I love the saxophone – whether it’s Baker Street or Just the Way You Are – Lisa Simpson or Charlie Parker – there’s something about the instrument which is just – excuse me – fucking cool.

Born To Run

Clarence Clemons died this weekend and I’ve been thinking about his music; his playing touched me and made me smile. I remember being blown away by Born to Run – the album cover: this dude with a telecaster – clean and white – simple typesetting – a handful of songs and a big ass black dude with a saxophone. I sat up half the night listening to it

And the music; strings, guitars, stunning piano playing, that amazing horn and the stories…the stories were pure genius. I wanted to be the Rat, I wanted to be the Poet, I sure as hell wanted the girls and ended up marrying a Wendi.

I fell over laughing listening to New York City Serenade from The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle. The first three minutes of that song let me be a piano player in a rock band – it enabled me to pursue music in a way that made sense to me. David Sancious – and Bruce Springsteen – thank you too!

Bat Out Of hell

This Sunday morning’s playlist included Bat out of Hell; if you haven’t listened to it for a while – go take 45 minutes out of your day and crank it up – Paradise by the Dashboard Light taught me everything I needed to know about rock and roll.

More amazing music – more E street band players – and similarly to Born to Run – long songs. Funny that two of the best selling albums eschewed the single format.

Richard

It was Richard who left me alone with Born to Run 25 years ago – one of those evenings that imprinted hard on my 16 year old brain. He’s a super guitar player, singer songwriter and I love to play music with him.

We haven’t played together for a year – possibly more – but we grabbed an hour the other week – iPhone recording in the room…

Download audio file (reason-101-click.mp3)

Basic rock piano is not about scales, chords, arpeggios or riffs – it is about the relationship between your right and left hand. The best way to teach yourself basic rock piano is to investigate what sounds good when your hands are playing something different.

Practice with a metronome

As a piano player, a rocking groove only works when your hands are agreeing on time. The only way to really understand time is to practice with a click – a metronome.

If you practice to the click you will be surprised at how quickly your chops develop.

Learn the basic “rocking” rhythm

You are going to create a 3 finger chord with your right hand and then “rock” it back and forth while keeping time with your left hand.

Set your metronome to 101 beats per minute – if you have a digital metronome you can set the signature to 8 / 4.

Start out in C major so you don’t have to worry about any black keys. With your right hand, place your thumb on middle C, your index finger on E and your little finger on G (This is also known as placing your fingers on the 1,3 and 5 of the C major scale.)

Listen to the metronome and count out loud, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8.

On the 1 count, play the E and the G (index and little finger)
- on the 2 count play the C (thumb)
- on the 3 count, play the E and G
- on the 4 count, play the C

repeat.

Once you have the rocking motion down with your right hand, add the left hand.

Place your left hand thumb on the first C below middle C and then using the same 8 count, play the C on the 1, the 4 and the 5.

Initially for most people this feels pretty weird but after a couple of passes – it starts to make sense. Once you understand how it feels – then practice it – a lot. The more you play it – the more it makes sense – you start to think about finger velocity, about tone, about expanding the octave, about syncopating the left hand, about playing in different keys, etc…

Learn the blues scale

Rock and roll comes from the blues – and the blues is awesome. In C – the notes in the right hand are:

C, Eb, F, F#,G, Bb,C

With the blues you tend to have the left hand keeping time and structure with the right hand hitting the melody and doing all the fancy stuff. The most basic introduction to the blues would be a classic 12 bar blues.

In C major the left hand would play the notes that make up the following chords.

C, C, C, C, F, F, C, C, G, F, C, G,

Set the metronome and start playing – once you can play different things in the right hand without falling off time in the left hand then you can start to experiment: make chords of the notes in the left hand, play with sliding off the black notes onto the white notes, play with not hitting every note in the bar, slow the tempo down, speed it up – practice.

Play – a lot!

Once you have these tools “under your belt” – play as often as you can – the more you play the more your ears change and the better the whole experience becomes

Quora post text:

Noah Baerman is one of my heroes – not that I’m really into heroes or putting people up on ridiculous pedestals so we can feel better about ourselves when they fall off – but hero as in someone who walks the walk and who’s piano & composition chops I am in awe of.

Noah’s latest record Know Thyself isn’t just for Jazz fans, it’s for music lovers. If you dig Coltrane, Evans (Gil & Bill) or even if you don’t really get “Jazz” but want something hipper than hip for your next party playlist – check it out – stick it on and you’ll find yourself being blown away by the musicianship.

As Noah writes:

“Have sweeping journeys lost their place in the era of the cute little web video? Is the in-depth musical exploration of intense personal transformation irrelevant when one could instead condense those experiences into a text message? Is spending an uninterrupted hour-plus listening to an intricate and ambitious piece of instrumental music a waste of time in the era of the ringtone?
If your answer is no to any of these, I’m glad you’re here.”

Delivered as one track coming in at just over 65 minutes, it is funny, thoughtful, evocative and definitely hip – I’ve been listening for several days now and I tell you – it is killer music to work to as well.

We’ve been quiet for a week or so – projects, family, sickness – in no particular order. With some of these still ongoing – here’s a wonderful piece of music and video that I can’t stop listening to. A live version of their song Excuses by The Morning Benders.

Thank you to my brother Richard for hipping me to this

I’d heard a few spins of their other track “Promises” that is now featured over on Pitchfork – it’s got a killer guitar hook that you won’t forget – but I was blown away by this version of Excuses. What I love is the sheer musicality and joy that is present in the room.

In a time where production and story is everything

– where the brand is more important than the band –

watching a bunch of musicians create something so pleasing to listen to and watch – well – that’s why I’m in this game.

Excuses and promises are both on their latest release – Big Echo which I bought through eMusic here – but you can also find on iTunes and all the usual suspects. Strangely enough they’re using topspin widgets but not TopSpin’s ecommerce – which seems pretty odd to me – but then – what do I know!

The Morning Benders website

Christopher Chu (Vox) on Twitter

The Morning Benders on Facebook

Another musician who’s music we are currently listening to is composer/pianist Craig Urquhart. Craig not only produces beautiful instrumental piano pieces, but he’s also a believer that music is helpful to human beings, which is one of the premises on which music2work2 is built.

According to Craig each composition reflects the healing power of music and nature as well as the emotional journeys of life. His songs are relaxing, soothing, solo piano pieces – have a listen to my current favorite "Venetian Snowfall:" click the player below and you’ll be taken to the track page on Last.fm

Listening to this piece, I can envision snowflakes swirling around, some big, some small. As the snow covers trees, grass, roads, rooftops, everything is transformed into a beautiful, pure, glistening, snow-covered picture. Although snow has always been a problem for me – difficulty getting around in the snow – I think it is nature at it’s most glorious.

You can visit Craig’s website at http://www.craigurquhart.com, where he sells his 9 CDs through CDBaby. Apparently he has a new CD coming out to be released in late February.

Craig Urquhart has a history filled with recognitions and successes – I hope you like his music as much as we do.

While browsing Last.fm recently, I came across the music of Brett Juilly. His music is also instrumental and piano driven. I listened to all 18 tracks on his album Piano and can say that I enjoyed them all. There were a couple of tracks that I particularly like, The Dance, being one.

The Dance is an interesting song in that it almost sounds like two different pieces. It starts of with a light, lilting melody with quite a fast tempo and then about a minute in, the entire sound and feel of the piece changes. It slows down and becomes much fuller with a mellower tone. The piece ends with a few of the higher pitched, lilting notes like the beginning, tying the two parts together, it sticks with you and leaves you wanting to hear more.

Brett states that his music is visual; when listening to this song, the image evoked for me by the first part is that of a ballet dancer; there is a happy feeling. When the song changes, so does the image and feeling. I get a feeling of disappointment; perhaps the ballet dancer is no longer able to dance. The mood is not one of sadness but of acceptance and hope.

One of the things about last.fm is that you can only listen to a track three times – before the paywall comes down – and I so wanted to get into this track – that I ended up buying it – I guess that’s the new music economy!

Last.fm lists Juilly as an artist similar to music2work2. The beautiful instrumental melodies with their soothing, relaxing quality are an asset found in some of the music of both.

Courtesy of Alex from Kilted Chaos – this arrived in my inbox yesterday:

Download audio file (andrew_holiday_song.mp3)

I’ve been talking music and Tech with Evan from Monsters Are Not Myths for a couple of years now. Their latest album Corporate Grown is pretty kick ass – honest to goodness Indie rock and I dig it, personal favorites include OldSoul, Straw Man and Madness – but the kids dig Burrito in my Heart – and we thought we’d do a version for Evan and the band. Merry Christmas guys – hope to see you down in LA this year.

Posted via web from Andrew McCluskey

Oh – and if you’re feeling a bit seasonal and giving – here’s a message from the band:

In the middle of mixing Jeneric at the moment but took an evening out to listen to Live from Daryl’s house – hadn’t heard of the guest artist: Diane Birch – http://www.dianebirch.com – she’s got this killer voice – Karen Carpenter & Alicia Keys territory – and she does the keyboard thing although she seems to be more of Rhodes chick – which is cool by me. This is her Letterman performance – pretty freakin cool!

Live from Daryl’s House
Diane Birch
Diane on Twitter

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Andrew McCluskey

Posted via web from Andrew McCluskey