musical examination
I visited Debbie tonight on my way home from work, and hung out with her and Jenny and Howie for a little while too - those two are good value and make me laugh :) But I was tired, and I didn’t really want to drive across to Annandale for round two of making me a better church pianist. But I did anyway.
Glad I did, cos it was a tops evening.
We listened to New York by Eskimo Joe, and picked out the piano parts. But then Michael brought up Pro Tools on the Mac in the studio, and there was the song broken down ready for mixing. And we could sit and listen to all the rhythms and piano styles in the song on their own without all the other instruments. It was amazing to listen to a song like that. And then try and apply the styles, rhythms and variations we found in the song to a song we’d play in church.
I also really enjoyed that breaking down a song thing not just from the piano perspective, but from a general musical perspective. If I’m in the right mood, I’ll sit and pick a song apart while I’m listening to it - start by trying to find every single instrument that’s playing in a song, when and how often they play, and then try and pick out the exact notes/chords that they’re playing, and their rhythm. It’s interesting when you do that and realise that sometimes songs are far simpler than they seem.
Thankfully, I’m not so musically obsessed that I do that everytime I listen to music. I still feel I think about music too much though, and don’t just listen for enjoyment enough. But it’s fun :)
