Learning piano
April 17th 2005
Just a little event — I’ve been learning piano, and today I played through a transcription of “Evaporated” (Ben Folds) all the way through. I don’t know what it is about the piano that makes such a beautiful sound, but it has always been one of my favorite instruments, so this little milestone is cool. Even though it is a very easy song, it’s so musical and expressive that it sounds impressive. If you ever catch me next to a piano I can play it if you like.
Life has been school has been life lately; so I’m busy. I’m taking a class on compiler design, and the projects are killer. Very interesting though. With that and algorithms, and a couple humanities classes, there’s no time left to think except late late at night, and all I can think about then is too deep to be useful or interesting. I’m getting weird here I know, so I’ll cut it off there. Let’s just say I’ve been thinking a lot about things that I can’t write about here. But life is good! Never fear. Always, even in the darkest times, something about it breaks through into some beauty or wonder, completely unexplainable and completely true.
I live for thoughts like these at two in the morning; gone by sunrise.
Awesome. I am in awe of your piano abilities. My own leave quite a bit to be desired. I think my problem is being able to play faster. Any of my own compositions always sound mournful when in fact I’m a terribly happy guy I just can’t play fast.
Best. Sentence. Ever.
Funny, I always thought that was my problem…
I hope you realize that the recordings in the “compositions” section are just MIDI recordings. You must be talking about the rainy day music then. Anyway.
My problem has always been that I can’t really read music and play piano at the same time. Actually, I’ve never really been able to keep up with notes on any instrument very well… my specialty is improvization. Even this Ben Folds song I have completely memorized; actually, I lost the last page of music so I had to listen to the actual song to see how it ended. My point is that notes confuse me. I prefer whatever’s in my head, and if it’s in my head I can usually play it.
And thanks about the sentence.
I was in band in the fifth grade (my one and only time) and played this freakish instrument called a pianica. For those not aware, a pianica is as its name might suggest, a hybridization of a piano and harmonica. It was just a little keyboard with a hose you blew into.
For the big production I had memorized all of the sheet music. I didn’t even keep the sheets on my stand because I knew I would just get confused if I caught sight of it.
I think my problem is that I know what the notes mean but the time it takes my brain to convert those notes into meaningful finger movement is torturous to say the least.
I sing by ear. And if I were to play an instrument, I’d play by ear too. I think I do a lot of that, and not just in the musical world.
I wish I were a deeper thinker.
Chris — I know what you mean. Sometimes notes aren’t the most efficient way to get the idea of the music into one’s head, just like words aren’t always the best way to get an idea across (sometimes music works better :))
Cindy — Please… you are a deep thinker! Especially compared to most everyone else.