Hiding my Piano from Irene!

Kawai Leopard-Pillow-Garbage-Bag Monster

I dressed my piano up as a sofa so Irene hopefully won't find it in the event my living room window breaks.  I'm on the 5th floor, so it's unlikely flying debris will be a problem (I heard glass break somewhere below me last night... and are we still under tornado watch? Not sure...), but there is a tree right outside that I've always loved for its sort of Zen-window-view representation of the seasons.  It's looking a little worse for wear and still has the heaviest winds to go, but so far so good.  

Diesel holding down the fort.

Speaking of windows, I slept in my entryway last night, because everywhere else in my apartment is too close for comfort to windows and the trees right outside.  This is the only instance in which I will complain about being too close to trees in New York City.

Central Park-Conservatory Gardens

 I took a walk yesterday morning during the calm before the storm, and took some pictures in Central Park.  Lots of people were milling around.  There was a couple looking at the plants in the Conservatory Gardens - I overheard the one of the women tell her partner about a type of grass that bends every but doesn't break in a storm.  Lots of people were walking their dogs.  There was a wedding party getting photos taken.  

My facebook news feed is filled with complaints of the anticlimactic hurricane.  Better that than catastrophic, I say!  We still have a few hours to go... here's hoping it is actually anticlimactic!

Metronomes and Hurricanes

My friend Dr. Beat

Sometimes he's there to push me

Sometimes calm me down

Gahhhh my focus sucks tonight!  I got my mind on the approaching hurricane, and a bunch of music I have to and/or want to learn.  Right now the metronome's job is to slow me down.  Sometimes it's there to nudge me faster, bit by bit; sometimes it's the CSI unit to sniff out rhythmic or technical crime scenes; right now it's the old granny lady forcing me to calm the hell down and concentrate.  

(Well, right now I'm taking a break to post this, and am gonna go visit Nat next door.  Concentration may have to wait for another hour.)

I have water, extra batteries, and other important emergency supplies for me and Diesel (you know, like beer, and cookies).  I also have extra 9V batteries for my metronome.  Irene, I think I'm ready for you.  

Incidentally, if you haven't yet, I hope you'll check out my "Lullabye" video (below). 

Weekly Wish VIDEO - "Lullabye"

Here is the latest Weekly Wishes video, filmed on location at my friend Matt Dinsick the Drummer's apartment. Singing is my friend Adam Reich, and joining us off-screen is Adam's friend Danny Reisbick the Bass Player.

This is the video that got tabled for logistical reasons back in the spring - it's hard enough to get two busy people's schedules to line up; four was a little ridiculous. But now it's the end of summer (read: not very lucrative, but less hectic at least), and we were able to find a couple hours the other afternoon to get together Matt's apartment in a leafy part of Brooklyn near Prospect Park.

Now, I'm a pretty considerate musician-neighbor. Matt is even more so because he's a drummer (neighbors are a lot quicker to get annoyed about drum practicing than piano practicing). He wanted to be wrapped up by 5 p.m. We got a couple decent takes at the beginning, but I decided to use this, our last take, what I like to call a f***-it take. I don't know that it was any better or worse than any of the others (as always, there are a hundred things I'd like to do better), but it was fun. And the dog outside seemed to enjoy it, too.

I have been wanting to learn to play that piano solo for a long time. Yay!

Weekly Wish VIDEO - "Lullabye"

Here is the latest Weekly Wishes video, filmed on location at my friend Matt Dinsick the Drummer's apartment. Singing is my friend Adam Reich, and joining us off-screen is Adam's friend Danny Reisbeck the Bass Player.

This is the video that got tabled for logistical reasons back in the spring - it's hard enough to get two busy people's schedules to line up; four was a little ridiculous. But now it's the end of summer (read: not very lucrative, but less hectic at least), and we were able to find a couple hours the other afternoon to get together Matt's apartment in a leafy part of Brooklyn near Prospect Park.

Now, I'm a pretty considerate musician-neighbor. Matt is even more so because he's a drummer (neighbors are a lot quicker to get annoyed about drum practicing than piano practicing). He wanted to be wrapped up by 5 p.m. We got a couple decent takes at the beginning, but I decided to use this, our last take, what I like to call a f***-it take. I don't know that it was any better or worse than any of the others (as always, there are a hundred things I'd like to do better), but it was fun. And the dog outside seemed to enjoy it, too.

I have been wanting to learn to play that piano solo for a long time. Yay!

Rush Hour

Inner monologue:

OUTTA my way! STOP TEXTING!

Midtown: 5 p.m.

Weekly Wishes, Revisited

Ok, people.  I am back in New York.  It's been very refreshing to be gone most of the summer.  Now to recombobulate my discombobulated self.

To the garden variety blog reader, it will seem as if I've been very flaky these past couple months.  Those more closely acquainted with my life, however, will know that some matters of business have required my attention, and that I've been on the road an awful lot since about mid-June.  (Jacksonville, Cape Cod, Denver, El Paso, Silver City, Tucson, Phoenix, Memphis, the Hamptons... rough life I lead.)

Weekly Wishes require consistent access to a piano.  My little 25-key midi controller is fine for half-ass-memorizing the basic structure of a song, but isn't sufficient for learning to play a piano transcription.  Weekly Wishes also require what I will call Advanced Discipline.  Patience.  Perseverance.  Attention to detail.  

(Bleh.  I have to give myself a C- at the midterm... )

Last year was a survey course of Self-Discipline with my song-a-day project - just show up and do it, whether or not I feel like or not, even if some days I'm just going through the motions.  Weekly Wishes are harder, because the timeline is longer, and the while the goal (learn to play a piano piece well enough to tape) is more concrete, the path to get there is longer and more nebulous.  While song-a-day was almost exclusively about Process, weekly wishes have an element of Product (videos that are non-cringeworthy enough to post online).  

It was easy to cop out when I was traveling and only had my little wee keyboard, especially because I really did miss learning a song a day.  I wish I had time to do both.  But as long as I have regular practice time on a full-size keyboard, it's time to work the discipline and the details.  

To that end, I'm picking up a project I tabled months ago for logistical reasons - my Lullabye guys are still around and interested in recording with me, so I'm going to revisit that song and awesome piano solo and hopefully record the next Weekly Wish video sometime next week!

Walking in Memphis

Visiting my roots

With blue notes and "bellypads"

Dixie feels like home

I fell in love with Memphis last week when I was there music directing for theater camp.  It is not hard for me to fall in love with a place that plays good music and feeds me well, but there was also the fact that my Grandpa was from the Mississippi  Delta just a couple hours south of Memphis.  

Grandpa made awesome, thick pancakes he called bellypads, and I ate them on a pretty regular basis growing up.  Grandpa smoked like a chimney from age 15 to age 85, and I nagged him to quit but still sometimes find a very faint cigarette odor comforting.  Grandpa couldn't hear so well as he got older, but he liked to listen to me play, and the night before he died, I called him from a practice room at school and got to play one last time for him.   This was in 2000, when cell phones kinda sucked and I barely got any reception in the practice room, but boy was I grateful for it that night.  

Grandpa and Grandma were married over 54 years when he passed away (she's still alive and causing trouble at age 93).  They met during WWII - he was a wounded soldier with tickets to a ballgame; she was a nurse/physical therapist with a car.  She liked his blue eyes, and I reckon he liked her moxie.  They were married six months later, and then he drove back with her to her hometown in Missouri to meet her parents (the nerve!).  

They tried farming in the Midwest, but, well, farming's tough, and Grandma developed severe arthritis in her mid-twenties and needed to live in a drier climate, which is how they ended up in New Mexico and West Texas.

So anyway.  I got Southern roots, and this song has a good piano part, so I'm making friends with it in honor of Grandpa and my week not far from his old stomping grounds.