media .

Can’t you hear the drumming it’s about time. How can you run when you know?

My need to explain my love of music became a new obvious. As Dm, F C G played on the piano with the words jumping around and the coffee still warm in the cup. I started pulling things out of the pocket that were more than the song.

While we hear the word pocket used a lot on the music shows these days. The singer was “in the pocket.” The performance was “in the pocket.” The delivery pulled me “in the pocket” with you: A song like “Ohio” or U2’s “One,” or Sarah’s “Drawn to the Rhythm” is a quick little pocket of words and sound and emotion. Rather than a 500 page Non-Fiction about the Shooting at Kent or the interview with the shrink about the home life that led to “you ask me to enter and then you make me crawl,” or that “the sand was cold but we didn’t care.” Here are three pieces that we turn on the radio, put on mix tape, catch our attention as an ear worm, that are just words and music over and over.

One day, that pocket opens, and we look out and we understand, we decide we are going to actually learn the words, the history and what they were telling us, we have been listening forever.  

“What have I got in my pocketses my precious?” Music and it’s awesome.

Piano is My Love Language

Affirmation: practice changes the music

Acts of Service: Let me teach you music theory.

Receiving Gifts: thank you for playing my favorite song on the piano.

Physical Touch: like my fingers on the keys.

Music Monsters (Plot)

 

• Checks the piano
• Same place it was last night
• Knows there are things to do before playing
• Must eat and journal and shower
• Heart is beating
• Hard to breathe
• It’s the piano monsters
• It’s the time monsters
• So many hours in the day
• So many ways to be distracted from the importance of song
• The piano monsters hide in self esteem
• The piano monsters hide in dirty dishes
• The piano monsters hide in knocks on the doors
• Unforeseen exhaustion
• Keep the piano monsters away
• Time the writing for one hour
• And promise my heart and the piano music is next

Feelings

1. Fearful
2. Judgemental
3. Overwhelmed
4. Out of Control
5. Worried
6. Worthless
7. Betrayed
8. Numb
9. Disappointed
10. Empty
11. Remorse
12. Ashamed
13. Grief
14. Abandon
15. Fragile
16. Hopeful
17. Sensitive
18. Creative 
19. Confident
20. Free
21. Erotic
22. Proud
23. Powerful
24. Optimistic
25. Guilt
26. Hurt
27. Critical bitter
28. Let down
29. Loving
30. Thankful
31. Courageous 
32. Respected
33. Inspired