River

Recent songs:
River - Joni Mitchell
All I Want for Christmas is You - Mariah Carey
My Guy - Mary Wells
Baby, It's Cold Outside (used the Ella/Louis Jordan and the Rod Stewart/Dolly Parton versions)
Taking Chances - Celine Dion

I have had geeky thoughts about all of these songs, of course, but no time to record them in a way that is intelligible to other life forms, so you'll just have to wait until my book for recent geekery.  Been busy learning 35 mm by Ryan Scott Oliver for a pair of performances next Monday - love his work, love working on new shows, and it's great to play with a band.  Also hacking through as much of the Christmas section Handel's Messiah as I can before a singalong next Wednesday that will be, um, an adventure (in the sense that not getting to rehearse with conductor or soloists before the gig is an adventure).  'Tis the season.  Looking forward to a few hours to go Christmas shopping and maybe bake some Christmas cookies before I leave for Japan! 

My Favorite Things

FAIL.  Every couple weeks I have a day where I am just too tired for ANYTHING.  In the morning, I taught three new classes at Circle in the Square - well, old classes, but new to me as I was subbing for my friend-the-usual-music-theory-teacher.  Then in the afternoon, in increments of an hour each: travel/break, rehearsal, travel/break, coaching with a new client.  Taught a lesson to a new student in the early evening.  Afterward, returned home and attempted to be productive with very, very limited success.  New classes/clients/students take extra mental energy, and I was a little fried.  The four-hour practice session was simply not to be. 

Went to bed early on the condition that I get up early to read through a musical score I have to learn over the weekend.  "Learned" "My Favorite Things" and "Edelweiss".  Quote marks around "learned", because I just sounded them out by ear, played through each a couple times, and called it a night.  I have heard these songs since I was little.  Downloaded them this morning (I did manage to roll out of bed before 6:30, which is not terrible since an "early" bedtime for me is 11:45 p.m.), will print the lyrics and analyze and listen to the arrangement.  Probably will only count one of them - I mean, how half-ass can I get?  Then again, I guess being able to sound out a song I know by ear but have never played from memory is an important skill too.  Rationalize much?

Today: Born to be Wild

I Hope You Dance

I am very excited right now, because I had a double cappuccino to counteract my sleep deprivation, and because my first column for the website Big Vision Empty Wallet just went up - check it out: http://www.bigvisionemptywallet.com/features/2010/12/2/art-and-life.html

Recent songs:
MON: Toby Keith, "Should've Been a Cowboy".  Love this song.  It reminds me of seventh grade.  It also makes for a really good androgynous facebook status update: "Kat Sherrell should've been a cowboy."  Not quite as good as "Kat Sherrell knew it complete when she wore a younger man's clothes", but not bad either.  China is definitely going to take over the world, because all the movers and shakers in the "free" world are sitting on their asses of an afternoon, thinking of clever status updates.  Anyway...

TUE: I earned back my political karma by learning "Not Ready to Make Nice" by the Dixie Chicks.  Listen to the bridge.  Go.  Go now and listen (in fact, if you download it from here, I earn 10c ... I just found out I've earned a single dime from one download!  ...But amazon won't pay in increments less than ten bucks.  It made me laugh to find this out when they emailed me saying I should finish filling out my contact info so they could pay me.  Gotta love automated emails.  The bridge to "Not Ready to Make Nice" (it could also potentially be analyzed as verse-two-on-feminism-and-steroids - the chord progression stays the same, and the bridgey-melody part interrupts at the midway point on the verse): ladies and gentleman, this is the proper way to respond to a death threat. 

WED: John Hiatt, "Have a Little Faith"
TODAY: Lee Ann Womack, "I Hope You Dance"

Outta time for writing!  Please check/share out my column (or this or any of my posts, if you feel so inclined and have more than three facebook friends ;)!

Friends in Low Places

A high school friend chastised me on facebook about neglecting my country roots, and I can't have myself being chastised on facebook, so here we go with a Garth Brooks song.  Realized that country is the popular genre in which my ears most instinctively know what to expect, and yet I've never really played it (another thing I avoided for far too long because the jazzheads thought it was uncool). 

I was gonna do some other song today, can't remember what, but realized I needed something fun, that would make me smile, and dance around my living room in a way that no one, but no one, will ever get to see.  Who cares if it's either an "up yours, ex-o'-mine" or a "yeah, I'm an alcoholic, so what" song.  This is country.  If the dog and the pick-up survive the song, you're in good shape.  So much the better if you get to stick it to an ex and then go drinking cheap beer with your ghetto buddies (gimme a break, I live in the city now - our low places are called the ghetto). 

Geekery:
Chord changes and melody, especially on the verse, are typical of old jazz standards, meaning they'd kinda work with any feel (hmm, my inner arranger starts to plot).  Two verses, no bridge, instrumental repeat of second half of the chorus before the beginning of the second verse.  Underlying rhythm on the verses syncopated; on the beat for the choruses.  Purposely rough back-up vocals on last choruses - presumably the friends in low places are singing along in the dive bar.  The thing that struck me most is that the vocal range of this song is over two octaves, from E2 to F#4.  Damn!  That's huge - most pop songs have a range of about an octave, give or take.  And it's active, which is show-people speak for "the lyrics make it possible to create a little scene that's interesting to watch", as opposed to most popular songs, in which the lyrics, even when good, don't go anywhere, and it's all about the voice and the sexiness of the singer and not the story.  Conclusion: this would be a kick-ass audition song for a guy auditioning for a countryish musical.  You're welcome, actors.

I Got You (I Feel Good)

My definition of "standards" has been pretty changeable throughout the year.  It seems like I'm just fickle and inconsistent, but the truth is, I've mostly been sticking to the styles of music I'm most likely to run into in my work life.  For most of this year, I've gravitated toward pop, rock and r&b, because my most embarrassing work moments are when I'm playing auditions for some rock or r&b based musical, and I'm not familiar with the material the singers are bringing in.  I recognize song titles, and can maybe think of a snippet of the song, but don't actually know the feel or how I should play it on the piano.  The piano arrangements are useless - the notes they write for the piano part will absolutely not sound good if played as written: they don't write in any of the accents that any good pop player will instinctively include, and the notes themselves are sometimes suspect, especially in the arrangements of R&B stuff that include the vocal line in the piano arrangement.   It's better to stick to the chords and play the "feel"... but to do that, you have to, um, know how.  Which I didn't, at the beginning of the year.  I wouldn't call myself an R&B master now, but at least I can sort of play a groove if I am familiar with the song or the artist.  So now I complain less about crappy piano arrangements, and more about snot-nosed classical snobs who don't know what they don't know (formerly known as: me).

This is all to say, that's why I've been doing a lot of pop and R&B for most of the year, as opposed to 32-bar jazz standards and show tune favorites.   I think I subconsciously expected to gravitate more toward those songs when I began this project.  But the subconscious urge to be mortified at work less often trumped the traditional definition of the word "standard", and I think my personal definition has evolved to something like:

standard, n.: a song I'm likely to run into in the course of my work, which would be slightly embarrassing not to be able to play by heart, and absolutely humiliating to not at least know of and be able to sort-of-fake

Now I'm working more with some traditional musical theater auditions and the late-night cabaret circuit, and it's more useful to know show tunes and jazz standards, which is why I've been going back to that territory more often.  ...But I don't want to lose my groove, because we all know how hard it is to get that thang back.  So I'm learning a little James Brown this weekend - "I Got You (I Feel Good)" today, and planning on "Get up Offa That Thing" tomorrow.  I'm looking at these as an accompanist - not gonna try to play the melody.  How would I accompany a singer on this, say in an audition situation?  (Is it possible I'm finally learning to look for how to make the best use of my time!??)

I'm trying to do two-song days today and tomorrow, so I'll practice switching feel-gears by doing contrasting songs: "If I Loved You" tonight, and maybe "Embraceable You" tomorrow.  A little more ebb and flow in the pulse, a little more like classical music in the accents and articulations.  It's like switching back and forth between languages - it is, in fact, switching back and forth between languages. 

I finally brought my Super-Nerdy Spreadsheet up to date the other night, and I still have to make up six songs from the Dark Days.  Then there's the fact that I will be leaving for Japan just before Christmas to see my sister... I will actually lose a day going over there, but I still feel like it's kinda cheating not to learn a song for that day.  And while I'm there, I'm gonna want to hang out with my sister and her family, not slave away at the keyboard, feverishly learning my last few songs... so I want to do some of the prep here. 

Well anyway.  One thing at a time.  Recent songs (apologies for not staying up-to-date with the blog - have been doing more journaling, which requires zero editing as opposed to the minimal once-over I give these before I post): "Stand By Me", "Lean On Me", "All You Need Is Love", "Mack the Knife". 

Back to James Brown.  Groove now, worry later.  Or maybe not. 

Beauty and the Beast

Well, wouldn't you know it, today I woke up wanting to learn "Beauty and the Beast".   The other day, it was the last song in the world I wanted to listen to and play.  It's on my list more for Rule #2 than #1, though the movie was one of my favorite disney movies as a kid. My theory is that I want to hear it today because I'm sick - achy/tired, think I was running a fever last night.  "Beauty and the Beast" is nostalgic and comforting, and also pretty famliar.  I don't have the energy to start a song from scratch tonight.  I already spent a little time today on "Change the World", which was yesterday's song - I did work on it last night, but gave up and went to bed because I was feeling like crap.  I feel a little better after my 3-hour nap this afternoon but am still only about 70%, so I will learn this simple little Disney song and call it a night.

Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered

KATGUT:
I DO NOT WANT TO LEARN BEAUTY AND THE BEAST!  I DO NOT WANT TO LEARN TWO SONGS TODAY!  I HAVE A VERY LONG DAY AND A SHITTON OF STUFF TO DO TOMORROW!  HOW CAN YOU DO THIS TO ME?

THE VOICE OF REASON:
Do this to you?!  Are you kidding?  This learn-a-song-a-day thing was your harebrained idea, not mine!  I was all for something more reasonable, like a song a week, but you said "noOOOOooo, 'my gut says'  that learning one every single day for a year will fix my playing, and also my life.  You said that one a week wouldn't work, you'd get bored and give up.  I had to agree - you're not disciplined enough to stick with anything for a whole week, so I gave in and figured I'd let you sink or swim.

KG:
You're an asshole, Voice of Reason.  That's why she always goes with what I say in the end.  Maybe if you were nicer, she'd listen to you once in a while. 

VR:
It's hard to be nice when I'm stuck with YOU in HER SLEEP-DEPRIVED BODY!!!

(Long pause, fraught with tension)

KG:
C'mon, we're not getting anywhere.  Can't we compromise?  You have to figure it out, I'm no good at compromising. 

VR:
Ok ok, so we'll look at the music for your rehearsal tomorrow night, and we'll look at the music for that other rehearsal Thursday morning, and we'll learn one song tonight.  And we'll go to bed before 2 a.m., because we're working on a sinus infection. 

KG (not ready for an agreement):
Fine.

VR:
...And we'll learn a song you really like.

KG:
Can I have another graham cracker?

VR (whatever works):
Fine. 

KG (munching on graham cracker):
What song?

VR:
"Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered."  Truce?

(they shake hands)

This is the song that made me fall in love with the Great American Songbook.  I was... fifteen?  It was the middle of summer, the middle of Texas, the middle of a typically humid mid-summer, mid-Texas day.  My sister and I were visiting our aunt, our unmarried, artistically-inclined aunt with the canine children, the one who was stubborn enough to defy a father who was determined that none of his children would study art or any of that non-money-making nonsense (and one who was determined, lest I paint a man I never knew as a villain, that his daughters would have skills to take care of themselves financially).  Oh, and that all his children would be right-handed - two natural righties, two born lefties.  Dad caved, but auntie held her ground (Dad retained his natural stubbornness in every other matter, however).

I digress.  We were eating homemade mint chocolate chip ice cream and helping her around the house.  Ella Fitzgerald was on the CD player on repeat.  It was a languid afternoon; who knows how many times the song went by before the lyric "...and worship the trousers that cliiiiing to him" called my attention.    Ooh, this song is kinda sassy, I thought.  Oh my gosh.  Oversexed.  She said oversexed.  In a song.  WHERE HAS THIS MUSIC BEEN ALL MY LIFE!?

It was the beginning of an affair that is still going strong.  He is dirty and classy at the same time, this canon of popular song.  It took me a really long time - til this year, in fact - to fully own how in love I am and commit to the relationship.  My parents don't really get him.  Mom kinda digs him without really knowing why; Dad flat-out disapproves, but is beginning to come around because he sees how happy this music makes me. 

So, really, I owe this song-jewel-paved path in part to Lorenz "Larry" Hart.  Judging from his life's troubled, truncated exterior, he must've had many inner conversations far more self-lacerating than the one I've been having tonight.  But oh, the lyrics he wrote.  And to Richard Rodgers.  Ever notice how the difference in musical language between what he wrote with Hart and what he wrote with Hammerstein?  The man knew how to set words to music.  And Ella, and her musicians, who knew how to bring words and music to life.  I send a special thanks to her pianist, Paul Smith, for giving me a 7-minute song that contains everything I will ever need to know about accompanying a jazz singer.  When he plays, and what he plays when he plays: as the lyrics get naughtier, the piano fills get bluesier.  Yes. Yes. 

My phone just rang - a friend, a fellow musician with whom I have a mutual agreement to call when one of us is having a hard time with life.  He will understand what I've written tonight.  Thank you, Larry Hart.  Thank you, Richard Rodgers, Ella, Paul, everyone.  Life can be hard, and life is long, or else tragically short; it's a real effing drag sometimes, a drag race in which you always feel behind, or about to wreck, or both.  Thank you for filling in the potholes so beautifully.

KG:
And by the way, Voice of "Reason", I've stuck with something for nearly a year.  It hasn't been perfect, but I haven't given up.  How do ya like that?  (flips VR the bird and walks away)

Crazy

This week's theme has been: crazy.  Examining the darker, stranger side of human consciousness.  This project, this year is definitely taking a toll on my body - sniffles, headaches, fatigue from lots and lots of hours going into non-paid projects (this one, and others that I do for networking/career-forwarding purposes, or at least that's the hope).  I've also been very fortunate to have had plenty of paid work this year, and lots of great friends in a city where there are always at least four of five things happening that I want to go to.  Trying to put a positive spin on "overwhelmed" - I'm overwhelmed because I have so many options, so many things to do, so many directions I could possibly go with my work.  One of my main money gigs is ending, and (again with the positive spin) I'm looking at it as a time to transition.  But to what, exactly?  There is no clear path.  I'm resisting the urge to say yes to every 10-cent gig that comes my way, because then I won't have time to do this or other things that have artistic merit and might pay off later... In fact, all the options that interest me most are invest-time-now-maybe-maybe-maybe-get-paid-later sort ...but the rent's due every month, and now I'm looking at going through at least a phase of a lot more freelance ping-pong - 1 hour here, 2 hours there - to make ends meet while I go after these get-paid-later opportunities.   It's tiring enough to make a person crazy.

Of course, crazy pop songs more often than not fall into the "unhealthy relationship" category:

Tuesday: "Crazy", Willie Nelson, made famous by Patsy Cline - crazy for loving a love-em-and-leave-em type (but ya can't help it, can you?)

Wednesday: "Crazy", Gnarls Barkley - a rare exception to the bad-romance-crazy rule of pop songs.  The perceived craziness of artists: there is freedom in losing your mind and following your "crazy" path.

Thursday: "The Closest Thing to Crazy" - Katie Melua - I have really good memories associated with this song from when it was on constant airplay while I lived in London.  Upon re-examination, I'd say this song falls pretty squarely into the bad romance category.

Friday: "Crazy", Aerosmith - I was really excited by the time this one rolled around on Friday.  Nice when I'm particularly excited about my song. More bad romance.  Why we gotta drive each other crazy, people!?  Geekery:  A lot of harmonic interest in the Crazy songs I chose.  Even in this one - a power chord rock song - the melody contains a lot of flavorful extensions or accented non-harmonic tones (don't know which way they'd be analyzed, frankly, don't really care anymore - they just sound cool). 

Last night's notes: (aka - times when I'm not so particularly excited about my song)
I am tired and i don't feel like staying up any later to learn my song.  Trying to put a positive spin on always having more to do than i have time for.  Really just want to skip learning the song and go to sleep.  At least it's a song i'm familiar with by ear - Crazy For You - Madonna
truth is, i'm not very excited about this song.  nothing against Madonna, and I remember liking the song before, just not excited about it in comparison to the songs i've learned this week. 
Enthusaism, the #1 most important ingredient - actually WANTING to sit alone in my apartment late at night learning pop songs. Nothing else would keep me awake, nothing else would keep me from hanging out more with my friends or doing other things with my time.
Am excited about Crazy ON You (Heart) tomorrow.  Gonna see if I can make that opening guitar solo work on piano. 

Rainy Days and Mondays

I was going to start a unit on crazy today, but when I peeked out my window this morning, I decided crazy would have to wait a day, because this was clearly the Monday to learn "Rainy Days and Mondays".  Rainy days are a big enough drag, and the fact that it's Monday just adds insult to injury (though with my schedule, it doesn't really matter what day of the week it is). I've played this song a couple times at my lobby gig - on rainy Mondays, of course - and the refrain is somewhere in my childhood memory, but it's not a song I knew very well before today. 

It's always nice to have companions who "get it", even if those companions are songs.  They're no substitute for friends who get it, but a song will do in a pinch (and is, in some cases, better).  The first time I really listened to the lyrics, the first line: yes.  Yes.  I talk to myself sometimes, and lately, I've been feelin' old.  A year without a single guilt-free day off will do that to a body.  And I certainly want to quit sometimes.  I love how matter-of-fact this song is - it doesn't sugarcoat or shrink away from the suckiness of being blue on a crappy-weather Monday.  It just acknowledges the situation.  Very vipassana-mindful Buddhist-ish. 

Funny thing about this song, the singer seems to have a companion, but she only refers to him in the bridge.  I'd be a little miffed if she were singing to me.  "Oh, so it's the only thing to do, run to the one who loves you??  And how is it funny?!  I just don't get you sometimes."  ...Ah, but there will always be those times, and that's when song companions come in handy. 

Orange-Colored Sky

So wiped out.  Doing as little as possible today, which includes not working out, and choosing a short song: Orange-Colored Sky.  I was pretty indecisive about songs today... sleep-watched Chess in Concert and thought about learning "Anthem", which is a standard in my musical theater world.  I ran across Orange-Colored Sky sheet music while I was looking for something else and decided to learn it instead.  Downloaded Nat King Cole's version and used it and the sheet music to learn the song. Pretty quick work memorizing it - have played it for probably a half dozen singers in classes, auditions etc, so I was already pretty familiar with it, but as I've noticed, before I started this project, I could sight-read something any number of times and never remember it later.  I practiced it with a drum loop to work on my schwing... always and ever, working on the swing.

A 49-hour weekend - hooray falling back!  I am actually giving myself a weekend, sort of.  I found a stopping place in the never-ending stream of emails around 5 p.m. yesterday and took a 3-hour nap.  I have my church gig tomorrow, but other than that, it's a real weekend!  For those of us who live to work, the to-do list never really gets any shorter, but sometimes the tasks that have piled up in the "urgent" column are few enough that you can just refuse to deal with them for a day or two.

I Will Always Love You

I feel a little blah about my song today.  It qualifies as a minor violation of rule #1.  I don't dislike the song, but I don't exactly love it, either.  ...but it's kind of a standard, and I admire Dolly Parton.  It's a fine song... but you know me and sentimentality.  This song is basically a long, drawn-out goodbye, and in order to get into it, you have to have a thing for long, drawn-out goodbyes.  So sometimes I bend rule #2; today, I bend rule #1 a little bit.  I have three versions of this song: Whitney, a dance mix of Whitney, and Dolly.  Last week I saw the very talented performer and celebrity impersonator Jason Cozmo do this song as Dolly, and it reminded me I should learn it.  I learned it this morning before my lobby gig, and opened with it.

I-vi-IV-V pop songs notwithstanding, I did decide to mix in a little classical for the benefit of the non-condescending classical music lovers who walk by me every Monday, and was rewarded for my efforts by a woman who was very appreciative of Fur Elise (don't judge, people like hearing things they recognize). Mr. Condescending P. Dude walked past me today just as I was finishing a Mozart slow movement.  I could have proceeded to the rondo, like any well-behaved sonata player would do.  But the triumphant smile he shot me upon hearing that final, intrinsically baroque/classical delayed cadence inspired me... to play a few schmaltzy-twinkly ii-Vs in the key of Eb (not the key of the sonata).  It was an instant, one-time standard I made up on the spot, called "That's What a Piano's For".

A piano is for hitting.  A piano is for hits - hits that are centuries old, hits that no one except the composer has heard yet.  Everything that stands the test of time has to be new at some point.

Monster Mash

Aurghhhhh!!!  I am so freaking tired, I am having trouble concentrating, ALL of my bad habits are here tonight, along with the ghosties and ghoulies.  Even had a brief cameo appearance of the FoG-AL (she seems to be afraid of kittens, as I hadn't seen her for over a week until this evening).

I am contemplating sending myself to bed without a song, but when the hell am I going to make it up?  Discipline.  Try to be as disciplined as you look.  Disci - plan = disciple of my plan, I will follow my plan, stay the course, trust the process and all that crap that is not actually crap when I'm in a better mood.  I will make another bloody cup of tea and learn my damn song and practice my damn gig music.  Maybe I will meditate first so I don't take this homicidal energy back to the piano.

Common misconception among people who are not artists: that we feel like doing what we do every time we have to show up and do it.  I do not feel like practicing today.  I feel like eating obscene amounts of Halloween candy and half-sleeping through hulu'ed episodes of 30 Rock and Modern Family (I did a little of that this afternoon, and received an unequivocal confirmation from my body-mind that I could continue to do just that and nothing else, indefinitely, thank you).  I haven't had a full day off for about six weeks, and, because of this project, I haven't had that "nothing-really-needs-to-get-done-today" feeling for close to a year.

At least the technical exercises are out of the way, so the piano has been tamed from the black-and-white monster that hits back when I play with my erstwhile bad technique.  And my song is fun - "Monster Mash", a novelty song from the early 60s.  Where have these songs been all my life?

This year is a marathon.  When my body protests, my mind has to keep it going.  Disci-plan.  C'mon, SuperKat.  GO.

Hard Times

OMG, I love this song.  OMG, I love this song!!!  OMG, I love the blues.  ack ack ack ack ack...

I can either write about it and where I first heard it and why I'm learning it tonight, or I can go back to the piano and learn some tasty Ray Charles licks.  So... um, bye. 

Tears In Heaven

Amusing sign from the bathroom of a studio where I rehearsed today

Disclaimer: this entry has nothing whatsoever to do with "Tears In Heaven", because I haven't learned it yet.  I had a really full day, and am going to learn it right after this.  See, I got something I gotta say, right here, right now - you feelin' me?

Today at my gig, I was playing my usual mix of mostly-jazz-standards-and-pop mixed in with a-little-lite-classical-and-the-occasional-rock-song-to-keep-the-security-guards-awake when, in the middle of "Golden Slumbers-Carry That Weight", a couple guys walked past me, and then came back so one of them could interrupt me to say, "Um, do you ever play any more classical stuff?  Like Mozart or something? ...I mean, do they tell you what to play, or do you play whatever you want?" I played the exposition of K. 545 for him (Sonata Facile - a philistine deserves no more).  He patted the piano and said, "That's what the piano's for."  I was aghast.  He said, "I mean, I don't know where your tastes run to, but... you gotta elevate this place, right?" I smiled my sweetest f*ck-you smile at him as he backed away.

I had to laugh - I mean, this guy doesn't even know how ignorant he is.  Interrupting the Beatles for "Mozart or something"?  20th Century pop music, 18th century pop music, whatever floats your boat, dude.

But clearly it annoyed me, because I still have a lot to say about it, which I will now list in semi-orderly fashion:
1. I play pop and jazz at this gig because that's what gets the most passersby to notice and smile.  Play classical, and I might as well be a really hot, oversized ipod. 

2. I love taking requests.  One of the reasons I'm doing this project is that I hate it when someone asks me to play something and I don't know it.  I like to play what makes people happy.  This guy wasn't making a request, he was making me feel like what I had been playing before was wrong.  He wasn't being an appreciative listener who wanted to hear something in particular, he was being a condescending prick who was telling me how to do my job.

3. Here are the people who are allowed to tell me how to do my job: other musicians (at any level - I have something to learn from anyone else who studies music); composers, directors, actors, choreographers, other arts professionals with whom I am collaborating; people who sign my checks.

4. Philistine-prick-dude, you do not fall into any of the above categories (the "Mozart or something" and other clues point to you not being a musician at any level).  I guarantee you I have invested a larger percentage of my life and my income studying and practicing to be better at my job than you have to be better at yours, so don't tell me how to do my job, unless you want me in your office telling you how to fill out your TPS reports. 

5. Oh wait, I don't have time to tell you how to fill out your TPS reports, because I have to get to my next gig. 

And now I have to get to my next song - "Tears In Heaven", by Eric Clapton, one of the greatest musicians of our time.  Not all musicians are men, and not all musicians play classical music, but neither gender nor genre disqualifies one from being a great musician (or at least sucking a little less each day). 

Undone (the Sweater Song)

Today's song choice is in compliance with rule number one (dig the song, want to learn it), if a little sketchy on rule number two (how standard is standard?). 

The other day, I was killing a half hour between appointments at one of my favorite bakeries, outwardly drinking tea and prepping for a rehearsal, inwardly waging a particularly brutal battle with the FoG-AL (pronounced FUG-all, like a drunk-slurred version of f*ck-all, which is about all the Fairy of God-Awful Loneliness is useful for).  This song came on, and it made me smile.  A quirky song-jewel.

"Undone" has three chords - you guessed it, I, IV and V.  I / IV / - V / IV / ... for the entire song.  In F# except for the guitar solo, which is in A.  There are very few lyrics, if you don't count the spoken bits. It is not a very pianistic song.  I played around a bit with how I might arrange it if I were to play a snippet of it at a cocktail gig.  I half-ass learned the guitar solo and noticed how it built and the choice of notes leading to the key change back to F#.  I learned the vocal harmonies for the second chorus.  I tried unsuccessfully to find online any info on what I believe is a prepared-piano outtro (anyone know about that?).  Maybe not the most educational song I could've chosen from a piano-playing perspective, but I always get something out of learning a song I like, if only because it keeps me more engaged than a song that I'm learning because I "should". 

Speaking of destroying sweaters, I just acquired a Guard-Kitten.  I'm naming him Diesel, because his purr is loud and his farts stink (seriously!).  Diesel Boots McFerrin - McFerrin for Bobby McFerrin (a musical hero who rehearses without shoes on; Diesel has black fur and white-sock-feet); Boots because I keep hearing it when I say the name to myself.  Deez-Boots sounds like a good urban-musician-cat name.  He is the sweetest, snuggliest thing ever.  My friends Matt and Jess rescued him from the alleyway behind their house, and they already have a cat who was very insulted by this little upstart's presence in her castle.  I haven't had a practice session at home since I got him yesterday, but I played for a few minutes last night, and he was fascinated. 

Try Sleeping With a Broken Heart

The hardest part is going to bed at night with no one to talk to, no one to hold onto, no one to dream about.

This Alicia Keys song spends much of its time on the subdominant (the IV chord Bb; the song's in F).  Not quite the throbbing tension and release of V-I, more of a nagging ache that isn't overwhelming but never quite goes away either.  The melody hangs out in the do-re-mi vicinity (F-A) for most of the verse - listen to the rising major 3rd cry on "near me", "told me", "lonely".  It makes a leap all the way to sol (eg 2nd verse "you'd never LEAVE me), then centers around fa on the chorus - "tonight".   Fa, the 4th scale degree: again, less pomp and circumstance than sol the 5th, but with a quiet determination of its own. Determination: the repeated syncopated uphill climb of the bass... I will climb this hill again and again, finding "a way to make it without you."

Friends ease the suffering of visits from the Fairy of God-Awful Loneliness and other indignities as I perform this seemingly endless task of learning how to be alone (now that too many boring, time-consuming, and/or disappointing dates have made me choose to be so for a while).  Who am I when I'm at home?  How far am I willing to be pulled from my actor neutral in order to be in a relationship?  Figuring out how to be my own source of emotional support (tip: Cookies are not lunch). How and when to be ok with asking for a little help from my friends. 

Songs help, too.  I went with my friend soprano/conductor friend Alison Davy to a concert of the New York Festival of Song.  Pianist Steven Blier, one of NYFOS' founders, spoke of collaboration as he was introducing the Vaughan Williams song "Silent Noon" (I am paraphrasing what I got out of what he said; I never remember things verbatim): A great coaching session is often characterized by twofold silence.  The magic of collaboration lies in the fact that both parties are able to have thoughts they never would have been able to think alone.  The program included songs by Schubert, Gershwin, and Bob Dylan - and many more, but just to give you an idea of the range.  This is my happy place, a hall where people believe that collaboration is sacred, songs are important, and good music transcends genre boundaries.  It was magical.

songs fill my life like stars fill the night sky
collect them, one by one, like precious gems
decorate my life with song-jewels

heights and depths and simple pleasures
that words alone cannot express
and music alone cannot articulate

a marriage of words and music
more successful than many human marriages
one augments the other

A Change Is Gonna Come

What I've been doing lately - the songs that have not been mentioned:
She Came In Through the Bathroom Window
If I Could Turn Back Time
Carry That Weight
Golden Slumbers
Proud Mary
To Make You Feel My Love
Love Song
Like a Rolling Stone
What's Going On
Blowin' in the Wind
I Am What I Am
A Change is Gonna Come

It's these last few (not in chronological order) that I've been wanting to write about but I just haven't had time recently.  Most of my time the past 5 weeks has gone into working on a show called Oklahomo for the New York Musical Festival.  No, that's not a typo...it's a rock musical satire about a gay superhero from Oklahoma. 

Before I came on board with the project, I had a chance to chat with the director and the writer, and they both warned me, in separate phone conversations, that the script they were about to send me was a little off-color.  I assured them I'm not easily offended, and to send the script on over.  Even so, I had to ask myself, fresh from a visit to my fairly conservative, religious family, why I was not offended.  It turns out that sexual humor and foul language do not, in and of themselves, offend me (much to my mother's chagrin).  Good to know.  (I should pause to acknowledge that while this play happens to be off-color, and to deal with homosexuality, I'm not saying that the subject of sexuality - homo- or otherwise - is itself off-color.)

So what does offend me, if not F-words and bawdy jokes about gay sex? 

Discrimination - allowing someone to suffer by treating them differently or by denying them basic civil rights, simply because they are different from what is considered the norm (or... um, female, slightly more than half the population).  Malice - intention to hurt another. Violence.  I'm sickened by the recent spate of attacks against gays in New York City, particularly the assault at the iconic Stonewall Inn where the gay rights movement was born four decades ago and where I play regularly.  I'm saddened by the recent well-publicized suicides of gay teens.  The ones we've heard about are sad enough; even worse is the fact that we all know there are so many more we never hear about.  I mean, come on, people, I don't care about your personal opinion of homosexuality, this is someone's kid.

Mother, mother, there's too many of you crying.

I'm in an interesting position - a swing state native living in New York City.  I have a lot of conservative Christian and Mormon friends.  They are kind, smart, creative people who want to live their lives peacefully and find satisfaction in their work and loved ones.  Many of them are married.  I have a lot of more left-leaning friends of various religious disciplines.  They are kind, smart, creative people who want to live their lives peacefully and find satisfaction in their work and loved ones.  Some of them are happily married; many of them are single, and some have reservations or downright aversion to marriage.  I have a lot of gay friends (I mean, come on, I work in musical theater, for heaven's sake).  They are kind, smart, creative people who want to live their lives peacefully and find satisfaction in their work and loved ones. Many of them are in long-term, committed, communicative, monogamous, loving relationships.  Many of them want to get married.  Most places in this country, they aren't at liberty to do so.  Liberty.  Justice.  For all?

How many years can some people exist before they're allowed to be free?

It's really hard for me to talk about this stuff, because my friends and family run the gamut from Bible-thumping truck drivers to latte-swilling entrepreneurs, and I love and respect them all.  But you know what? 

1. Maybe the two sides should consider talking to each other.  "Picket lines and picket signs/Don't punish me with brutality/Talk to me so you can see what's going on."

2.  It really bugs me that some people in my country are treated differently based on their sexual orientation.  It boggles my mind that the Apostle Paul's - Paul's! - words about homosexuality have somehow become more important than Jesus Christ's point blank "second-most-important commandment" (Matt 22:37-40) - love thy neighbor, (the first-most-important being love thy God, not hate thine fags).  Stop being so obsessed with sex, religious people! 

What courage it takes to own up to who you truly are.  It takes a lot of guts for me to own the fact that I'm a non-baby-wanting workaholic, and I live in a place where that's pretty socially acceptable.  I learn rock tunes, when my dad would have me playing continuo for Handel oratorios.  Pop music: he thinks it's noise; I think it's pretty.  That's small potatoes - easy.  How much more courageous to be your own special creation when society at large guarantees discrimination and threatens physical harm against you.  If there's an upside to the recent violence (or the recent increased news coverage of the violence), it's that maybe it's a sign that change is around the corner.  Long time coming.

About Oklahomo - I chose to do it because ultimately it's a story about love and acceptance. We performed one of the numbers at the Stonewall a couple weeks ago, and we got a huge round of applause at the first chorus: "rainbows and rednecks, gun racks and gay sex, why can't we all get along?" Never try to convince me that financial institutions are more important than music.  The barter system still works great, and songs deal, quite literally, with matters of life and death.

So to my Christian friends, and to my gay friends, and to my many friends who are both Christian and gay - in the words of a character from Oklahomo: flame on!

Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight

I'm tired and cranky and stressed (what else is new?).  Actually, I discovering that when I feel this way, it's usually because I have something coming up in the next 24 hours that I'm stressed out about.  I was a wreck before sitzprobe last week (by the way - sitzprobe: one of my favorite words). 

This time, I'm preparing for an audition that's tomorrow night, and I just want it to be over.   My technique has improved, as has my musical vocabulary, but I am only able to learn music a little faster than before, and my sight-reading is in the crapper right now.  Actually, it's not so much that it has gotten worse as that it hasn't really gotten better, while many other aspects of my playing have improved. 

There comes a point in practice sessions where it's more productive to take a break than to continue.  I took a break to wash dishes and put my laundry away (finally... I picked it up almost a week ago and it's been mingling with the growing mound of dirty laundry in my bedroom), and to learn my song.  Songs.  Two songs: "Golden Slumbers" and "Carry That Weight".  Yes, sort of cheating, since they're both shorter sections of the medley that ends Abbey Road.  But if I'm going to count epic songs as one, then I get to count these as two... still making up for a few days during the break-up/move funk, and am running out of time. 

Songs are comforting.  Tonight I put each song on repeat on my ipod and played along until I got it.  That's usually the most relaxing way for me to learn.  I've been doing a lot of half-assing lately because I've been so busy, so it felt good to just play for a little while.  I looked the songs up in the Beatles scores to check a couple things... I hadn't missed much.  There were actually a couple mistakes in the score. 

Melodies...
Pop songs don't often have many big leaps in the melody.  The better to sing you with, my dear.  "Golden Slumbers" has a descending 6th, which reminded me of "Smells Like Teen Spirit".  "to get BACK HOME-ward"... "Load up ON GUNS".  ...actually the melodic contour is really similar, except one interval, and "Golden Slumbers" is in major and "Smells" is in a minor mode and I really have to get back to work so I can't geek out on this right now...

Dork. 

Put Your Records On

It's absurd that I'm awake at this hour, but I got a lot done tonight. 

A feel-good song.  Today was the kind of day where I looked for a while before I chose a song - something to cheer me up after last night's malaise.  There's a time to stop singing the blues.  Put your records on, let your hair down, don't worry that you haven't figured yourself out.  Self-medicating with music - yes.  Don't we all do this?  And it's one of the rare life-enhancing ways to self-medicate.

Perfect song - great lyric, easy form (bog standard verse-chorus-bridge form), easy tempo, lots of interesting stuff in the harmony, melody & arrangement.  Tonight for the first time I made a note on my lyric/analysis sheet of what I want to continue working on on this song... I'm quicker and better than I was at the beginning of the year, but also more aware of all the stuff I could work on that a part of one day doesn't allow.  Less worried about not having it perfect, but still want to come back for more with each song.  Infinity of music - never run out of things to discover even in one simple pop song.  My notes for this one: pay more attention to exactly what the bass is doing; transcribe the vocal arrangement for the last half of the bridge and beginning of the chorus right after the bridge.

Another case of I-write-more-when-I'm-sad-than-happy, but I really, really have to get some sleep. 

Ain't No Sunshine

Entertaining a guest tonight - an unwelcome bitch known as the Fairy of Godawful Loneliness.  Had I known she'd be visiting, I'd have gone out for a little while to avoid being home when she called, but I was exhausted, and my crazy-busy-need-to-prioritize-and-focus season isn't gonna be over for another week or so.  So I left rehearsal with a simple plan: go home, learn my song, catch up on 30 Rock, get a full night's sleep.  Somewhere between Hell's Kitchen and the Upper East Side, it came crashing down on me like a potted plant falling from a high-rise apartment window: I do not want to go home alone to my empty apartment this Friday night. 

Misery loves company, because misery is f***ing lonely.  But misery tends to prefer miserable company, because one never wants to be the one who is raining on the parade of people who are in a more cheerful place.  So in the absence (thank goodness) of miserable, lonely, pathetic people to be miserable and lonely and pathetic with, I turned to my song, which I had earlier determined would be "Ain't No Sunshine" (maybe I did have an inkling the Fairy of Godawful Loneliness would be visiting, after all). 

What is it about the blues that makes hurt feel so good?

Geekery, and my wholly unresearched opinion:

Structure.  When nothing else can be counted upon for support - no relationship, no job, no comforting habit - a simple chord progression is like a solid steel frame.  You can hang anything on it.  It is at once completely solid and reliable, and nearly unlimited in its scope for variation (in other words, the perfect spouse). 

The absence of the leading tone.  "Ti" in solfege - called the leading tone because it leads to the resolution to the tonic chord.  The leading tone is that perky friend you avoid when you want to wallow in a bad mood - you always know what she's going to say.  If she's an alto, she will resolve down a major third to "sol." If she's a soprano, she will almost invariably go up a happy little half step to "do".  Give me the flatted seventh any day of the week - it has to climb a whole step to get home.  For example: "she's always GONE TOOoo LO-ONG anytime she GOES A-way.  It's at once sadder (lower = sad, remember?) and more ... relaxed? than that perky leading tone.

Speaking of relax/release - last but not least we have the fact that the blues is really a vocal genre, and everything descended from it owes much to the human voice and its ability to express both ecstasy and despair.  Spanish has one word that captures perfectly art's ability to express this quintessential duality of life - duende.  The closest English translation is "soul", but that doesn't quite get it.  The repetition of simple phrases with a little variation, the cry, the steady pulse and progression of the harmony providing a stable podium on which to have your say... 

I'm gonna have to geek out on this more later - I'm falling asleep.  I listened to Bill Winters' version and Eva Cassidy's - will have to remember to check out some of the billion other covers.  I played along with the piano solo on Eva Cassidy's version (trying to find a credit for pianist and can't...?), will do that again.  I feel better now.  Hooray D minor blues.  And now hooray sleep...