Gershwin

Haiku #28 - Real American: Ruth

let's all sing Gershwin
with Ruth on the eighty-eights
'til they kick us out
Kurt, Kat, & Ruth
Photo by Cherie B. Tay
Real American: Ruth
The Stanley Theater threw us a party last night after the show - a real party, complete with local brews, a chef preparing pasta (delicious - not helping me in my quest to be skinny on the road!), and a cocktail pianist named Ruth playing a square Sohmer piano.  

Ruth doesn't remember what year she was born (or so she said, when someone asked her if she was around when a particular 1920s song was popular).  She was playing stuff that always makes me feel like I was born 75 years too late.  Kurt and I made our way over to her to say hello at the beginning of the party, and at some point, he started requesting songs to sing.  We were joined by Christina, Nathaly, Benny, Gabe, Perry and a few other cast members, and in the end they finally turned the lights out so the cast (and keyboardists) of In the Heights would stop singing standards and let them go home.  

I hope, when I am of a certain age, that 20-somethings will sing Queen and Journey when I'm playing for their cast party. And Gershwin, eternal.  

Gershwin, Take 4,936

My cousin left day before yesterday, so now life is back to normal (define normal) - with an addendum to my usual motto: try to suck down a little less booze each day.  (My night of heavy drinking with my cousin was three glasses of wine over the course of six hours - which I'm proud to admit to my parents and perhaps a little embarrassed to admit to my hard-drinking late-night cabaret friends).  Anyway, it's time to get back with my routine of practicing, Weekly Wishes projects, seeing local friends, and doing the bare minimum of housekeeping and working out.

Things are not going according to plan.  Well, most of life is.  Weekly Wishes - totally expendable in the business sense but important to me with my complete lack of business sense - not so much.  

I tried to record the Gershwin yesterday so I could post a video by the end of the month, but I didn't like any of the takes I did yesterday.  I hadn't practiced for a few days, so I could hang out with my cousin like a normal human being, and nothing was landing right on the recording.  All my bad playing habits - rushing, technical problems, missing the whole musical point of the damn thing - were out in full force.  It's amazing how recording something I intend to show others makes me pickier about my own playing AND makes my playing go in the crapper.  Grrrrrr.  I did kinda like the take where my kitty Diesel jumped up on the piano and made me lose my place, but only for the comedy.  Oh, and I haven't so much as listened to Ben Folds.  Too busy with gig stuff, and catching up on other work, and wanting to get the Gershwin video done without "wasting" another week on it. 

Ok, regroup.  New plan:
1. Give myself a short time slot to record - like a half hour from setting up to cleaning up - when I get home this afternoon. 
2. Pick the take that I like & post it.
3. Forget about Gershwin and all the things I wish I'd been able to do better, and move on to other work.
4. Be annoyed that everything takes so much longer than I want/expect it to.
5. Go out to dinner and forget about all of the above.

Weekly Wish 03/07/11: Gershwin

You know it's been a long week when you're dreaming of happy hour at 11 a.m. on Monday. Freelance musician "weeks" sometimes stretch into the "month" neighborhood. Finally a bit of a respite today - just a couple short rehearsals and one lesson to teach.

This is by way of explaining why I didn't post my Wish last week. Last week was "I wish... I could play the piano solo from Ben Folds' "Lullabye"." It went ok - one of my favorite songs & I fell in love with the solo the first time I heard it. Never enough time to work on it, as usual - I continue to ask myself why I bother at all, when I should be working on my career instead. Networking, practicing audition material, updating my website blah blah blah... I don't have the answer to that, except possibly the answer "I suck at business".  What I do know is this: Wishing gives me something that I need to survive in the shark-and-disappointment-
infested waters of the music business.

This week's Wish:
Go back to the Gershwin "Swanee" transcription... More specific Wish: "I wish I could play it up to tempo." I've worked out a couple technical snags in it, so hopefully this is the week. Then I can record a video and go back to torturing my neighbors with the accordion.