In 7th grade I was attending the local public junior high school in Farmington Hills michigan. OE Dunckel Junior High. One of my friends Catherine Schroeder asked me if I knew how to play Rhapsody in Blue. Not to embarrass myself I said yes. What an out and out lie!
I then thought, I have to get it and learn it!!! So I made my mom drive me to the music store in Berkley, Michigan and I bought the $4.00 Warner Brothers edition. Did I learn it? No!
But I decided now that I'm an almost empty nester, I am going to learn it! 31 pages and I can play through, poorly the first eight. So part of this blog will be my discussion of Rhapsody in Blue progress. It is a piece that has so much greatness, but also a piece that brings out the Charlie Brown aaaargh!
Page 4 measure 7. 4 flats and those close 4 note chords in the right hand. Simply intimidating! More to come about the Rhapsody.
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
The years 7 to 21, I dreamed of being a pianist, something along the lines of a church musician, or a pianist for a ballet company, or arranging popular music, and playing in a class lounge with a black grand piano. When I got to Albion College my freshman year, and I signed up for piano lessons, I decided I simply wasn't good enough to be a professional musician. The teacher I had, who mostly had piano majors for students, told me I had double jointed thumbs and I would never be able to play correctly. That took me into almost a ten year hiatus away from the piano When I was home from college ( I switched to Michigan State) my sophomore year I looked at my parents' piano and aside from the occasional Christmas carols I didn't play it. However my college boyfriend, whose older brother was in a fraternity, convinced me to play the frat piano when they had Friday night TGs for sorority girls. I guess it was at that point, that I got back into it. I would play a variety of lounge lizard songs for drunken fraternity men and their girlfriends. They were too drunk to care, and I would improvise and change keys on the Beatles, Beach Boys, Bread etc. I was insecure around guys, and the piano was my refuge, I could play and do something constructive instead of hanging out with dolt like guys who had greek letters on their sweatshirts.
So I am back into piano lessons once again, Part of the motivation is to end my empty nester grief. My husband Mark is a amateur musician. He had his own barbershop quartet in law school, and he is currently committed to our contemporary church choir at St. Peter. I love the choir, but I always have believed if I commit to anything musically it simply has to be the piano.
Right now I am learning the etude in E major by Frederic Chopin. It is a very well known Chopin work with four sharps. He wrote it for his friend Franz Liszt, which says so much about the piece. Can you only imagine being friends with Franz Liszt? That is something to think about, and something that could make you day dream for an entire day. The nitty gritty of this work is balancing the melody in the right hand with the continual base in the left hand. But the challenge of the piece starts on measure 38 of the Willard Palmer edition, with chromatic fourths (professional musicians, please don't kill me if I describe it incorrectly, and then the craziness of measures 46 to measure 53. I decided on measure 46 through 53 I would simply have to write in the notes, with a pencil, because I simply cannot remember then after I work them, out and then leave the piece to come back another day.
Sometimes I am so bogged down in the notes, that I feel like the piece is "learned" once I learn the notes. I know that is only a small piece to the puzzle. Perhaps that is what calls me back to the piano so often, I know I will never be quite perfect at playing. But knowing on some level I can play something keeps me going, because a solid practice session is one of the best things you can ever do. You spent some time creating something in the language of music. It is so amazing. Sometimes I dream, that when I die, there will be millions of grand pianos all being played by musicians (including all of the famous ones) who have gone before me. Just thinking of that is gratifying, and helps to make any day a good one.
So I am back into piano lessons once again, Part of the motivation is to end my empty nester grief. My husband Mark is a amateur musician. He had his own barbershop quartet in law school, and he is currently committed to our contemporary church choir at St. Peter. I love the choir, but I always have believed if I commit to anything musically it simply has to be the piano.
Right now I am learning the etude in E major by Frederic Chopin. It is a very well known Chopin work with four sharps. He wrote it for his friend Franz Liszt, which says so much about the piece. Can you only imagine being friends with Franz Liszt? That is something to think about, and something that could make you day dream for an entire day. The nitty gritty of this work is balancing the melody in the right hand with the continual base in the left hand. But the challenge of the piece starts on measure 38 of the Willard Palmer edition, with chromatic fourths (professional musicians, please don't kill me if I describe it incorrectly, and then the craziness of measures 46 to measure 53. I decided on measure 46 through 53 I would simply have to write in the notes, with a pencil, because I simply cannot remember then after I work them, out and then leave the piece to come back another day.
Sometimes I am so bogged down in the notes, that I feel like the piece is "learned" once I learn the notes. I know that is only a small piece to the puzzle. Perhaps that is what calls me back to the piano so often, I know I will never be quite perfect at playing. But knowing on some level I can play something keeps me going, because a solid practice session is one of the best things you can ever do. You spent some time creating something in the language of music. It is so amazing. Sometimes I dream, that when I die, there will be millions of grand pianos all being played by musicians (including all of the famous ones) who have gone before me. Just thinking of that is gratifying, and helps to make any day a good one.
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