Weekly Wish VIDEO - "Lullabye"

Here is the latest Weekly Wishes video, filmed on location at my friend Matt Dinsick the Drummer's apartment. Singing is my friend Adam Reich, and joining us off-screen is Adam's friend Danny Reisbick the Bass Player.

This is the video that got tabled for logistical reasons back in the spring - it's hard enough to get two busy people's schedules to line up; four was a little ridiculous. But now it's the end of summer (read: not very lucrative, but less hectic at least), and we were able to find a couple hours the other afternoon to get together Matt's apartment in a leafy part of Brooklyn near Prospect Park.

Now, I'm a pretty considerate musician-neighbor. Matt is even more so because he's a drummer (neighbors are a lot quicker to get annoyed about drum practicing than piano practicing). He wanted to be wrapped up by 5 p.m. We got a couple decent takes at the beginning, but I decided to use this, our last take, what I like to call a f***-it take. I don't know that it was any better or worse than any of the others (as always, there are a hundred things I'd like to do better), but it was fun. And the dog outside seemed to enjoy it, too.

I have been wanting to learn to play that piano solo for a long time. Yay!

Weekly Wishes, Revisited

Ok, people.  I am back in New York.  It's been very refreshing to be gone most of the summer.  Now to recombobulate my discombobulated self.

To the garden variety blog reader, it will seem as if I've been very flaky these past couple months.  Those more closely acquainted with my life, however, will know that some matters of business have required my attention, and that I've been on the road an awful lot since about mid-June.  (Jacksonville, Cape Cod, Denver, El Paso, Silver City, Tucson, Phoenix, Memphis, the Hamptons... rough life I lead.)

Weekly Wishes require consistent access to a piano.  My little 25-key midi controller is fine for half-ass-memorizing the basic structure of a song, but isn't sufficient for learning to play a piano transcription.  Weekly Wishes also require what I will call Advanced Discipline.  Patience.  Perseverance.  Attention to detail.  

(Bleh.  I have to give myself a C- at the midterm... )

Last year was a survey course of Self-Discipline with my song-a-day project - just show up and do it, whether or not I feel like or not, even if some days I'm just going through the motions.  Weekly Wishes are harder, because the timeline is longer, and the while the goal (learn to play a piano piece well enough to tape) is more concrete, the path to get there is longer and more nebulous.  While song-a-day was almost exclusively about Process, weekly wishes have an element of Product (videos that are non-cringeworthy enough to post online).  

It was easy to cop out when I was traveling and only had my little wee keyboard, especially because I really did miss learning a song a day.  I wish I had time to do both.  But as long as I have regular practice time on a full-size keyboard, it's time to work the discipline and the details.  

To that end, I'm picking up a project I tabled months ago for logistical reasons - my Lullabye guys are still around and interested in recording with me, so I'm going to revisit that song and awesome piano solo and hopefully record the next Weekly Wish video sometime next week!

Weekly Wish 3/14/11 - ???

Ugh.  I don't know.  I have a headache, and I keep getting sucked in to news coverage of the earthquake plus tsunami plus nuclear potential disaster in Japan.  I awoke Friday to my sister's facebook update that they were ok (she lives in western Japan, far from the quake, but close enough to feel the tremor that caused the tsunami), but that they hadn't heard from my cousin, who recently moved to Sendai to teach English.  Fortunately, my cousin was able to get in touch with her mom and sisters a couple hours after that to let everyone know she's safe.  Shaken up, sleeping (or not sleeping) at the school, but safe.    

Anyway, wishing is the last thing on my mind today, after family members' proximity to natural disasters, how many other people's family members are not ok and safe, and of course the usual din of 10 committee meetings going on in my head at once.  All is underscored by a steady drone of TIRED and CRANKY.     

...I guess I'll go back to Ben Folds.  I don't want to; I'm busy this week and would rather work on this one when I have more time, because I like it.  But I don't feel like breaking my no-two-weeks-in-a-row rule to repeat the Gershwin, and I haven't had time to get my accordion fixed, and I don't feel like starting anything new this week.  So Lullabye it is.  Harumph.    

I wish everything didn't take so much more time than I think it's going to take. 

I wish I didn't have a headache.  

And I wish I could play Lullabye, including the freakin' piano solo, well enough to record it with my buddies.  So there.  

I'm going to dance class now.  Hopefully I'll feel better after.  At least I'll look better.  Though I definitely won't smell better.

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.