Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Great albums of my past...and present
Our little man was up all night last night. All. Night. We didn't know what was wrong with him, but he seems to be doing a lot better now. In the midst of our middle of the night shenanigans, I was reconnected with some great albums from my childhood.
1. Raffi "Singable Songs For the Very Young" - We actually went to hear him live and I remember how fantastic he was! His "I wonder if I'm growing", made me a little weepy last night, especially since our little man is now in the 3-6 month size of clothes - at only 9 weeks!
2. Anne Murray "Hippo In My Tub" - My mom LOVED Anne Murray, so it was a real home run when she released this children's album. Her version of "Hi Lili, Hi Lo" still makes me cry.
3. Ramones "Mania" - "Sheena is a Punk Rocker" is totally badass, and "Rockaway Beach" means so much more to me now that we actually spend summers there. I thought it was a made up place!
We had quite a nice dance party here last night, my little man and I. He just didn't want it to end at bedtime...
There are some other faves from childhood that I'm going to look for:
Little Richard - my dad LOVES Little Richard
Barry Manilow's Greatest Hits - my mom LOVED that album. I still remember the double record album that opened up to a big picture of his face (pre-plastic surgery)
The Smiths "Louder Than Bombs" - that one was all me. Nothing like British gay angst music, when you're a 14 year old Canadian girl.
The Pretty in Pink Soundtrack - still my favourite movie of all time and one of the best soundtracks EVER.
Well, back to my tired stupor and an attempt to hit the Goldberg Variations before Junior is reactivated.
1. Raffi "Singable Songs For the Very Young" - We actually went to hear him live and I remember how fantastic he was! His "I wonder if I'm growing", made me a little weepy last night, especially since our little man is now in the 3-6 month size of clothes - at only 9 weeks!
2. Anne Murray "Hippo In My Tub" - My mom LOVED Anne Murray, so it was a real home run when she released this children's album. Her version of "Hi Lili, Hi Lo" still makes me cry.
3. Ramones "Mania" - "Sheena is a Punk Rocker" is totally badass, and "Rockaway Beach" means so much more to me now that we actually spend summers there. I thought it was a made up place!
We had quite a nice dance party here last night, my little man and I. He just didn't want it to end at bedtime...
There are some other faves from childhood that I'm going to look for:
Little Richard - my dad LOVES Little Richard
Barry Manilow's Greatest Hits - my mom LOVED that album. I still remember the double record album that opened up to a big picture of his face (pre-plastic surgery)
The Smiths "Louder Than Bombs" - that one was all me. Nothing like British gay angst music, when you're a 14 year old Canadian girl.
The Pretty in Pink Soundtrack - still my favourite movie of all time and one of the best soundtracks EVER.
Well, back to my tired stupor and an attempt to hit the Goldberg Variations before Junior is reactivated.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
It's not the end of the world...
It's so funny to me how when I'm in the middle of a bad day, I often feel like every day is going to be like that. How can I forget so quickly and easily all of the good days I have had?
Yesterday was a lousy day for me trying to get anything done. The babysitter got sick, so I couldn't go to my teaching gig and I had a fixed idea in my head about how the day was going to look. Here it was, 8 in the morning and I was already feeling frustrated and overwhelmed! The little man was wide away and ready to party all day, making it extremely difficult for me to actually sit at the piano and get anything done. I did 15 minutes of vocal practice, did a load of laundry, put groceries away and made chicken curry. A pretty remarkable list of tasks accomplished, but not good enough in my mind. Ah, dreadful perfectionism.
Today started out very differently. Since the forecast calls for rain, I threw the boo boo in the stroller at 7:45am this morning to get a good walk in before it's impossible to do so. We both really need to get out of this damn house, and it makes bedtime a lot easier for him later. After the walk, we both ate breakfast and he crashed until 11:30am. I practiced for nearly two hours and actually felt the most productive I have in almost a week. Amazing! I also made soup during this time. Double amazing!
What was especially surprising to me, was that after spending a few days really working on my original tune "In September", I actually made a few changes to it. It surprised me that once I got beyond the surface, I noticed that although I love the vision of the piece, there were actually a few redundant chords. I had forgotten about this type of subtlety that you can get to when you actually go deeper into the piece. I am really happy with the way it's coming together and I am almost completely off book with it. I also discovered a few lovely cluster voices that work beautifully over the middle section.
I hope that I can remember days like today when I am faced with another version of yesterday.
Yesterday was a lousy day for me trying to get anything done. The babysitter got sick, so I couldn't go to my teaching gig and I had a fixed idea in my head about how the day was going to look. Here it was, 8 in the morning and I was already feeling frustrated and overwhelmed! The little man was wide away and ready to party all day, making it extremely difficult for me to actually sit at the piano and get anything done. I did 15 minutes of vocal practice, did a load of laundry, put groceries away and made chicken curry. A pretty remarkable list of tasks accomplished, but not good enough in my mind. Ah, dreadful perfectionism.
Today started out very differently. Since the forecast calls for rain, I threw the boo boo in the stroller at 7:45am this morning to get a good walk in before it's impossible to do so. We both really need to get out of this damn house, and it makes bedtime a lot easier for him later. After the walk, we both ate breakfast and he crashed until 11:30am. I practiced for nearly two hours and actually felt the most productive I have in almost a week. Amazing! I also made soup during this time. Double amazing!
What was especially surprising to me, was that after spending a few days really working on my original tune "In September", I actually made a few changes to it. It surprised me that once I got beyond the surface, I noticed that although I love the vision of the piece, there were actually a few redundant chords. I had forgotten about this type of subtlety that you can get to when you actually go deeper into the piece. I am really happy with the way it's coming together and I am almost completely off book with it. I also discovered a few lovely cluster voices that work beautifully over the middle section.
I hope that I can remember days like today when I am faced with another version of yesterday.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Lowered Expecations
So it turns out that the best laid plans can easily be hi-jacked by a newborn. I'm sure any new moms out there are laughing out loud at my saying that, but how the Hell was I supposed to know?!!? My attempts of daily practice were interrupted this weekend by work - I did an actual gig, taught many hours on Saturday and played a church gig Sunday morning - and by baby. Baby seems to want to eat all the time, which means I can't exactly belly up to the piano and play the Goldberg Variations. BUT - I did manage about 20 minutes of vocalizing to get my mix to set up in the middle.
My dear friend Lisa is always reminding me of my rampant perfectionism (which I am grateful for), which assists me in being hyper-productive a lot of the time, but also sends me into rather a lather when I can't get everything I want done. My son is now the #1 most important thing in my life and when he needs me he needs me. It really is a pleasure and a privilege to be able to devote myself to meeting those needs. BUT - the thing that can truly drive me nuts is ME. I can no longer do what I want when I want. I can no longer just decide on doing something and then forcing it to happen. And I certainly can't do that when I have a little man who views me as the food source.
If only I could truly live in the now, be 100% grateful for what I have in my life and not expect myself to be able to be a great mom, who can practice 4 hours, run a teaching business, book gigs, win a Grammy and exercise regularly all while managing to put dinner on the table by 6pm. Now, I would settle for being able to put on clothes that don't have too much spit up on them, while managing to brush my teeth every couple of days.
My goal is still to practice every day and I still would like to do the next show off book, but I realize that I'm going to have to come up with a much more creative way of getting that to happen. Suggestions?
My dear friend Lisa is always reminding me of my rampant perfectionism (which I am grateful for), which assists me in being hyper-productive a lot of the time, but also sends me into rather a lather when I can't get everything I want done. My son is now the #1 most important thing in my life and when he needs me he needs me. It really is a pleasure and a privilege to be able to devote myself to meeting those needs. BUT - the thing that can truly drive me nuts is ME. I can no longer do what I want when I want. I can no longer just decide on doing something and then forcing it to happen. And I certainly can't do that when I have a little man who views me as the food source.
If only I could truly live in the now, be 100% grateful for what I have in my life and not expect myself to be able to be a great mom, who can practice 4 hours, run a teaching business, book gigs, win a Grammy and exercise regularly all while managing to put dinner on the table by 6pm. Now, I would settle for being able to put on clothes that don't have too much spit up on them, while managing to brush my teeth every couple of days.
My goal is still to practice every day and I still would like to do the next show off book, but I realize that I'm going to have to come up with a much more creative way of getting that to happen. Suggestions?
Listening to old favourites.
I have made progress in my CD project - burning CDs onto my hard drive in the hopes of getting rid of clutter, which has caused me to remember some of my all time favorites:
Hugh Fraser - Pas de Problemes, which boasts a very young Phil Dwyer playing both saxophone and piano. Hugh himself is a virtuoso trombonist and pianist, making him in good company amongst the Great Canadian Multi-Instrumentalists
Pat Metheny - Bright Size Life Toronto guitarist Ted Quinlan named this as one of the two most influential albums for him, so I HAD to check it out.
The Great Aretha Franklin - Aretha at age 18, accompanied by herself on piano and Ray Bryant on a few tracks (!!)
Genesis - Fox Trot (Major thanks to my old friend Derek Lewis for hipping me to vintage Genesis!)
Hugh Fraser - Pas de Problemes, which boasts a very young Phil Dwyer playing both saxophone and piano. Hugh himself is a virtuoso trombonist and pianist, making him in good company amongst the Great Canadian Multi-Instrumentalists
Pat Metheny - Bright Size Life Toronto guitarist Ted Quinlan named this as one of the two most influential albums for him, so I HAD to check it out.
The Great Aretha Franklin - Aretha at age 18, accompanied by herself on piano and Ray Bryant on a few tracks (!!)
Genesis - Fox Trot (Major thanks to my old friend Derek Lewis for hipping me to vintage Genesis!)
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Memorizing tunes
About two years ago, when all my life stuff started happening at once, I booked a gig at the Cornelia Street Cafe. I decided that for this gig I was going to do all new material - a very lofty goal indeed. I managed to complete a bunch of half written things, do new arrangements of a couple of tunes, write lyrics to an instrumental piece by Dick Oatts and even compose a few new works. It was an incredibly fertile time for me and although I was absolutely terrified, it was a thrill to be able to reach my goal and perform all that new music.
Now it's two years later and I have performed those same works a few more times. I had hoped to record that material by now, but besides my personal life becoming the most important thing, I think I fell into a rut/existential crisis. I lost sight of what I was trying to do and lost some of the passion and joy I had with the process. Perhaps the joy I was feeling in my actual life was making my music life look kind of disfunctional?
Anyhow, I bring this all up because I am back to work at some of this material again. I've had 4 gigs as a leader since September, but due in part to my busy-ness and also my pregnancy and the lethargy and forgetfulness, I haven't really learned this material nearly as well as I would like. I was often reading lyrics and needed the chord changes in order to solo. This isn't the best way to carry off a performance and for me it wasn't super esteemable to be going onstage in less than at the top of my game. I almost didn't do the gigs at all, but I was trying to keep a foot in the door and challenge myself to continue making my music, even when I was being pulled in other directions.
I have started taking the steps I need to really know this music. It is a much different process than it used to be. A jazz waltz I composed called "In September" has a long form, non rhyming lyrics and complex harmony and I was having a heck of a time keeping everything going in order. I'm so out of practice in this kind of work that it felt insurmountable. That is when I have to ask myself what I would say if my student were in this predicament? I ended up taking the first phrase and working at it for almost 30 minutes, until I had a few different ways to voice the harmonies, had gotten the sound in my ears and had managed to create enough melodic material that I felt I knew it. That was Friday, and I managed to practice for 90 minutes straight while the baby napped.
In a bizarre way, I felt like myself again. I also felt a glimmer of hope that I will be able to make another CD and actually do some shows again. I started seeing all of the possibilities again. I have no idea when or how this is going to happen, so I'm going to focus on the task at hand: learning to play my music the best that I can and playing the next two shows completely off book.
Now it's two years later and I have performed those same works a few more times. I had hoped to record that material by now, but besides my personal life becoming the most important thing, I think I fell into a rut/existential crisis. I lost sight of what I was trying to do and lost some of the passion and joy I had with the process. Perhaps the joy I was feeling in my actual life was making my music life look kind of disfunctional?
Anyhow, I bring this all up because I am back to work at some of this material again. I've had 4 gigs as a leader since September, but due in part to my busy-ness and also my pregnancy and the lethargy and forgetfulness, I haven't really learned this material nearly as well as I would like. I was often reading lyrics and needed the chord changes in order to solo. This isn't the best way to carry off a performance and for me it wasn't super esteemable to be going onstage in less than at the top of my game. I almost didn't do the gigs at all, but I was trying to keep a foot in the door and challenge myself to continue making my music, even when I was being pulled in other directions.
I have started taking the steps I need to really know this music. It is a much different process than it used to be. A jazz waltz I composed called "In September" has a long form, non rhyming lyrics and complex harmony and I was having a heck of a time keeping everything going in order. I'm so out of practice in this kind of work that it felt insurmountable. That is when I have to ask myself what I would say if my student were in this predicament? I ended up taking the first phrase and working at it for almost 30 minutes, until I had a few different ways to voice the harmonies, had gotten the sound in my ears and had managed to create enough melodic material that I felt I knew it. That was Friday, and I managed to practice for 90 minutes straight while the baby napped.
In a bizarre way, I felt like myself again. I also felt a glimmer of hope that I will be able to make another CD and actually do some shows again. I started seeing all of the possibilities again. I have no idea when or how this is going to happen, so I'm going to focus on the task at hand: learning to play my music the best that I can and playing the next two shows completely off book.
The technical drill
In my last year at York University, where I did my undergrad, I spent a year doing an I dependent study on jazz piano pre-1930. I studied with and was mentored by a phenomenal pianist/composer named Bill Westcott. In addition to being an expert on ragtime, stride and boogie woogie, he also got the occasional gig playing as a soloist with orchestras. He showed me how he prepared to do these gigs, explaining how much more chops one needs to play on a 10 foot grand piano versus his own 5 foot.
He had a drill of scales, solid and broken chords, arpeggios, 8ves, three Hanon exercises and a few neat little finger busters that he did in 12 keys. He told me it took him about an hour and got him into great shape. He had connections at a couple of churches in Toronto (where I was living) who had 10 foot grands and he would go there, run the drill and work on his piece a few times a week to prepare for whatever concert he was doing. The way that he had it laid out in such an organized way was such a revelation to me!
Over the course of weeks, months and finally a year, I took Bill's drill and worked on it, often 2 hours a day. Once I could do all of the exercises in major, then I did harmonic minor, melodic minor, harmonic major and then all of the diatonic modes. I then did the diatonic minor modes, the whole tone scale and the diminished scale, and added all versions of four note chords. I then showed Bill what I had done. He thought it was an amazing idea, and also a little nuts. The good news was that my chops had never been better. His little drill that helped get him into shape before a show afforded me the chops that I had never had before.
I was thinking of this lately, as I have been getting back into practicing regularly again after my two year hiatus from regular and structured practice. While my hands are surprisingly supple considering how little I've been playing/practicing over the last long while, I still want to get back into shape again. My usual go to is the Goldberg Variations, which I have been hacking through for the last 7 or 8 years, but now I have returned again to Bill Westcott's drill. It is helping a lot and is giving me a way to measure my progress. How clean the scales sound, at what point my hand or hands get tired (always the left before the right) and how briskly I can play each exercise. I hope to be in markedly better shape by my NYC gig on June 1st. We'll see...
He had a drill of scales, solid and broken chords, arpeggios, 8ves, three Hanon exercises and a few neat little finger busters that he did in 12 keys. He told me it took him about an hour and got him into great shape. He had connections at a couple of churches in Toronto (where I was living) who had 10 foot grands and he would go there, run the drill and work on his piece a few times a week to prepare for whatever concert he was doing. The way that he had it laid out in such an organized way was such a revelation to me!
Over the course of weeks, months and finally a year, I took Bill's drill and worked on it, often 2 hours a day. Once I could do all of the exercises in major, then I did harmonic minor, melodic minor, harmonic major and then all of the diatonic modes. I then did the diatonic minor modes, the whole tone scale and the diminished scale, and added all versions of four note chords. I then showed Bill what I had done. He thought it was an amazing idea, and also a little nuts. The good news was that my chops had never been better. His little drill that helped get him into shape before a show afforded me the chops that I had never had before.
I was thinking of this lately, as I have been getting back into practicing regularly again after my two year hiatus from regular and structured practice. While my hands are surprisingly supple considering how little I've been playing/practicing over the last long while, I still want to get back into shape again. My usual go to is the Goldberg Variations, which I have been hacking through for the last 7 or 8 years, but now I have returned again to Bill Westcott's drill. It is helping a lot and is giving me a way to measure my progress. How clean the scales sound, at what point my hand or hands get tired (always the left before the right) and how briskly I can play each exercise. I hope to be in markedly better shape by my NYC gig on June 1st. We'll see...
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
The end of multitasking
I am a notorious multitasker. I am one of those people who is always doing two or more things at once - I always have multiple programs open on my computer and am frequently bouncing back and forth from email to email. I do my vocal exercises while I'm cooking or doing the dishes or worse, when I bouncing back and forth from email to email. I used to feel quite on top of things whilst in the middle of one of these fits, but now I find it frustrating.
While once celebrated, the art of multitasking has garnered a lot of criticism lately. Apparently it actually cuts back on productivity rather than increasing it. My issue with it is that I feel perpetually distracted and never feel the satisfaction of focusing on and consequently completing a task. As someone who is trying her darnedest to stay "in the moment", multitasking is the worst possible way to try and do this.
Instead, I have been experimenting with giving 100% of my attention to one task at a time. My son took a short nap this morning and I used that opportunity to play through and edit an arrangement of "Everything I love", which I found extremely enjoyable. I got to my teaching gig in Brooklyn 40 minutes before my day started and I spent time working on soloing at different tempos for "Everything". I got to vocalize for 10 minutes this morning, and rather than straighten up or fold some laundry, I decided to just focus on my vocal anatomy and enjoy the time to myself.
I miss the days when I had what now feels like unlimited time to practice. The funny thing is, I never felt like that there was enough time then either! As a new mom who is trying to balance work with the household duties, I have the least amount of time I've ever had. Perhaps by living in the moment I will be able to make each moment count.
While once celebrated, the art of multitasking has garnered a lot of criticism lately. Apparently it actually cuts back on productivity rather than increasing it. My issue with it is that I feel perpetually distracted and never feel the satisfaction of focusing on and consequently completing a task. As someone who is trying her darnedest to stay "in the moment", multitasking is the worst possible way to try and do this.
Instead, I have been experimenting with giving 100% of my attention to one task at a time. My son took a short nap this morning and I used that opportunity to play through and edit an arrangement of "Everything I love", which I found extremely enjoyable. I got to my teaching gig in Brooklyn 40 minutes before my day started and I spent time working on soloing at different tempos for "Everything". I got to vocalize for 10 minutes this morning, and rather than straighten up or fold some laundry, I decided to just focus on my vocal anatomy and enjoy the time to myself.
I miss the days when I had what now feels like unlimited time to practice. The funny thing is, I never felt like that there was enough time then either! As a new mom who is trying to balance work with the household duties, I have the least amount of time I've ever had. Perhaps by living in the moment I will be able to make each moment count.
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