A mesmerising performance of Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Bold As Love’ played on an instrument I know nothing about! Really expressive.
New Dublin Voices doing ‘Lady Madonna’
My friend Fionnuala, who sings with New Dublin Voices, got married at the weekend and a group of us sang at the wedding ceremony. It was a truly lovely event with many delightful details. Needless to say, we broke out some NDV favourites in the bar afterwards. Like, *very* much afterwards. We always do this — doubtless a bewildering spectacle for those in the vicinity…!
Anyway, one of the ones we like to do in these musically-dodgy situations is a cool arrangement (by Carol Canning, for The Swingle Singers) of ‘Lady Madonna’ by The Beatles. Here’s a video of us performing it at a competition in Marktoberdorf, Germany in 2009. I sing the verses 🙂
Pavarotti at 29
‘Che gelida manina’ from Puccini’s opera ‘La bohème’. Moscow 1964. Amazing vocal technique and expression. He portrays the pain and anguish of this piece so brilliantly, and the few flashes of a smile are just beautiful.
The Mucky Duck
I played a solo gig last night in The Mucky Duck pub in Celbridge. I haven’t done very many gigs where it’s just me and the piano (when I have done gigs in the past, it’s mostly been on guitar). It was great, though, and I really enjoyed myself. Feedback was good from the audience — a nice mix of friends, punters sitting listening, applauding punters having conversations and food… Crucially, too, the proprietor and the guy who did my sound also thought I did well. The wonderfully nice guy who did sound for me — Mike Wilkins — took some video which I will hopefully be able to post up here in the next week or two.
I played all covers, some of which worked better than others. Ones that went particularly well were John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’, done in the more up-tempo style of Herbie Hancock’s recent version (which, if you don’t know, you *must* check out…the rest of the album is absolutely brilliant, too. Seriously, iTunes, now…), also Dire Straits’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’, and Michael Bublé’s version of ‘Quando, Quando, Quando’ (although, sadly on this occasion without Jenny’s harmonious corollary). I did some jazz arrangements by Jack Long from a great book I have, ‘Blues for Piano’, although it was hard to read in the low light, so I didn’t enjoy that so much. Must get a wee LED gooseneck lamp…
Anyway, really hope to do more of this type of gig. Maybe a restaurant or hotel… I’ve enquired with a place on Dame Street that’s looking for a musician, so we’ll see what comes of that!
Piano exam
My piano exam was yesterday and I think it went pretty well. Two of my students were doing their Grade 4 exams right before me, so that was a bit of a distraction from my own nerves. There were a couple of little girls doing their Grade 1 exam and also a lady in her sixties who was doing a recital exam (candidates have to prepare a twenty minute programme). She was in good form when she came back into the waiting room afterwards (with the massive pile of music — the examiner needs a copy of each piece, since they don’t know what’s to be played), giving encouragement to my two students, “if *I* can do it, then so can you!”, which I thought was great. There was no chat out of the Grade 1 girl’s dad. He sat reading a Christian self-help book (I glanced at the chapter heading and saw something about Satanic Something-or-other), only making his presence felt by leaving little tracts on the seats when he left — one of them jauntily perched on the pocket of my bag!! Anyway.
I started with scales, which is apparently good to get one used to the piano. I was surprised at how nervous I was when it came to it. Should’ve done more playing of my pieces in front of other people, I think. Another thing I noticed was the height of the stool. It’s unusual that you get to adjust the height of piano stools — most are at a fixed height. As a result, I don’t really give much thought to it and, even though the examiner gave me an opportunity to do so, I didn’t make any changes to the seat. (Glenn Gould used to bring a chair with him wherever he played that he had sawn the legs down on. Apparently he sat very low at the piano — more suitable to the type of music he excelled at, as opposed to ‘big’ Romantic repertoire, which he didn’t specialise in.) When I think about it, of course, piano playing is all about minute distances and it makes perfect sense to try and replicate the conditions in which one has practiced those precise movements. Duly noted.
Perhaps as a result of the unfamiliarity of the position and definitely due to some of my body’s ‘fight-or-flight’ instinct under stress, I made a couple of little slips in the Bach fugue that I hadn’t been making in practice. That was frustrating, because I’d worked hard on it and it is a beautiful, pristine thing when it’s all there. I ended up taking it — in my best renditions of it in practice — at a fairly gentle speed and at quite a quiet dynamic. Bach would’ve most probably played it on a clavichord or a harpsichord, neither of which can approach the power of the modern grand piano. It’s tempting, at the end of this particular fugue (in Bb, from the first book of ‘The Well-Tempered Keyboard‘), to get louder as the last couple of entries appear. The last one, just before the gnarly last four bars, is a real joy when it comes good after practice. It’s a bit like I remember running the 800m in school — a feeling, in the final stretch, of the legs just going by themselves. The subject is woven between the left and right hands and seems to appear in relief against the top and bottom parts that are very definitely in the right and left hands. So satisfying to play and, in my opinion, best handled with care, like a fine cloth.
To be continued…
(I’m off to get ready to go out to The Mornington Singers’ concert.)
Oh WOW! (James Rhodes)
I love how we can now finally *see* how incredible performers play. Video can get right up close and record jaw-dropping things like James Rhodes playing Moszkowski’s luminescent ‘Etincelles’. (I like Mr Rhodes because he sent me a signed copy of his debut CD a few years ago when I correctly identified a piece of music he tweeted a picture of!)
String Quartet arrangement for wedding
I’ve just finished an arrangement of this piece for string quartet and two of the singers from New Dublin Voices. It’s to be performed at a wedding on Friday. Unfortunately I can’t attend, as it clashes with my piano exam. Speaking of which, I better get back to practicing!
Soma Quintet
From Evernote: |
Soma Quintet |
On Sunday, a freezing cold, rainy night in Dublin, when 5000 brave souls were taking part in a nighttime 10km run through the city, I went into the United Arts Club (a members club on Fitzwilliam Street) for a jazz gig. I’ve been to the Arts Club once before, playing piano at a Christmas party, and apparently the place has had a bit of a sprucing up recently. It still retains the homely quality that makes it so charming and was a perfect venue for listening to the music. The room is a double-size Georgian living room and comfortably accomodated the audience of about 30 who attended. Everything sounded good — they used a Nord keyboard rather than the upright that’s there, and the double bass and the guitar went through amps, too.
Barry Rycraft led the group through a set that started with a Charles Mingus tune, Moanin’. Sam Comerford was out front on tenor sax and plays with a great tone through the whole range of the instrument. The head of the tune features a catchy motif — "BooooodlyapBAP", I reckon! I was mightily impressed by pianist Leopold Osio, too, who turned out some lovely playing on this tune.
After this tasty opener, we heard three large-scale compositions of Barry’s. ‘Mister Biscuits’ was influenced by Mingus and this was most evident in the bass solo, accompanied only by the other band members clapping a simple ostinato that Barry played over. Rhythm is something that features heavily in what I’ve heard of Barry’s writing and he really went to town on this solo, exploring all kinds of rhythmic counterpoint that must’ve kept the band on their toes! It was certainly really engaging as an audience member to follow the piece through its various sections.
Next, they played ‘Tuesday’, a swirling bolero in five (as opposed to the familiar three — think of Ravel’s famous ostinato: dum ratata-ta-ta dum-ta). I played piano in a trio with Barry and Satya Darcy (on drums last night) when this piece was in its infancy and it was great to hear it with the augmented group. All grown up but still cute as hell!
Lastly, we had the rocking ‘Twelve Year Itch’. I remember this one, too, from when Barry first wrote it. Again central to the piece is a captivating rhythmic idea that sets the members of the group against each other in counterpoint to create a compelling power chord mosaic over which the sax soars with a muscular minor 3rd riff. (At the very end, everyone’s accents coincide finally in an emphatic ending that releases us satisfyingly from the piece’s grip.) Featured this time was Dan Soro on electric guitar (a rather nice Fender Stratocaster which he used for this tune only). His solo was over a new section of music that seemed to climb ever upwards as he played. Loved it!
Barry and the band are playing on Thursday night in the Kevin Barry Room at The National Concert Hall. He is graduating from the Newpark School of Music BA in Jazz Performance and this marks the culmination of four years training. The gig is free and starts at 7pm.
First solo gig in a long time (and a bit about playing Bach on piano)
Emma O’Reilly asked me to play at a songwriter evening she curated the other night in The Mercantile bar. It’s a long while since I played my own stuff, so I jumped at the chance. I took out the guitar earlier that day at home to practice and ended up writing a new song — something I haven’t done in a long, long while!
I’ve been meeting up with a friend of mine, Peter Ryan, to hang out and talk about writing and give each other encouragement with stuff we’re working on. My lack of any new material prompted me to go back over the voice memo recordings of song ideas that I’ve made on my phone. It was two of these that I worked up into the song, which I’ve called ‘Panic’. I *do* have a demo recording of just me and the guitar, but I won’t post it up yet. I didn’t do a brilliant job of playing it the other night at the gig, so I feel like it needs to stay on the drawing board for a bit longer. I’m hoping to maybe work it up into a bigger arrangement, so you can hear it then…!
Buoyed by the experience of playing Emma’s gig, I got in touch with Lisa McLaughlin and got a slot on a forthcoming ‘Saucy Sundays’ gig (the regular showcase that she hosts in The Grand Social). Sunday 13 May — I’ll be on first 🙂
Another date of note (for my diary, anyway) is Friday the 18th of May. I just got word yesterday that that’s when my Grade 8 piano exam is scheduled for. Eek! The pieces are coming along nicely and I’m chipping away at the scales day by day — there are so many! I just read Charles Rosen’s book ‘Piano Notes’, which had some really interesting thoughts about playing Bach. One of the pieces I’m playing for the exam is Bach’s Fugue in B flat from the first book of ‘The Well-Tempered Keyboard’. He wrote a Prelude and a Fugue in each of the twelve major keys…and also each of the twelve minor keys…and then he did that all again. The interesting thing that Rosen points out is that these were never meant to be performed in public (and certainly not on a modern piano, more likely on a harpsichord or a clavichord). Bach would’ve used them as teaching material and so the modern practice of accentuating each appearance of the main theme of the fugue (the ‘subject’) is not how he would’ve expected the pieces to be played. For a start, the keyboard instruments of his day couldn’t do gradations of dynamics in the subtle way a piano can (a piano-forte, to give it its full name, is so called because of its ability to do both soft and loud). Secondly, since it wasn’t for an audience, the people hearing the fugue would’ve been the player or a pupil following the score — both of whom would have no need to have the appearances of the subject spelled out to them, since it was in front of them. Thirdly, the subject is the least interesting bit of the piece if you’re Bach. It’s just the bones to which the artistic flesh of the composer’s counterpoint is attached. All that having been said, if the pieces *are* to be performed for an audience who neither know the score nor have the aesthetic sensibilities of an eighteenth century harpsichord pupil, the pianist would do well to bring alive the music (to ‘publish’ it, as Rosen puts it), and some underlining of the structure of these remarkable pieces is the way to go.
All great food for thought. I’d recommend the book to anyone who plays piano or has an interest in classical piano music — it’s an easy read, with loads of anecdotes and insight into the repertoire and life of a pianist.
Piano practice
Practice continues for the Grade 8 exam. The three pieces I have to perform are coming along: Bach’s Fugue in Bb from the first book of ‘The 48’, Schubert’s Scherzo in Bb, and Shostakovich’s Prelude in D (from the Op. 34 set). Today I got a good bit of work done on all three.
This morning I listened to Murray Perahia’s 2000 recording of Bach’s ‘Goldberg Variations’, a piece I fell in love with when I was at university. The beautiful Aria that bookends the variations was featured in the film ‘The English Patient’ and my flatmate George had the soundtrack on CD. It also has a lovely version of ‘Cheek to Cheek’, as I recall… I encountered the piece again while staying on the Scottish island of Arran in my second year at university. A few of us went and stayed in a cottage there — I remember it raining a lot. We were armed with a box set of Bruckner symphonies, but it was a brief snippet in a TV documentary of Glenn Gould playing the fifth Goldberg variation that made the greater impression. It’s really a stunning performance (he recorded them twice, in 1955 and in 1981 — take your pick!) and a real piece of virtuosity. I memorised the first few bars of the right hand part when we got back to Edinburgh as a small act of worship…someday I’ll learn the whole movement!
I have a notion that Shostakovich gives that variation a nod in the Prelude I’m learning. It starts very similarly (although it quickly spirals off into Shostakovich’s sound world): the right hand has a stream of semiquavers which the left hand punctuates sparsely. Both pieces are number five in the set to which they belong…I don’t know…just a thought!
(Jeepers! I just searched for videos of the Shostakovich piece on YouTube and it’s mostly kids playing it at light speed…gulp…
Okay, okay, here’s one…
So, I’ll keep practicing!)
jay wilson :: music 