TMonk

Yes, Liz and I are familiar with this specific Youtube video... watching that left hand hammer out those octaves is pretty nuts indeed!

Hermes

TMonk I watched a Glenn Gould interview and he talked about jazz singers doing Bach pieces. I searched and found Les Swingers. These guys take Bach pieces as well as others and turn them into jazz vocals. The voices become crystal clear because on the piano, many times the voices are just notes played together to form harmony. Here is the Two Part Invention in C major. This is brilliant.


How about a Fugue with 4 voices?

TMonk

Very cool, thanks for sharing. I'll have to show that to my parents this weekend when I'm staying up in Vista in between TdM stages, they'd appreciate it. My mother is classical pianist, my Dad more of a jazz/blues/rock guitar and bass player. Guess that explains me fairly well .

Another thing I've been meaning to show them is this wonderful strings cover of my favorite Debussy, the Passapied:

Hermes

I was cruising YouTube trying to wind down from a track workout and found this jazz piece. Gonzo bass work. OMG.

Cypress

Getting uppity for the last hour of work with a cup of decaf and this (don't click if you hate metal)

Hermes

I am going to add 10 TSS to my score for the day.

Cypress

The comments section is gold:

big john

This is about 50 years old. 3 incredible musicians.

Hermes

Looks like I have a lot more time to play piano. I am working on the B minor scale, chords, arpeggios and cadence. What a nasty scale. All minor keys have 3 versions - natural, harmonic and melodic. And the fingering is just odd and not natural. And my teacher wants it all done in a very specific sequence. The cadence sounds really cool almost like a composition versus drill.

I have suspended lessons until we have a new direction from CA. I have plenty to work on for weeks but constant feedback with correction is better than open loop practice where I can develop bad muscle memory. Oh well.

Hermes

My wife saw this on FB. Andrew LLoyd Weber playing All I Ask of You in self isolation. So I got the request. I got the music in the correct key.


Here it is from Phantom of the Opera

TMonk

Same here, I practiced twice over the last week which is great. Hoping to increase that, and hopefully keep a higher baseline of that once bars/restaurants/venues open and we start spending some week nights with friends. On the flip side of that, my weekly jazz music night is postponed till further notice, so at minimum I want to have 1 night/week dedicated to classical.

Last night was Satie (Gymnopedie 1), Schumann Op 15 no 1 (great warmup piece) a couple Preludes (Chopin) and an adaptation of Bizet's Seguidilla from Carmen - which is a great melody I've loved since childhood. Nothing new, just brushing up on old stuff. On that note, now's probably the time to get to work on that Schubert Rondo (duet)....

carpediemracing 

Dropping in. I don't browse as much as time is very limited overall. I feel the need to share because, well, frankly, I've had a few tequilas and I'm listening to music and it makes me think of all sorts of stuff that I can't share anywhere else. BF is my release forum, if you will. In moments of weakness I lower my inhibitions and I'm overwhelmed with various emotions. For me it's when I have a few drinks worth of alcohol and I listen to music from my formative years which leads to my mind and emotions start wandering and the tears start to flow.

I think of my (8 year old) son and his total breakdown tonight because he was tired and he lost the Monopoly game and he was just so distraught he didn't know what he was saying. I remember feeling the same way when I was his age and knowing I was spouting nonsense but continuing just because I didn't know what else to do. And I could talk to him and relate to his emotions and he started to giggle at some of the nonsensical things I said about his situation. Because I was there when I was his age and I knew what he was feeling.

Because music is so powerful to me I introduced him to songs that I thought he'd like. He loves Linkin Park, "Catalyst" and "Faint", half screaming the lyrics as we drive along. Recently (we play off music on my phone, and I give him the phone) he's selected Burning Sensations "Belly of the Whale" totally on his own. Songs he likes I print the lyrics - he has something like 20 pages of lyrics next to his booster seat. He knows the songs, knows the words, and perks up when "his" songs come on the radio. By "perks up" I mean he runs to the radio, stands in front of it, and sings and dances.

Music makes me think of my dreams when I was in high school, in college, thinking of things that might be. Dreaming of building the perfect bike, of being the uber super domestique or even being a Theo De Rooy on a fantastic day and winning some race. There's a specific memory of me powering up a particular grade (Route 33 just south/before Deforest Rd in Wilton CT) in my biggest Junior gear (53x15), thinking of the Super Record NR group that I'd never buy, while music roared through my head (Robert Hazard "Escalator of Life").

I think of my insecure self, watching Friday Night Videos, hoping that I could be as cool as the guys in the video, whatever video, Adam Ant in "Stand and Deliver" with his mischevious look, or the Fixx in "Are We Ourselves" with the WW2 era walkie talkie. Then, a few years ago, wanting to make a video because one guy I worked with looked just like the guy in Rancid "SoHo". And I shared that with him, we should make a video, it'd be awesome, and then he had a seizure and because he had seizures he lost his license and because no license he couldn't work for the company.

My first bike race that I ever saw was the 1983 National Crit Championships in Nutley, NJ. We drove there in the shop (cargo) van, no seats in the back. I first heard Men Without Hats "Safety Dance" while we perused the first issue of Winning Magazine and that's been ingrained in my head, sitting on a milk crate, sliding around the floor in the back of the silver Econoline, and seeing all my heroes in person.

Working in the bike shop. When we got our first CD player we listened to the English Beat all the time. If I hear "Save It For Later" the memories of 181 Main St just come flooding in.

Then later we got a pre-release CD from a customer. It was Live, "Mental Jewelry". The guy that gave it to us said they would be a big band soon. We listened to the CD on forever repeat. We said as much to one customer one morning. When the customer picked up his bike after work the same CD was on, and he realized we were being serious when we told him we listened to it all day. I'm a bit toasted on it but it brings back the halcyon days of when I first bought the shop and things were so great and rosy.

My first away vacation with my first girlfriend, at 19. I asked my dad if I could go with her for a week on our own and he told me, in a moment of candidness, not to give my girlfriend "a burden", i.e. get her pregnant. My gf and I listened to the Smithereens all week, and, as agreed, my parents visited us at the end of the week. The motel owner thought he was in big trouble when my dad demanded to know which hut we were in (my dad always looked angry by default) and looked super glad/puzzled when my dad greeted my girlfriend with a smile and a handshake.

Flying to Japan to visit my parents. My dad had accumulated over a million miles because of his crazy schedule so I flew business class 2x and first class 1x in one year to Japan. The first class trip was memorable in part because my favorite band was on the list of Alternative Music on the headphones. So now, in my mind, "Blue Sky Mine" will forever be burned into my mind with the memory of the cool dry air of an airplane, the song repeated every 30 or 40 minutes for something like 19 hours. The first and only time I ever flew first class. My lifelong regret will be that I didn't take up my mom's offer to do a round-the-world trip first class on my dad's miles - it'd have burned through 985k miles but he had that and then some. He wasn't using them and they were set to expire (hence my 3 trips in a year). The thought of planning a 15-20 stop trip around the world overwhelmed my pea brain so I declined the offer.

Going out with my future best man. We went to some local bar and they were playing "alternative music". I kept saying "wouldn't it be awesome if they played blah-blah next" and then "blah blah" would come on. This went on for maybe 5 songs before my song streak ended. I kept getting "a Corona and a tequila". On the way home, a passenger in a car, on roads I'd drive for decades, I realized just how terrible I'd be if I tried to drive drunk. The future Missus came over as planned later and found me in the bathroom, the last time I got sick.

Going to Toad's Place in New Haven to see Squeeze with my then-crush, an older woman that knew exactly how to play me. Squeeze was her favorite band, and because she always played Squeeze when we drove around, the band is forever linked to her in my mind. She came to a party that I told her about, at a mutual friend's place. She drove me home in her Miata, I was laying back looking up at the sky, wondering how I got so lucky, and the phrase that came to mind was from Gin Blossoms Hey Jealousy "I'm no shape for driving" which was me that night. But when I hear "Valerie Loves Me" it's all about her.

Meeting up with my best friend at Interbike in Vegas, yearly for maybe 7 or 8 years. He and his wife would accommodate me and take me out so I could let go. They'd laugh about it, saying it was the one time each year I could let go. Anonymous in a huge city, let my guard down. Music was always a huge part of the night, and they'd carefully select bars that played the right music so I could have fun. They'd order me drinks and looked after me.

The lunch reunion a couple years ago with a long time ex, always a good friend. The first song coming over the speakers in the restaurant was a song that just tugged at my heart, asking her what the song was that was playing. She used Shazam to figure out it was XTC "Mayor of Simpleton" which is about a guy talking about how he may not know much but he knows that he loves her.

And now it's late.

gsteinb

A buddy of mine in HS gave me a cassette with Boomtown Rats - Fine Art of Surfacing on one side and The Beat's - I Just Can't Stop it on the other.

TMonk

That was fun, reminds me of John Mclaughlin's Mahavishu Orchestra. I'm a big jazz fusion fan, starting with Miles' *****es Brew and In a Silent Way bands, and the groups they all started separately after - The Mahavishu Orchestra, Return to Forever, and especially the Headhunters and Weather Report.

big john

That last one I posted is John Abercrombie guitar, Jan Hammer organ, and Jack DeJohnette drums.
This might be my favorite Mahavishnu piece:also featuring Jan Hammer

big john

Here is a Billy Cobham thing with Randy Jackson on bass.

TMonk

big john some of my favorite jazz to listen to is from the In a Silent Way sessions, immediately preceding the more famous *****es Brew. So more or less the same band, McLaughlin guitar, DeJohnette drums, Zawinul, Corea AND Hancock keys... which is probably my favorite part. So many layers and textures of keyboard.

I've listened to this so many times, I have every little cerebral keyboard fill and riff memorized. It's much more of a slow burn than the Mahavishnu orchestra (or most things really). It has a simple two-part rondo style format:

TMonk

On a separate note, I had this sonata stuck in my head yesterday afternoon. The first few measures was used as an into into a radio program/intro on Classical KUSC (great station) and I had to figure out what it was, so I called my mom. As per usual, all I had to do was hum those first few measures and she nailed it - Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 21, the "Waldstein".

Such an epic piece, I was totally in awe listening to this while watching the music during my stretching routine. It's a hallmark of humanity IMO - it's true mastery, crazy that as a species we can be *this* good at something!

Hermes

I am getting more training volume in my hands than in my legs.

Hermes

My Art of the Fugue “Contrapuctus I“ is progressing. I am getting used to reading the music and thinking in 4 voice counterpoint versus melody. Contrapuctus I has so many interesting harmonies and counter themes. The Art of the Fugue was written by Bach toward the end of his life and represents all he knew about Fugue writing. It consists of 15 pieces with the last one being unfinished since Bach died while he was writing it.

I am finally getting some speed on my Czerny Etudes and enough volume in my hands to play an entire Etude without fatigue. The more I play Czerny, the more I appreciate how valuable each of the studies are for building technique. It is so obvious how Liszt, being a student of Czerny, was so highly influenced by Czerny’s music.

Czerny’ music is performed in Europe but not much in the US.

And my poinsettia is still in full bloom next to my piano. I purchased the poinsettia in November of last year. Maybe I will not have to get a new for 2020 Thanksgiving.

aaronmcd

Been listening to Galactic for hours on end lately. Good stuff. Nice to discover new music.

Hermes

We started watching The Great on Hulu. It is a story about how Catherine the Great rose to power in Russia. They play baroque background music during some of the scenes and I recognized the Bach Two Part Invention #8 that I have been working on for months.

It is a solid flick if you are looking for new shows.

Doge

After a morning ride the the Camp Pendleton PX (to find it being remodeled) and seeing if I could wave Hermes (failed), I came home and had an Amp-off in the garage.

That is some bike brake cable hanging down. We used the bikes to hang blankets on to get the acoustics right.


Those are stacked Altec Lancing 604B Hollywood speakers from ...old.

Hermes

Taking piano lessons again. Without constant feedback, I get complacent and sloppy. I did put a lot of volume in my hands and in general my sight reading is improving. However, I got sliced and diced like a piece of sushi for giving myself too much time and taking micro stops.

This lesson reminded me of my days in advanced math in college. She takes the Czerny book and goes to the back and picks a new piece, sets the metronome and wants me to site read it. I get a text from Liszt from the other side saying, dude, that one was hard for me.

And I have to speed up the Czerny equivalent of the Revolutionary Etude.

That is the difference between dicking around on my own and having to really progress with unbiased feedback.

MntnMan62

I don't listen to music while riding my bike, whether it's on the road or on the trails. Frankly, in my area, listening to music while riding on the road is a fool's errand. I don't use a trainer, which is why I'm in such bad shape. I watch tv while running on the eliptical machine, which I find dreadfully boring. I tried to put music on but that's almost worse than the tv. I play the drums so there are plenty of other times I listen to music. Sometimes I'm listening to music to learn how to play a tune. Almost always while in the car, although I often put NPR or the news on in the car as well. My favorite genres are jazz, fusion, funk, rock. My greatest musical influence? Frank Zappa.