I'm Not That Girl

I was pretty pleased with myself today - Anna tested me on "I'm Not That Girl", and I got through it pretty well even though I'd only had about 10 minutes to play it.  I'd had a chance to analyze and listen to it, but couldn't really play it because there was another rehearsal going on in the same room as the piano and I were in.  There's one chord in every verse I have trouble remembering (the C# minor 7), and getting out of the bridge is tricky... but I was pleased, especially after yesterday was so frustrating.  Win some, lose some. 

I woke up this morning with the strange sensation of having truly gotten enough sleep.  Gonna try that again tonight, but first I'm going to go in for some hardcore theory geekery as I start reading my friend's masters thesis.

Heaven Help My Heart

"Heaven Help My Heart" from Chess was suggested to me by Anna, one of the teaching artists I'm working wiht this week.  She tested me on "There Are Worse Things I Could Do" yesterday. 

This one ("Heaven Help...") was hard. Playing wise, it was fine; I can sight-read it. But I really struggled with memorizing it, and it's definitely one I have to spend some more time on. It's hard being away from home - limited piano access and not much independence, transportation-wise. But then it's hard being home too - lots of distractions. I think I'm getting more result out of the same amount of effort than earlier in the year. Maybe? Imagination? Not sure.

I'm really tired and had a near miss with a migraine today, so I'm gonna leave it at that tonight.

Far From the Home I Love

The Chicago Tribune building: ruins from the home I love; far from NYC, the home I love now.

The home I love...
Whenever I tell people I'm from New Mexico, I get the following sequential reaction:
1. Look of surprise and delight (New Mexico's inhabited!?).
2. The excited query: "Albuquerque?"
3. A look of wonder at the size of Western states when I reply, "No, about 5 hours south of Albuquerque."
4. "Wow, so that's like... really close to Mexico."

My hometown is approximately in the middle of the triangle made by Albuquerque, El Paso, and Tucson.  It is, in short, in the middle of nowhere.  Going home for a weekend, even a 3-day weekend, isn't worth it - no direct flights, and a lot of time on the road between home and the airport.  It's a little bit as if I left Siberia to find the home I love in New York City.  I find this song and scene to be one of the most moving in the musical theater repertoire. 

You know what I love about Fiddler?  Well, two things in particular.  I love that it's the young women in the show who move forward with the changing world.  Their men catalyze the change, but it's the women who really have the high stakes (poverty with the tailor rather than prosperity with the crusty old butcher, a dangerous trip to Siberia to be the helpmeet of a political dissident, disownment for marrying outside the faith).  I also love the juxtaposition of joy and sorrow that pervades the show - life is hard, but magnificent.  I'm teaching a short version of it to tweens and teens at Camp Broadway this week, and I was trying to explain this concept to them - the best example I could think of was a yin-yang: there's a little drop of joy in suffering, and a little drop of suffering in joy.  Songs like "To Life" are upbeat, but acknowledge suffering in lyrics like "...and if our good fortune never comes, here's to whatever comes".  "Sunrise, Sunset" is such a poignant wedding song, but trying to get kids from the instant-gratification generation to do it as anything but a dirge is like pulling teeth, because it's a slow song in a minor key. 

Ah yes, major/minor... this brings me back to today's song: form AABAA... ooh, an extra A section!  But Bock manages to support the meaning of Harnick's lyrics and keep from being boring by changing modes (it major/minor) with each A section:
A - minor - "how can I hope to make you understand..."
A - major - "once I was happily content to be..."
(B section - major)
A - minor - "oh what a melancholy choice this is"
A - mixed! - 1st phrase major: "there where my heart has settled long ago..."; 2nd phrase minor: "who could imagine I'd be wand'ring so?"

Musical Theater Month

I guess I should kiss or at least shake the hand that feeds me, huh?  So I'm learning some musical theater songs this month.  The downside of doing this genre is that the songs are often much longer and more complex than the pop stuff I've tended towards - more to memorize.  The upside is that I can choose from the many standard and contemporary musical theater songs I'm already sort of familiar with, so I have a chance to practice them to the point where I feel secure playing them. 

I've learned "Adelaide's Lament" from Guys & Dolls (on the easy/standard side, memorization-wise), gotten a decent start on "Vanilla Ice Cream" from She Loves Me, and "When You're Home" from In the Heights.  The latter is proof that when reading music, the information goes in my eyeballs and out my ears: I've played this song a zillion times at rehearsals and auditions, and while a lot of it's in my muscle memory, I couldn't call it memorized.  I learned it long before I was of the mindset to internalize the form and changes - I was still learning everything note-by-tedious-note.  No time for that now.  It's interesting to see how much my music-learning process has changed in the past couple years. 

Anyway, must sign off now - I'm in the middle of an extremely busy week, and I'm up way, way past my bedtime.  I'll pay for it tomorrow when I'm trying to write arrangements on no sleep. It was worth it to socialize with theater friends on a rooftop in midtown with a view of the Empire State Building that was just amazing.  We won't talk about the fact that I overshot my subway stop by three avenue blocks and ended up taking a cab home... hooray for solitary walks and lemonade that might have been hiding some vodka...

Notes from the Road

Buffalo, all week:

I love staying in hotels!  I haven't jumped on the bed yet, but rest assured, I will.

No access to a piano today.  Listened to "Candle in the Wind", analyzed the harmony on the lyric sheet.  Checked against the Elton John piano/vocal book I brought, was pleased with how accurate I was.  Sang along (quietly) with the recording (I have a room to myself).  Will have to do the rest another day, but at least I have a good start on being familiar with the song.

I've blocked out times each day when I can be by myself in a room with a piano to learn my song.  It's a bit of a challenge between my schedule at this camp, and the overall rehearsal schedule - sometimes all the rooms with pianos are being used by other parts of the camp, even if I have an hour off. 

Tomorrow will be the hardest day to fit it in: a long day of youth-flavored, administrative and musical mayhem, followed by Beer O'Clock, which I understand is celebrated with almost religious fervor at the end of every day.  Work hard, play hard.  This is gonna be a fun week.  I get to music direct, I'm with a group of people I really like working with, and if Buffalo is a little less glamorous than New York City, it's also less murderously hot.  I wore a sweater outdoors tonight for the first time in months. I've never really pursued touring, but as we got oriented at the theater this afternoon, it crossed my mind that I might really enjoy it.

Piano Month!

Greetings, gentle readers.  You probably won't be hearing much from me this week as I'll be busy.  I'll be working with Camp Broadway's summer day camp off and on the next few weeks, and it's fun but pretty intense. 

Have I mentioned July is piano month?  According to me, that is.  I think I forgot to say that.  After last month's string of arbitrarily-chosen hits, I am now choosing to spend some time playing stuff that's actually piano-based.  I decided that a few days into July, and since then have worked on "Clocks", "Trouble" (also by Coldplay), "Summer, Highland Falls", "Lullabye" (Billy Joel's), "Vienna", "Lullabye" (Ben Folds', with the kick-ass piano solo), and, today, Fiona Apple's "Shadowboxer". 

Piano-based stuff has its own challenge within my time constraints, because I actually want to figure out exactly what they're playing, as opposed to deciding how best to distill the track into a piano-only groove as I have to do with guitar- or orchestrated/produced music.  I have to concede defeat on things like "Summer, Highland Falls" and Ben Folds' piano solo on "Lullabye" - I'm just not going to have the exact notes and the memory all in place in the time I have to work on it in one already-busy day. 

Part of the point of my little self-challenge is to move on to a new song every day. Letting go of imperfection is not my strong suit, and that inability to let go of anything and move on was, ironically, making life and music even more imperfect than it might have been otherwise.  That said, I've already determined I need a lot of review if I'm actually going to know 365 songs at the end of the year (panic rises in her throat) - so I move on to focus on the next song, I can still go back.  Today I actually did my review before learning the new song - I looked at "Against All Odds" again, and I spent a little time on the "Lullabye" solo.  I was gratified to discover it sounds much better today than when I was first learning it yesterday.  Not all memorized yet, but that's ok. 

I better go get the rest of my stuff together for tomorrow.  See y'all on the flip side!

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.
...
...
...
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.