Vienna

This is from yesterday:
Exhausted.  Today I am willing to admit I need almost as much sleep as the average human.  Not concentrating well.  Coincidentally, I am learning Billy Joel's "Lullabye."  One of my favorite songs ever: I like the lyrics, and I'm a fan of the minor-iv chord in just about any context, and of the occasional change of mode (as in the instrumental interlude).  I may geek out on this later, but right now I have just enough petrol left to write OR learn the song.  So, goodnight, my angels.
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I did actually manage to go to bed at a reasonable hour, partly because (as I finally confirmed today) my modem has died, and for some reason none of my password-unprotected neighbors' wifi connections were available last night.  Today, I started learning Billy Joel's "Vienna".  The other day was "Summer, Highland Falls."  Those songs are I guess not as well-known as, say, "Piano Man" or "New York State of Mind", but , according to interviews (thanks, as always, wiki and other online sources), are his two favorite songs. 

Anyway, I spent 10 seconds at the piano at 8:55 this morning as I was running out the door figuring out the key and the first couple chords, and figured out most of the chord progression and the form on the walk to the train.  Now it's time to sit down and do the rest.  I have three hours before I am going out, and need to practice a little bit for a gig tomorrow, but if I manage my time well, I'll have time to finish learning "Vienna" and to review a song or two. 

It feels pretty great to be rested.  It's not often I admit that, and this rested feeling won't last long - the next 9 days are busy, and I'm not getting my bi-weekly self-mandated day off.  But for today, I've kind of been taking "Vienna"'s lyrics personally - "slow down, you crazy child" - after I played auditions for a few hours, I deliberately wasted some time online (neighbor's wifi is back, RCN is coming to fix mine Tuesday), and took a little nap.

...Wow, I was just reading through the lyrics, trying to decide which ones to quote, and ... it could pretty much all apply to me.  Except the Vienna part.  I spent 18 hours there once.  I took a walk and had a coffee and saw a concert at the cathedral, and was on my merry way to Budapest the next morning.  I kind of regretted how little time I spent there, but I had read that it was kind of a stuffy town, so I gave it short shrift in favor of the other cities I visited.  Heh.  I didn't wait for Vienna.  My loss.  Well, if the song is right, it'll be there when I decide to go back. 

2010 - California Gurls

Greetings, loved ones.  Let's take a journey.  So says Snoop Dogg at the beginning of "California Gurls", the hit song from my birthday week this year. 

That's more or less what I told myself in the wee hours of New Year's Day of this year when I embarked on this possibly-insane project of attempting to learn and memorize a pop song every day and writing about the experience.  And here we are at the halfway point.  Happy Halfway Point!

So far:
My Perfectionazi still talks to me but I'm getting better at telling him to eff off.  The Doubts are harder to deal with because there's the most infinitesimal chance that there's a grain of truth in what they say.  I'm spending somewhere in the range of 15-20 hours a week on a project that doesn't pay, but it is paying off in other ways: I hear music differently now, I discover new music every day, I connect with people more often over music because now I know  - or at least know of - the songs they're talking about. 
 
I want to stay up and wax eloquent about  what I've learned so far, what I think this project is about, what fresh geekery today's song has inspired, but I'm just too damn tired.  If I've learned one thing, it's that I have to concede some nights to getting a semi-decent amount of sleep. 

I've also learned how much I resent sleep.  So just a tiny tidbit of geekery:

Aughto-tune: the sound of the Aughts.  Pretty much every hit song today uses it.  That hit home this morning when I was downloading "California Gurls" and I listened to the 30-second snippets of all the other current hits on iTunes.  Little kids today will one day feel about the sound of auto-tune the same way I feel about 80s power ballads that modulate up a whole step at the end. Nostalgia.

Today's song is pretty straightforward, form-wise: verse-prechorus-chorus x 2, bridge (which is Snoop Dogg's rap), chorus, tag.  The melody is really solidly in F; the bass never hits an F.  In the end, the bass drops out and the treble resolves to an F to finish the song.  One thing I don't miss about the 80s: repeat and fade on every song!

Onward - birthday month is over, have to figure out how I'm going to choose my songs now!

2009 - Empire State of Mind

It was supposed to be "Boom Boom Pow" today, but after 5 minutes at the piano I gave it up as a poor use of my time.  Not because I don't like the song - in fact, last year when Nat and I did our kids' show, Nat and Kat's Adventures with the Time-Traveling Piano (shameless plug), I used it as a basis for the tune that got us back to 2009 (we were stuck in 1939 due to a faulty time machine, you see, and we needed a song about 2009 to help direct us back to the present).

Anyway...
So I really like the song.  It is not meant to be played on the piano.  I considered spending my time studying the track like I've done with some of the other recent songs that don't lend themselves well to piano.  I decided, however, that since my days as a producer are so far in the future, I am better served by choosing a song that I could actually sort of learn to play on the thing I actually sort of know how to play now, today. 

This is a huge victory in the logic department for me.  I am not known for my patience, especially with myself.   I'm always leaping ahead, in work and in life.  I have a dating condition I call Fast-Forward Brain.  It's almost universal to girls, and actually more common than you might think among guys.  It's a syndrome where, on the first date, your brain fast forwards through a lifetime with your date/potential mate.  Either a half dozen red flags are raised, or all systems are go for a second date, and possibly a wedding date.  Whoa, Nellie.  Similar thing with work - my brain leaps ahead to some nebulous place I'd like to be in five years and tries to get there now, without all the backtracking and baby steps that come in between.  That all has to change now.  My survival in both these arenas depends on me learning to slow my ass down and take the next step, instead of trying to cross to a distant shore without a bridge or canoe. 

My first taste of jazz was in college in a jazz combo directed by a great doctoral student (he is now Dr. Bob Knop), and he said something that has stuck with me, about practicing and about comparing oneself to one's musical heroes and colleagues: "Put on the blinders and get back to work."  I've realized recently that that doesn't just apply to the side (comparing yourself to colleagues) or above (despairing of ever being able to play like Brecker, or Wonder, or fill-in-the-musical-blank), but ahead as well.  I wanna be the musician I'm going to be in five years right now.  

If only I could time travel...

When I allow the Doubts to talk to me, that's the number one most frustrating thing for me as a professional musician: the inability to time travel - feeling like I am behind the curve and I'll never be good enough no matter how hard I work, because I can't change my background.  Growing up in a small town in Southwest Buttf***, New Mexico, I didn't have access to the performing arts (nearest "real" city: Phoenix, 5.5 hour drive) or teachers who knew the biz.  Combine that with the fact that I was a big fish in a small pond and accustomed to being the best at everything I tried to do, with very little effort...  Now here I am in the concrete jungle where all the big fish come to realize their dreams, and I'm gasping for air because, even when I'm trying really hard, there are hundreds of other musicians within a 5-mile radius who can wipe the floor with my ass. 

I do this because I want to.  Never forget that, Kat, never forget that.  But there are times, and a lot of times recently, when a little voice inside me goes, "Really, Kat?"  This is the voice - let's call him Cleatus Doubt - that would like more sleep, and more money, and doesn't really give a hoot about my creative success.  He says, "Don't you think if this were what you're supposed to be doing, it would come a little easier?  You don't want to waste your life doing the wrong thing, do you?  Especially if doing the right thing would lead to more sleep and maybe even a dishwasher.  What's all this hard work for if you're not really gonna make it?"

Yesterday, I was semi-watching an Alison Krauss DVD, and I caught the lyric "the next best thing to playin' and winnin' is playin' and losin'".   I stopped whatever else I was doing and backed it up to listen to the song, which is "The Lucky One".  Yes.  Yes.  Yes.  Sometimes life has the answers for music (as has been the case with my playing in the past year), and sometimes music has the answers for life.  One of the lyrics in the Jay-Z rap of "Empire" is "8 million stories out there and they're naked/city it's a pity half of y'all won't make it".   When I'm philosophical, which is approximately 26% of the time, I have to put myself in the making-it half - I mean, I'm making a living doing what I love.

On that note, I am going to go spend a little time on the Alicia Keys solo version of the song that I just remembered exists - more melody for me, and now I basically know what happens in the Jay-Z version enough to back up a rapper in an emergency.  And, Cleatus Doubt, you can take it and shove it where the sun don't shine. 

1991 - Rush, Rush

I'm trying really hard to write every day this month, and it's so hard!  There just isn't time!

Yesterday I learned "It Must've Been Love", which became a hit single for Roxette in 1990.  I didn't remember who recorded it, and I didn't know they were Swedish.  My Swedish friend tells me that Sweden is the world's 3rd largest exporter of music, after te U.S. and U.K. 

Today's song was "Rush, Rush".  I discovered the internet is full of veiled insults of Paula Abdul.  Poor thing, she never says anything bad about anyone... at least not on air. 

When I chose to do a project on "standards", I intended to stick more closely to the 32-bar musical-comedy-turned-jazz-standard variety than I actually have.  But it did occur to me that learning a song a day would raise the standard of my playing, and that I might have a chance to mull over what makes a song become a standard.  Who decides these things?

"Rush, Rush" was at the top of Billboard Hot 100 during my birthday week in 1991, and now Itunes review of Paula Abdul's greatest hits album starts with words to the effect of "the only Paula Abdul album you'll need".  Food for thought. 

1989 - If You Don't Know Me By Now

My second Simply Red song in less than a week.   The phrase "If You Don't Know Me By Now" sometimes feels like a taunt from jazz and pop and other forms of music I didn't grow up with, but lately I'm feeling like I might actually be ok at playing them... someday, one day.

So here's my chance to write what I started to write about "Holding Back the Years": structurally, both songs are really simple, which leaves me time to pay attention to exactly what notes and rhythms are being played (as opposed to having to spend most of the time just figuring out the chords, the form, etc).

A number of times throughout my quest to become a better, more well-rounded musician, other, more masterful musicians who are helping me have invited me to stray from the notes on the page (remember talking about "the Ink" a while back?).  It's as if they think suddenly I'll know what to play, having been given permission to "comp" rather than play exactly what's written (and remember me bitching about bad piano arrangements? on several occasions?). 

And it is a great gift these musicians have given me - permission, and a clue.  A clue that I'm only starting to understand.  Until recently my reaction would generally be:

Blank stare.

"ummmmm...ok"

ummmm...ok =

"I don't know this musical style.  Using the written notes as a "guideline" but not playing them exactly? That's like filling in a mad lib in a language I don't speak: I might be able to fake some of the pronunciation, but no native speaker would be able to understand what I'm saying.  Or, it's like trying to speak a language you can only read.  Yes, that's a better analogy.  You do fine, and can even get the gist of what's going on as long as there's something in front of your face, but try and form sentences from your own brain and you're toast.  So it is with me and most contemporary styles of music.  If not the written notes, then Whattt?!"

So it took me forever to start, but now I try to learn it like a language - a word, a phrase at a time, and every day I strap on my headphones and listen to the grown-ups (ie recording artists) talk, and I babble my pianistic baby gibberish.  I think I can say "mama" and "dada" now, and I can even say "where is the bathroom" with a really thick classical accent.

1988 - Together Forever

 I love this song!  I love the melody of the chorus!  That is a fun melody!  I love the chord progression, especially the Dmaj7-F/G-Cmaj7 progression of the prechorus (or bridge?  Or second half of the verse?  Not sure what to call that.).  At least I think that's what the chords are - I did this song on Tuesday, and I'm writing this in Starbucks where I'm killing time between things. 

This was one of the songs I was surprised to like.  I'm pretty bad at playing - this style is not my strong suit.  But I'm having fun jamming to the recording. 

1988: I don't remember much specifically about this year.  I had a really nice second grade teacher, Mrs. Silva, and was also in the enrichment class with Mrs. Giese, who had us make papier mache whales and coyotes.  You can probably give her credit for any small personal actions I take on behalf of the environment.  In that class, I wrote for an esteemed newspaper, The Noodle Times, which sold for a dime at our school, Jose Barrios Elementary.  I kicked ass at Oregon Trail and Logo.  We had music class about once a week.  I recall learning rhythms and folk songs and stuff like that, but I have to admit, my most vivid memory of music class was our teacher showing us her earlobe and how it was split in two from a long-ago earring accident. 

Ah, small-town life!

1986 - Holding Back the Years

Today's song goes out to Sarah, my best friend from childhood.  She is 13 days older than I am, and we have known each other since we were 6.  She is 29 today, and upon my request, she chose "Holding Back the Years" from the 1986 list of Billboard Hot 100 number 1's. 

So is this song about regret, or about no having any regrets?  Sometimes I like to find out what the songwriter's intention is, other times I like to make up my own interpretation based on the lyrics alone.  The online song-meaning-comment community doesn't seem to have much of a consensus (granted, these are people who have time to go online and write comments about what they thing songs are about - there but for the Grace of God and facebook go I).  In any case, the narrator in the song is looking back on his life with some sort of deep emotion. 

Again with the nostalgia.  This month's project makes me feel sort of like I'm watching a sped-up film of my life.  1986 was the year my family went to Japan for the first time, to visit my family near Tokyo where my uncle was stationed with the civil service.  My sister could not remember ever having been illiterate, because she learned to read very young, so she got a little pissed at the impenetrable Japanese language and decided to learn it.  Now she has formidable Japanese language skills, a masters in simultaneous interpretation, a career in patent translation (meaning she knows how to say "widget" and "doohickey" in Japanese), a Japanese husband, and two cute little boys their aunt doesn't get to see often enough. 

Then tomorrow, in 1987, my family will move from a tiny mining town in Arizona to Silver City, a slightly larger mining town in New Mexico, and I will meet Sarah, whose dad teacher photography and pottery at the local university and whose mother works several part-time jobs, including that of organist at the church my family chooses to attend. 

Sarah towers over me at age 6.  This is why she can - and does - tell me that my part's not straight.  I can't remember if she fixed it, or just told me it was crooked.  She has always had more style than I!

Age 12: because my hometown is so small, we drive 2 hours each way to the orthodontist.  Sarah and I usually go down together with our moms to have our braces tightened, and for the slightly less torturous activities of mall-shopping and TCBY.  Sarah and I both play wind instruments in band during the braces years; wax is an important fact of life. 

Age 18?: Don't remember exactly, but it was some summer right before or during college.  Sarah worked at the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, which is 44 very hilly, very curvy miles from Silver.  I just looked at the website for the monument, and it states travel time as two hours.

Ha.

Ha ha. 

Don't tell our parents how fast we used to get there. 

Well, we lived through that to age 22 - Sarah went to Argentina to do some volunteer work; I went to London for a 6-month work program.  Around the time I was having my heart broken by a classist British boy, she was falling in love with Sabino, who is now her husband (if you are a loyal reader, you have already met Sarah and Sabino at least once). 

Age 25: I make a trip to Buenos Aires for Sarah and Sabino's wedding.  Sarah and Sabino and I jam late at night - I think Sarah's little brother joined us too.  I call him my Otherbrother (even though I don't have a brother for which he could be other), and Sarah's mom and dad are my Othermother and Otherfather.  Their civil wedding (which everyone does down there) is casual and fun, and their big family wedding is beautiful.  All of us eat more meat than I ever knew existed at the asado at their wedding - Argentina: not a vegetarian's paradise - and most of us stay up all night dancing.  Bedtime is about 9 a.m., after we've taken charted buses back to the family home. 

Age 26: Sarah and Sabino finally have paperwork for Sabino to enter the United States.  They discover that the cheapest way to get to New Mexico from Argentina is actually through New York, which is a huge bonus for me. 

Age 28: I visit Sarah, Sabino, and the new addition to their family in Albuquerque.  My first opportunity to corrupt my Othernephew (I am NOT calling him my Otherson!  Don't get your hopes up, Tamara!) comes in the form of a musical mobile.

I wrote a really rough draft of some musical thoughts about "Holding..." and the past few songs, but I am out of writing time for now.  It's time for social time - I sometimes have to remind my Inner Crazy Artist Person that that's important, but clearly, from the above list of selected memories from a 23-year friendship, important it is.

1981 - Bette Davis Eyes

A.M.:
I'm going to try an experiment: learning my song as early as possible in the day, instead of allotting a time slot at the end of the day. It's only happened early in the day of its own accord a handful of times, and I like the frame of mind it leaves me in for the rest of the day: alert, observant, satisfied that I have both crossed something off the to-do list and given myself a little present in the form of a song I now know.

Speaking of presents, it's my birthday month! Ok, so my birthday isn't until the 19th, but I've had an emotionally arduous year, and it's the first of what I hope will be many 29th birthdays, so I plan to celebrate all month. For this project, I have chosen to learn a song from each year of my life. In most cases, I chose the song that was #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on or around my birthday. I've made a few exceptions for songs I hate or that really don't lend themselves to piano. The song for June 6th...

P.M. (well, to be more precise, very early A.M.)
...sometimes I get interrupted mid-sentence.  I was writing that last bit on my phone on the subway, and I had to get off the train at that point.

So anyway, as I was saying, the song for June 6th will be chosen by my best friend Sarah, who is thirteen days older than I and whom I have known since we were six years old. 

1981, the year I was born.  "Bette Davis Eyes" was actually written in 1974 by Donna Weiss and Jackie DeShannon, but it was 1981 when Kim Carnes' version became a hit. 

Perhaps because I would love to know just what it takes to make a pro blush (or even what that means), perhaps because I've been told I have Bette Davis eyes, I really like the lyrics to this song.  Not particularly clever in terms of wordplay, but they do contain some nice imagery, eg "pure as New York snow", "she'll take a tumble on you/roll you like you were dice" ...

Rawr. 

Ahem.  So, phrase lengths!  Debbie (of Monday night's jam session) came over today and played through some of her original music with me so I can work on arranging it.  I need a little, low-stakes arranging project to build my chops, she would like some arrangements for her songs.  Debbie lamented that her songs are "the same thing over and over again", and then, a little later, that she wrote this "weird, random part" near the end of one song.  So basically you wrote a great pop song, I told her.  We talked about how the hooks - the really basic, catchy parts -  are what draw us in and give us something to hang onto, but it's that quirky bit that's different and tasty that makes us go back and listen to a song over and over again.  Well, actually, it's the combination of hook and quirk that is so delightful.  Quirky hook.  Hooky quirk?  (No.) ...Kind of like sugar and butter - wasn't there some sort of scientific study a while back about the irresistibility of a certain ratio of sugar and butter?  I must be hungry. 

Anyway (running out of consciousness and brainpower) - in "Bette Davis Eyes", the songwriters do us a favor by eliding some of the cadences to keep the momentum going in this bridgeless, refrain-happy song - that is, the end of one musical phrase and the beginning of the next sort of overlap.  This happens in the middle of each verse, eg "She'll lay you on the throne/She got Bette Davis eyes/She'll take a tumble on you..." - if one is used to counting in 4- or 8-bar phrases, one would expect another measure between "Bette Davis eyes" and "she'll take a tumble..."  But we hear "Bette Davis eyes" so many times in the song, we don't really care if it lands with room to spare every single time we hear it. 

I don't have a clever conclusion to this entry, so I will just fade out, like this song and so many others from the 80s...
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..
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Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)

Lovely weekend, topped off by a jam session with several friends, pictured here, hot & sticky even in my air-conditioned living room: Matt (percussion), Jessica (percussion and vocals), Joshua (vocals, piano), Debbie (vocals), and me.  We played/sang a bluesy version of "Eleanor Rigby", "Sweet Dreams (are made of this)", a samba version of "When You Say Nothing At All"... actually, a lot of the songs ended up with a Brazilian flavor to them, because Matt and Jessica brought their Brazilian percussion instruments with them. 

Let's see, what else did we play... "Sweet Home Alabama"... I don't even remember.  I had a panicky moment just before the jam when I realized I hadn't had the time to formulate or execute a plan of any sort for the evening.  No charts or even lyric sheets printed up, no song list aside from the one of all the songs I've "learned" this year, nothing.  I knew it would be ok because they are all my friends (also, because I made guacamole, and I make a really good guac for which people are willing to forgive me most of my sins), but I wanted to have a method, a plan, based on the personnel of the evening, and perhaps algorithms and stuff as well!  Conquerors don't go around without plans!  Arghh!

Again with the perfectionism.  I'm learning to treat it like a really annoying neighbor who talks a lot of shit but doesn't have any real power unless I listen to him, and actually has some really good ideas buried underneath all that flagellation (like, maybe I'll plan ahead next time if I have time).  He's not going to go away, but I can usually recognize him now, and ignore him.  Or, even better, make fun of him.  So, I'll keep having jam sessions.  It will still scare the crap out of me to host them and to participate in other ones.  I'll get better at planning them (or not) through trial and error.  With any luck, I'll get better at playing, too. 

A Note on Getting Out of My Head:
The past few weeks have been an interesting study in not over-thinking things.  I haven't had time to obsess about the music I've had to perform.  I've clicked my heels together and sent up a little prayer to the gods of accuracy and soul that what little time I've had to practice is enough to ensure that this octave passage, that 16th-note run, that groove, is there when I need it.  This is partly a function of me being able to trust my technique more in the past few months, and partly a function of not having any other choice.  Mostly, things landed really well in performance, and when they didn't, I recovered like a pro.  But when I wasn't practicing, rehearsing or performing, I wasn't sitting there worrying either.  That's a new feeling, scary and liberating at the same time - not obsess!?!?  What the hell should I be doing instead?  I think adding this song-a-day thing has tipped me into the volume of music - amount, not decibels - necessary to force me out of my head, and the urge to have jam sessions is the latest manifestation of that non-stuck-ness (that, and coining new words, apparently). 

Recent songs and quick thoughts about them:
"Amanda" (Boston): chosen because I asked my friend Amanda for suggestions.  Typical epic 80s ballad with the kind of soaring male vocals that make baritones bleed with tenor envy.  I like where it goes for the bridge: they've gotten us accustomed to hearing D resolve to E-minor during the chorus (Em / Am /, D / / / and repeat...), so it's not so much of a stretch to go to E major chord instead for the bridge.  Neat. 

"A Thousand Miles": a great piano-based song for me to use to work on solidifying the new technique.  I've been looking for a pop song to use, because, for some reason, when I learn things primarily by ear, the old, bad technical habits creep in.  But it's the same keys, and the same fingers playing them, so I need to find a way around that roadblock.  I love the drums on this song. 

Off to learn "Sweet Dreams" (Joshua started jamming on piano on this one, and I sang with Debbie and Jess, but I want to learn to play it too), and, if I have any juice left after that, "When I Fall In Love" - pre-1960, so a bending of my post-March-8 rules, but definitely an uber-standard.  Also, kind of a cheater song, given that I'm already quite familiar with it.  But, as Jess and I were discussing tonight, some of the fake books put in the alternate chords for you, which kind of takes the fun out of the chord substitution process.  So I'd like to play around with the harmony in addition to committing the song to memory.

Quiz Answers!

I had a student today who said I must get so bored teaching him beginning piano, going over and over scales, chords, basic rhythm. I assured him this is not so.  While I love working with professionals, I also love the structure and science of music that teaching beginning piano and music theory puts me in touch with. 

Also, I love to dance.  It's the creative discipline I practice just because I love to do it, without any expectation that I will ever actually achieve anything with it.  I owe my sanity in large part to dance teachers and dancing partners who are patient enough to dance with an amateur.  So I guess I'm partly returning a favor to the universe by teaching beginning piano, on top of the fact that I don't mind it as part of the mix (if it were the only thing I did every day, I would indeed go crazy pretty fast). 

So, I guess my quiz was pretty hard, huh!?  I had a lot of feedback to that effect.  I guess if you're not google-cheating, it was pretty tricky.  Heck, I google-cheated making it up!  I did have one friend who quickly facebooked me the answers including the song titles, so it wasn't "Impossible".  Which, by the by, was number 4.

Here are the answers:
1. C - Hallelujah
2. F - Possession (Sarah McLachlan)
3. D - Anna Begins
4. A - Impossible (Cristina Aguilera)
5. G - Addicted (Kelly Clarkson)
6. J - Torn
7. I - Gravity (Sara Bareilles)
8. H - Tunnel of Love
9. E - She's Your Cocaine
10. B - Mean

Pop Quiz!

Today, Monday:
New vocal coaching client first thing in the morning. Noon: accompany voice lesson with vocal-coach-to-the-stars I've been wanting to meet for a long time. Learn "Here I Go Again", run errands. Two hours in a gig that's associated with a bunch of unresolved personal tumult. More errands. Home for short rehearsal for Wednesday night's gig. Chat with my best friend from college, break the news to her that her first love, whom I'm still friends with, recently had his foot amputated. Tension, gunfire, and a heat-packing young man being chased towards me on the way to the train to teach a 9 p.m. lesson. Contemplate my mortality, and what I would do if, say, I were wounded in the arm or hand by a stray bullet. Lesson is fine, and I even get to use "Here I Go Again" to illustrate my point that I, IV and V are the most useful chords EVER. Wait ages for the bus on the way home, having decided not to return via Gunfire Park North. (I should mention, for the benefit of everyone who's worrying about me right now, that this is only the second time I've heard gunfire in my 5+ years living in New York City.)

Bought myself roses on the way home from the bus. Made a cup of tea, and will now take out the rest of the day's angst on you, dear readers, in the form of a pop quiz. I am going to give myself a pop quiz tomorrow: set a certain amount of time, probably a couple hours, to play through as much of my song-a-day list as possible, and see how I do. I will probably fail miserably. It's ok. I realized recently that I was not capable of learning and memorizing a song at the beginning of the year, but by the end of the year, I might be. Also, I'm having fun. Learning my song is the high point of my day, something I look forward to, even when I have zero energy and don't really do it very well.

Ok. Ready?

This pop quiz concerns songs about effed-up love. There are so many ways for love to fail. It can be obsessive, unrequited, co-dependent, or just... mortal. And the pain of messed-up love has no expiration date, but damn if it doesn't make for some great lyrics. I almost always connect to the lyric of a song first, and this is even more true with songs that fall into this category. I may not be able to wrap my mind around why my love didn't work, but man, oh man, I really GET this song... I may be all alone, but this song makes me feel less singled out by the universe. Et cetera.

Most of the songs in this quiz are ones I learned earlier in the year, or will be learning this week. I will provide a lyric (numbered), which you can match to a fact about the song (lettered). You provide the title. And... GO!

1. "all i've ever learned from love was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you"
2. "My body aches to breathe your breath/your words keep me alive"
3. "She's talkin' in her sleep, It's keepin' me awake, and every word is nonsense but I understand"
4. "How can I give you all my love, baby, if you're always, always putting up your guard?"
5. "And I know I'll never change my ways if I don't give you up now"
6. "I'm cold and i am shamed, lying naked on the floor/Illusion never changed into something real"
7. "You loved me 'cause I'm fragile when I though that I was strong, but you touch me for a little while and all my fragile strength is gone"
8. "Then the lights go out and it's just the three of us/You, me and all that stuff we're so scared of"
9. "And is it true, that devils end up like you, something safe for the picture frame?"
10. "You used to send me flowers when you f***ed up in my dreams"

A. Two New York City native divas, one from Hell's Kitchen, one from Staten Island, perform on this song.
B. This song is from Funhouse, but was not one of the singles.
C. Penned by Leonard Cohen, this song has many covers, possibly the most famous being Jeff Buckley's. I first heard it on the soundtrack to Shrek.
D. This Counting Crows song has historically been known to make me fall a little bit in love with the person playing and/or singing it.
E. The title of this Tori Amos song includes a controlled substance.
F. Sarah McLachlan nearly got sued for plagiarizing this song... by stealing material from letters written to her by one of her many stalkers!!
G. This song comes from the winner of American Idol's first season.
H. This song was/is the title track from The Boss' "divorce" album.
I. The title of this song is also one of the four fundamental interactions of nature (eg electromagnetism).
J. This 90s hit is actually a cover - it was originally done by the LA band Ednaswap.

Sweet Home Alabama, Shadowman

Turbo blog entry. More to practice. Need sleep. Not so much burning the candle at both ends as submerging the candle in the fires of Mordor, and today I was sick again. Bleh. Always fun to play a gig when you think you're going to puke at any moment. I think I'm a lot more exhausted from this whole break-up/move/figuring out a new life thing than I like to admit. I don't have as much energy as I usually do, and my immune system is shot. As an added bonus, whenever I get sick, I also get upset and sad that I'm sick, which is kind of dumb but there you have it.

I needed a pick-me-up song with a good groove today. No tender ballads, please. I looked at my uber list: "Right Here Waiting", no. "Fire and Rain." No, definitely not today. "Sweet Home Alabama"... I looked it up on playlist, and was grinning as soon as it started playing. I like the eight-note groove on each chord change - a little extra attitude, hitting it twice - and of course the iconic guitar riffs. I've been choosing guitar-based music a lot lately. I think I might need a guitar. I'm an occasional lyricist, and I usually picture myself with a guitar when I'm working out the lyrics in my head. Which is a problem, since in real life it takes me about five minutes to change chords on a guitar. There may be a visit to a pawn shop - or more likely, craigslist - in my future. Meanwhile, I'm in the middle of learning the piano solo at the end of "Sweet Home Alabama".

Last night, my friend Joshua came over to jam and we transcribed the song "Shadowman" by K's Choice, a Belgian band I'd never heard of before. My current favorite thing about this song: the Asus4 at the end on the lyric "now'd be perfect". The song is in C# minor, and we haven't heard Asus4 before in the song. That D natural in the harmony is just sweet here. It resolves to C# in an A chord, stays on C# for C#min/G#, B# in G# chord, then back to the tonic. What is it about chromatic lines that make them so, so sexy?? Perhaps it's the tiny movements - a half-step is as sensitive as musical intervals get in typical Western scales. A chromatic line is a thread the ear can follow throught the tension and resolution in the harmony.

It's all in the resolution: the progression that starts the "Shadowman", we analyzed as "figure 1": C#min - A/C# - F#7sus4/B - F#7/A#. Music theory nerds will understand why we started to analyze the third chord as Bsus4. B, F#, E. But instead of the E resolving to a D#, the B resolves to the A#. It's not just semantics, it does sound different. The resolution colors the chord that came before it in hindsight, and then when you hear it again (as you do many times in this song), you know what to expect, and you perceive the F#7sus4/B a little differently based upon what you know it's gonna do next. There's a life metaphor in here somewhere.

The form and the harmony on this song are actually really interesting, but I'll have to save any more geekery for another time. Meanwhile, you can check out the video and draw your own conclusions. I feel so honored that they chose my first initial for their band name!

Fever

How fitting that I chose to learn 'Fever" on a day when I actually have a fever. Ok, so it's from the 1950s, so kinda bends my timeframe, but it's an uber-standard. I'm glad I chose this song for today, because it's easy, and because everyone does it, and there are a jillion different ways to do it. My friend Alysha Umphress (currently in Broadway's American Idiot) does her rendition of "Fever" with Ray Fellman at the piano - lyric & arrangement-wise, it's like the Peggy Lee version. The video's from a couple years ago, but I got to hear them do an impromptu performance of it a few nights ago. I could listen to Alysha sing all day, and ditto for Ray's playing.

Ok, people, I'm going back to sleep! I have two shows tomorrow, so I need to get rid of this bug. Maybe I should bend my timeframe rule again and memorize "I'm Young and Healthy"??

Stages of Grief

Must... stay... awake... long enough... to post...blog...

So:
Yesterday: "Hurt", performed by Christina Aguilera. I am not a psychoanalyst, but I'll hazard a guess that this song describes the "bargaining" stage of grief pretty well, what with the lyrics in the pre-choruses and the bridge ("there's nothing I wouldn't do", etc).

This song is in a minor key, not surprisingly. E minor, to be exact, one whole step above "the saddest of all keys" - (shout-out to Spinal Tap fans).

Warning: I am just beer-influenced enough right now to try to explain a scientific concept I can barely grasp myself, and am far, far too tired to be very thorough or very accurate. So, first I am going to provide you with a link to a page about the Overtone Series.

And, second, I will try to make sense of it in my own words...
Basically, when you play a note on a pitched musical instrument (one on which you can play a melody- many drums are non-pitched), that note vibrates at a certain frequency which we recognize as a particular pitch. But it is also simultaneously vibrating at faster frequencies. What we hear the most is the slowest-vibrating (lowest, or fundamental) tone, but in the mix we also hear the faster-vibrating tones (or overtones).

There are whole-number ratios involved in the differences in frequency (like I said: beer, fatigue). Whole-number ratios in different frequencies = notes that sound good together. The first few overtones consist of the notes of a major chord. It starts to get a little funky after that, but one could argue that the overtone series spells out a slightly out of tune dominant 7 #11 chord - a hip jazz chord one often hears at the end of big band numbers.

This occurs in nature! I think that is so cool! So anyway: major chord = as nature intended, happy, bright, yay! ...
Bum, bum, bum...
Minor chord = slightly deviant from nature. Sad. Brooding. Also, sexy.

Today I learned Sheryl Crow song "Strong Enough". Given that she talks about "tears of rage" in the first verse, I'm going to stretch and call this song representative of the anger stage of grief. Yes, I am making this up.

I love this song. What do I love about this song? I love that the chord progression is really simple and repetitive, making it easy to memorize (even though the internet chart I found had bogus chords on the bridge, sending me to Ear Training 101 for a hot second). I love that it's in three-four - not too many pop songs are. Lyrically, I love that she clearly is jaded enough to hold out for a man who's strong enough for her, but lonely enough to invite him to lie to her if he isn't strong enough to be her man. I love how the pitch of the melody rises on the lyric "please don't leave", and she switched to head voice - vulnerable, plaintive.

Why am I writing about grief tonight?

"Hurt" really struck me as I listened to it yesterday morning. I suppose it saves time to show up at therapy already in tears. Then tonight I saw a play about grief, which involved a character who had been a singer but hadn't sung since her infant child died. So it seems to be the subject of the moment.

The excitement of moving in has faded as I am beginning to settle in to my new place. Things that I couldn't process while still living with my former beau begin to surface. I dip my toe in the surface of the pool of Social Interaction with Boys Who Are Cute, and realize that it's been almost five years since I've been out with a boy I don't already know from doing a show together. And I'm just hella exhausted from moving and life and my crazy schedule.

And that, dear readers, is why I have written about grief tonight.
Hasta pronto - let us see what adventures tomorrow brings!

My Way

What makes an artist?

I'm sure there are as many answers to that question as there are people to answer it. To me, one key thing about being an artist is stubbornness - being willing and able to stick to your guns when you are the only one convinced that you are on the right track. Take Thelonious Monk. Certainly no one else would have thought the notes and funky, angular rhythms he chose were the "right" ones, yet when you listen to Monk, they seem to be the only right notes and rhythms in the universe.

And so I begin my "new" year with two songs entitled "My Way". Today's "My Way" was the old chestnut made famous by Sinatra; yesterday, I learned "My Way" by the Texas band Los Lonely Boys.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST:
Los Lonely Boys: 3 chords total, bluesy rock jam
Sinatra: many more than 3 chords, in a pretty standard jazz/pop progression
Los Lonely Boys: in-your-face lyrics of a youngish person determined to live his life the way he sees fit
Sinatra: philosophical lyrics of a man nearing the end of his life and reflecting on having lived it as he saw fit, through all its ups and downs
Los Lonely Boys: three brothers' Texican rock band; no famous covers that I know of
Sinatra: This song was made famous by Sinatra, but the original song is a French song called "Comme D'Habitude" by Claude Francois, Jacques Revaux and Gilles Thibaut. Paul Anka wrote English lyrics that have nothing to do with the original French lyrics. It has been covered a zillion times. I was familiar with the Gipsy Kings' version, "A Mi Manera" before I knew that "My Way" existed. Those Spanish lyrics don't have much to do with Anka's version or the original French.

Speaking of "my way", I tried playing around with both of these songs, to see if I could find a different take on them. A way that is mine, ahem. Los Lonely Boys' song was pretty easy to play with - I think I came up with a sort of mellow version that was pretty fun (which makes the lyric seem like fair warning rather than in-your-face ...suits me fine, thank you very much).

The uber-famous "My Way" (I tire of calling it Sinatra's, since he didn't write it, and was one of hundreds who performed it, even if his version is the best known...) was harder to change. It's not that I am so familiar with it that I just can't think of it any other way. I've actually logged a lot more time listening to Los Lonely Boys' "Way", because it's one of my favorite songs. No - it's that "My Way" is one giant dotted rhythm the whole way through. The emphasis falls on words that are on the 1st and 4th beats of the measure for the majority of the song. So it's hard, without drastically changing the rhythm of the melody, to make it sound like anything other than a stately French overture.

It's a shame Edith Piaf died before this song was written. She would have killllllled it! The English lyrics are actually a bit reminiscent of her signature song "Non, je ne regrette rien": "I'm about to die. I regret nothing. Nope. Nothing.", is what both songs seem to say. Hmmm... I smell a medley...

Happy New Year!

What? ...um, Kat, it's the 8th of March. It isn't New Year's, it isn't Chinese New Year's. It's not even Jewish New Year's.

I am restarting my year, complete with the intention to maintain - er, form - healthy habits like jogging, keeping my apartment clean, and springing blithely from bed in the morning without hitting the snooze button. And learning music, and writing about learning music, because music and writing are what I love, and I gave myself this project, and I am determined to see it through. And well-behaved young ladies from rural Southwestern mining towns don't get to be professional musicians in New York City if they are short on determination. So, even if I have to start over every day (which I do have to do, if you think about it), here is what I'm going to do:

Learn and memorize one well-known popular song a day. Suck a little less each day. Try to have fun in the process.

Rule #1:
I have to like the song, or at least be really interested in learning it. This is now Rule #1, because life is too short to wait to do things you like, and too long to spend doing things you don't like.
Rule #2:
The song has to be a well-known song either written or made famous between 1960 and the present. I decided to narrow down the category because there are so many songs in that category that I want to know, and because I get lazy/busy with 32-bar standards from the 30s and 40s. This is supposed to be a challenge, dang it!

I knew as soon as I started this project that it was about more than just learning songs. I thought it was going to be all about dealing with my arch-nemesis, Perfectionism. Well, it has been about Piano Kat vs. Perfectionism. But there's more. I am one original musical, one important relationship, and over two grand in moving and home expenses lighter than I was at the beginning of the year. I don't know how all the spiritual mechanics of it work, but I do know that having this Musical Task Thingy to come back to every day helped me get unstuck from a Life Ditch and back on the road (a bumpy road, but a road nevertheless). This Musical Task Thingy also helped see me through some recent dark weeks, even as I took the Half-Ass-Music-Learning to a whole new level. Showing up counts for something, right?

So. I surrender. I have no idea what this project is going to be about. Learning music, obviously - and I have noticed a marked improvement in some aspects of my playing - transposition, groove, arranging, all things that are critical to my work, all a tiny bit less sucky than before. And instead of berating myself for that which still sucks, I'm trying to be really specific about what it is and work on improving it. Take that, Perfectionism! Other than that... all bets are off. This could be about anything. Having fun playing music, even. Bring it, life.

I did learn a song today - "My Way" - not the one you're thinking of, but the Los Lonely Boys song. It might be a slight bend of Rule #2 as it's not all that well-known, but it's one of my favorite songs. It's 1:17 a.m., and I'm wiped out from my long Manhattan-Ping-Pong day, so I will write about it tomorrow with the other "My Way".

Going Through the Motions

Quick post, since I may or may not be in the same place am my internet service the next few days. Quick, because it's 3 a.m., and I have to leave here at 7 to take care of aforementioned internet hook-up. I will be glad in another week or so when this back-and-forth is over.

I am literally falling asleep as I type this, so let's see how lucid and concise I can be:

This month has been much more about taking care of personal business than about improving my musical skill or moving my career forward. A friend recently reminded me of the quote "if you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough," by which measure I'm certainly trying hard enough. If you view this project purely as a musical exercise, I am totally floundering. I've shown up most days and sort of looked at a song through my haze of distraction, but I don't think I've retained a single song in the past three weeks. And, memorize lyrics, what? "Sucking a little less each day" is stuck in neutral.

But if you view this project as a form of meditation, I'm doing ok. I'm showing up (almost) every day and at least going through the motions, and I'm becoming more familiar with my process of learning music and with all the ways I get in my own way. So... yay. I think.

What are the motions I go through? Usually I listen to the most famous recording of the song, and sometimes other famous versions or versions by artists I especially like. I print the lyrics and analyze the form and chord structure. Then I play it - sometimes in different keys, or different feels until I am doing it without looking at the music. That's the theory, anyway.

Tonight's song is "Exhale (Shoop Shoop)". The best part about the song for me is Whitney Houston's riffaliciousness, so that's food for thought as i work through it. Incidentally, according to wikipedia, this song is about leaning on your friends to ease the pain of a break-up. So a shout-out to Walter, Yare and Russ for helping me pack tonight - and not only that, but plyng me with food and booze and making a tedious and sometimes painful chore feel like a party.

Desperado

Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh.

People, I'm not gonna sugarcoat this - this project is not going well right now. I will leave out the gory personal details, but let's just say, I'm feeling a little stressed.

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday. My relationship with organized religion is mutable and tenuous at best, but I do like the way Ash Wednesday is observed at the little Lutheran church in the Bronx where I play. It marks the beginning of the season of Lent, a time that is traditionally set aside for cleansing, simplification, reflection, and, for the masochistic among us, giving up some luxury or treat. Refined sugar, in my case. What was I thinking!?!?!? All I can think about now is cupcakes!

The ashes are mixed with oil - both are substances which are traditionally cleaning agents. Usually the ashes are made from the previous year's Palm Sunday palm leaves. The circle of life and all that shizzle. "Remember that you are from dust and to dust you will return," the pastor says as she (in the case of my church) applies the ashes to your forehead.

A weird, kinda creepy, very Catholic thing to do, I always thought. We Presbies never did anything on Ash Wednesday. I think it was about three years ago that I was playing for the service and it hit me: Ash Wednesday is the Christian tradition's annual moment to say:

"Hey. You are mortal. So stop f***ing around, and take the next few weeks to scale your life back to the basics. Figure out what you really wanna be doing with your time in this body on this planet, because it's finite. To dust you shall return."

Ok, I'm listening.

There are a lot of things I want to cram into this finite lifetime, and I would like to make clear, in case the universe has misunderstood me in the past, that moving my piano from apartment to apartment within New York City is not - repeat, NOT - in the top 100. Nor is ending relationships.

I much prefer music. Music.

I "learned" "Desperado" - quote marks because ... well, I have heard this song a zillion times, and I didn't spend much time on it. So I already "know" it, and I probably didn't "learn" it as well as I could have. But at least I can sound it out. Love the chord progression - that IV-iv gets me every time. I only spent a short amount of time on it, because the lyrics are perhaps not what a girl who is going through a breakup wants to go over and over late at night. "You better let somebody love you, before it's too late." Well, f**k.

Um, so... arch form. Loosely, A-B-A-B-A. I've gotten so used to AABA or verse-chorus-bridge-esque. This song actually feels kinda long to me just because the structure is so symmetrical, compared to other pop songs. Anyone else experience that?

Yes, I must at least go through the motions of learning a song each day. I need that distraction. Gentle readers, thank you for coming with me on a journey that is not quite what I had bargained for. I anticipate returning to my usual cheerful self sometime in the near future. Meanwhile, if you'll excuse me, I have fences to ride.

A Year of Standards

01/01/10 - the wee hours January 1, 2010 - the start of a brand new year, a year in which I'm determined to learn one song every day.
The GOAL:
To be able to play - and in a dire emergency, sing - one new song every day for one year. From memory. To not suck too much at it; to suck a little less each day.

The RULES: 1. Songs must fall into one of the following semi-subjective categories: pop hit, jazz standard, not-too-obscure showtune. 2. I have to like the songs (If I don't follow this rule, I will likely be found with self-inflicted piano wire wounds by the end of January). umm... I guess that's it. I feel like there are more rules, but maybe I'll just start with those two.

The REASONS: Why on God's green earth would I want to add such a thing as learning a new song every day to my already-hectic schedule? And whyyyyyyy, I ask you, why am I going to take the time to journal about the experience? I don't think I know the answer to the latter question yet, but as to the former: I have a deplorably small repertoire for a professional musician. I'm a pianist - I'm used to playing whatever singers put in front of my face. But I've always been more of a reading musician, and I'm sick of having to answer no when asked if I know how to play a song from memory. "I grew up sheltered, before YouTube, in the middle of nowhere, exposed only to music written before Beethoven died, and it was three miles uphill both ways to..." - still true, but beginning to sound like a pretty lame excuse for not knowing music that is standard in the New York musical theater world in which I now work.

As soon as I started trying to learn a song a day (I gave myself a head start around Thanksgiving to see just how much this project is going to kick my ass), I realized there are a few good reasons to do it that I hadn't anticipated:

Duh, I'll get better at learning and playing music. I realized that, but the realization was sort of obscured by my first reason - frustration, frustration, frustration with my lack of familiarity with music written by people who are not necessarily dead/white/male.


And maybe if I obey rule number 2 (learn only songs that I like), I will rediscover that feeling of freedom, of playing because I love it so much, that childlike rush that made me want to play music in the first place. I feel like I've lost touch with that joy in the midst of the daily play-to-pay: bills as steep and tall as New York City skyscrapers, technique that needs fixing before I injure myself, a treacherously slippery career ladder. I use all my practice hours (and, alas, too many of my boyfriend hours) just hurrying to learn music for the next gig; whether I like the music or not is moot. I still love playing music, obviously, but it feels like a marriage that's going through a rough patch. I go through the motions, wake up, try, try, try again, and hope that I can reignite the old spark, but something has to change or it's divorce - somethin's gotta give...

And... I'm gonna have to, like, let go of my perfectionism a little, 'cause at the rate of a song every day, perfect ain't gonna happen. This is really scary for me. I often feel like I'm falling off a cliff, and the ideal of perfection is the only trustworthy branch that will keep me from plunging to the rocky depths below. Which is nonsense, I know. Utter horse hockey, etc. And profaner things as well, but what if my Grandma reads this blog? Because, oh yeah, I'm gonna post these musings online. Y'all, I have no idea how to blog. Mental note: watch Julie & Julia, read up on blogs that are about doing something once a day...

Another blow for perfectionism. Why do I sense that this is a big somethin' that's gotta give?