It\u2019s coming up a year now that I played a gig with Erik, sparking me to rekindle my interest in playing live music. I just got off the phone with the coffeehouse where we played last summer and they want to have us back, so it\u2019s down to picking a date.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, we\u2019ve been able to get together a few times to jam the last few weeks. We\u2019re continuing to work out new material. We\u2019re up to eight originals, and some of the covers we\u2019ve recently learned include Cinnamon Girl by Neil Young, Karma Police by Radiohead, and Don\u2019t Know Why by Norah Jones. These last two were chosen because of the piano\/guitar arrangements. I chose Don\u2019t Know Why because we finally have Heat Wave worked out to the point where it\u2019s playable and musical. I said to Erik half-jokingly \u201cIf I was a better songwriter I\u2019d have written a simpler tune. Maybe I should learn some Norah Jones songs to play simpler.\u201d It turns out, however, Don\u2019t Know Why is not a simple song at all, but full of subtle jazz chords. Thing I want to be able to do, however, is carry a song with that light, minimal touch. Old country songs are great for that, and she has a heavy country influence.<\/p>\n
Learning new songs is an ongoing process. Before I got my digital stage piano last summer I mainly practiced on an upright piano I got when Lizzy was a baby. Songs would go in and out of rotation, and over time I tended to be more interested in instrumentals that pop songs with vocals. I seemed to collect songs that were interesting enough to make my own. I arrived at a point where I had a set of songs that were my standard set. And while they were all great songs, I felt I had plateaued. But now I can see it\u2019s a really good foundation and covers a variety of styles including stride, modern jazz, and prog rock. Some of them have gone down from playing the full song to just a run thru of the parts, skipping send and third verses, and I\u2019ve joined them into medleys. For the jazz numbers I\u2019ll often play thru the head and not improvise, but sometimes I do. Some are hard enough (mainly the Keith Emerson numbers) that I can only really nail them when my fingers are in good shape. I still try and play thru this set last week. It takes about an hour. I played last night \u2013 first time I\u2019d played my piano in a while \u2013 and it sounded better than ever.<\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n
East St. Louis Toodle-Loo \u2013 Duke Ellington
\nPowerhouse \u2013 Raymond Scott
\nPannonica \/ ‘Round Midnight \/ Epistrophy – Monk
\nWhen I’m 64 \/ Lady Madonna \/ Martha My Dear \u2013 Beatles
\nBecause \/ I Want You (She\u2019s So Heavy) \u2013 Beatles
\nSimon Smith and His Amazing Dancing Bear \u2013 Randy Newman
\nYou Got a Friend In Me \u2013 Randy Newman
\nGot A Match? \u2013 Chick Corea
\nCantaloupe Island \u2013 Herbie Hancock
\nJosie \/ Hey Nineteen \u2013 Steely Dan
\nI Wish \/ Sir Duke – Stevie Wonder
\nMiami 2017 \u2013 Billy Joel (intro) \/ Take A Pebble – ELP
\nKarn Evil 9, 2nd Impression – ELP
\nDigital Man – Rush (intro) \/ The Endless Enigma – ELP (intro)
\nLetter From Home \u2013 Pat Metheny<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s coming up a year now that I played a gig with Erik, sparking me to rekindle my interest in playing live music. I just got off the phone with the coffeehouse where we played last summer and they want to have us back, so it\u2019s down to picking a date. Meanwhile, we\u2019ve been able … Continue reading “The Song Remains the Same”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1858\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}