Poseur to Composer

Scaling-Up

Posted by Jason Comely on August 24th, 2019

Scaling-UpToday, as I experimented with various finger formations for the So What intro, the importance of doing scales and arpeggios is really hitting home. My fingers are slow and clumsy. Practicing scales can make them nimbler.
Yet there is more to scales than just how to move your fingers gracefully up and down the keyboard. From scales you build chords and melodies. They seem completely foundational in music theory and in practical application of playing the keys. So far, I've avoided them because they were in violation of an early rule I established, that is to avoid non-musical practice. And for someone as myself with tendinitis, practicing scales look painful!
I'm wondering if I should study proper fingering and the theory of scales before proceeding with So What. Then I can make educated decisions on how to move these cumbersome hands of mine.

https://write.as/poseur-to-composer/thinking-about-scales

New Game Idea for the Piano?

Posted by Jason Comely on August 23rd, 2019

New Game Idea for the Piano?
Image by Kai Stachowiak
The left hand fingering that goes from 0:12 until 0:20 of So What definitely requires a plan. I'm trying to be as economical as possible with hand position changes while adhering the rule that the thumb and pinky don't touch black keys. It's tricky though.
Such strategizing of 'what finger goes where' feels a bit like a puzzle game. I guess you lose when you embed the wrong pattern into muscle memory.

Cherry-picking and The Pixies

Posted by Jason Comely on August 22nd, 2019

Cherry-pickingTonight I want to kick back and read my new book, but I better write this blog post first, lest I fall asleep while reading and break my promise.

My new book is The Making of Kind of Blue: Miles Davis and His Masterpiece by Eric Nisenson. I'm reading it to keep me motivated to learn So What in its entirety. Practicing a song takes mind-numbing repetition, and I succumb to shiny new object syndrome far too easily. I hear a catchy chord and I want to learn it. Before music was passive, ambient. It provided a soundscape, nothing more. Now it's full of possibilities. I want to learn a chord from this song and from that.

When Frank Black wrote music for The Pixies, he excluded "boring" parts of a song's structure like the bridge to the chorus and predictable time signatures. He wanted just the good stuff. That's how I want to learn: cherry pick great-sounding chords from various songs and mash them together into a medley. But I'll resist.

Time for some reading.