welcome to camp telophase

The piano teacher who does the normal level III and IV courses (I did III this summer and am doing it again in the fall - she has us repeat III until we're ready to progress to IV - each course has students at several different levels in it) talked the extended education people into letting her teach a short blues improv course between the summer and fall semesters, which I signed up for. Today was the first class, and I am reporting on it as per yhlee's request. :)

The first thing we did was to choose jazz names. :) The teacher is "the Duchess". I picked "Boss," a former nickname of mine. For the first half the class we primarily worked on rhythm, the swing long-short long-short rhythm, and clapping various rhythms out. She had cards with various combos of eighth, quarter, and half notes on them and we had to clap those out. We also did pentascales in C (i.e., 5-note scales up and down: C-D-E-F-G-F-E-D-C) to a swing rhythm. And then the hardest part. See in regular music with 4 beats per measure, the emphasis is usually on the 1 and 3 beats: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4. In jazz, it's on the 2 and 4 beats: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4. So she had us doing the pentascales in swing time with out right hands while tapping the 2 and 4 beats with our left.

If you're new to rhythm, it's kinda close to patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time.

The second half the class we learned the basic 12-bar blues progression, and were commanded to memorize it. (I already have!) It uses the I, IV, and V chords, and if you're new to chords that means (as we're working in C), C-E-G, F-A-C, and G-B-D. The progression goes:

I - I - I - I
IV - IV - I - I
V - IV - I - I

And if you play that out, especially the last 4 chords sound like EVERY CLASSIC ROCK AND ROLL SONG EVAR.

And then we learned a barrelhouse blues thing, which means that instead of holding the chords, we did a fifth and sixth - i.e., the first measure, played by holding down C-E-G for four beats in the 12-bar progression, is played C-E-G C-E-A C-E-G C-E-A.

To those who now what I'm talking about, that explanation is horrifically simplistic, and to those who don't, it's completely incomprehensible, I bet. :)

Anyway, that was it. After class I showed the sheet music that yhlee made for me from her composition "Ghostfall" to the teacher, and she was excited about it and told me that if I wanted to start learning it, she'd help me. :) So I shall be working on the right hand for that this week in addition to the blues stuff.

And now I am very sleepy and shall go to bed.

I spent some time this weekend scouring the intartubes for free piano sheet music and found a small thriving fan community that transliterates (is that the right word?) transcribe (I knew I 'd remember the right word if I hit Post) music from anime and video games and posts said sheet music on the web. Naturally, the vast majority is far too complex for my current m4d skillz*, but it's now awakened in me the desire to find sheet music for "Wake up Heart!" by Masaki Nomiyama, from the Saiyuki Reload Image Album 1, because there's a fairly simple-sounding theme repeated in it that (a) sounds like something I could achieve and (b) I really like.

Naturally, I can find all sorts of Saiuyki music except that one. *sigh*

Japanese-language readers: do you know if there's any way to find and buy it online (music stores, Japanese auction sites)? Reading around convinces me that as part of the Manga/Anime Marketing Machine that the publishers excel in, sheet music is often produced. It's been long enough that it may no longer be available, though, even if this album had sheet music.




* I can occasionally move my hand from one set of keys to another without pausing more than a second! Ph33r my skillz!

Forgot to mention last week that I've started part 2 of the beginning piano course. There's 4, which you can take one per semester.

It's still elementary, although today we played a piece that -- gasp! -- had us moving one hand from the position it started to an entirely new position! Yay! One of my two goals for this semester is to be able to play off the home keys* and to be able to play several notes at one time, using both hands. Without having to stop and go "um, ok, now what key is this finger supposed to be on? And that one?"

As the course is also meant to be an elementary introduction to music theory, and as it's taught by piano pedagogy masters students who will probably end up teaching music to kids, sometimes I feel vaguely condescended to by the terms or actions they use to introduce concepts. (I have not asked any of the people in class who have no musical experience what they think. They may appreciate the metaphors more than I do.) Today, they introduced the idea that some pieces have parts that repeat at the beginning and end with a different, but related, thing in between. This isn't the thing at the end of the staff that tells you to repeat from some point in the piece, but more a restatement of musical theme. So the teacher said that we're going to find an Oreo - the bottom cookie is the first part, the cream is the second, and the top cookie is the first part repeated.

Um. Yeah. I'd rather be told "it's a restatement of a musical theme."

It didn't diminish my enjoyment of the class - the teachers, after all, are students also and learning to do this, and for all I know the other students learn better with this sort of metaphor - but it does, occasionally, leave me wishing that they'd start introducing the correct terminology earlier.

We are also learning a slightly more complex arrangement of the Ode to Joy than we did last class, which makes me happy to my toes. :) And the second book, which we haven't started yet, contains Fur Elise, which leaves me hopeful that I'll be able to work it out by the end of this semester's classes.


* As my brain calls them - the 10-ish white keys right around middle C. Although all you musiciaons probably understood that. XD

Sat and practiced piano - badly - tonight, using the elementary Christmas carol primer I bought. I can now muddle my way through "We Three Kings of Orient Are" if you don't mind dropped notes and significant profanity.

Missed piano class last week, as there was something going on and no parking available, and the last thing I wanted to do was to park back in my lot and walk across campus to class, and back again.

But I finally got myrialux to set up his keyboard and spent an hour last night practicing. I have no idea how far they got in the book last class, but I went to page 30 or so, in the midst of the section where they start putting the notes on a staff instead of just having them hang out, staffless, with finger numbers attached.

And then I got bored with the boring tunes in the class textbook and poked through the book that came with the Yamaha keyboard for easy things and taught myself the first lines from "When The Saints Go Marching In" and the left-hand part of the beginning of the Ode to Joy. Only one hand, because I don't have a music stand at home yet and the Yamaha book is printed to small for me to leave it on my desk and squint at it, so I have to hold it in one hand as I play. :)

Hopefully I won't be too far behind tonight.


(I need an icon with a piano in it!)