Sunday, July 7, 2013

It has been exactly 4 years since............



....... I embarked on this learning the piano journey. If you have been following this, of late extremely intermittent blog, you might remember that formerly, I was a classical guitarist and made the decision to eschew that instrument in favour of the piano. In the main, I did this as I had always been so envious of the wonderful repertoire that the piano offered in comparison to the guitar and wanted to gift myself with the opportunity to explore it. And OMG? Talk about opening a door! Well, I am claiming that I have now made the transition from guitarist to pianist and this blog will now be set alight with a far more regular posting regime as I show you proof of the fruits of my endeavours. As well as thoroughly and utterly enjoying exploring the classical repertoire, I am also attempting to become a reasonable jazz pianist too as I have finally realised that improvising is fundamentally my raison d'ĂȘtre for playing music. I found the guitar a little limiting in this respect adding a further reason to make the switch to the piano.
My first offering is a piece I composed in memory of one of our local Arts community luminaries, Andy Ducker, who passed away a year or so ago. It is called "Andy's Song" and is an improvisational like melody based on an ostinato like arpeggiated chord sequence in the key of F minor. I also use it a lot for improvising using the F minor natural, C minor pentatonic and chromatic scales. Even if I say so myself, there is something special about this piece of music and I never tire of playing it. You can get the dots for it here.
This was recorded on an iPhone 5 running in IOS 7 Beta 2 using a Glif tripod adapter from Studio Neat mounted overhead using a microphone stand. Enjoy!