What are you playing?

Started by Maciek, April 13, 2007, 03:44:13 AM

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Maciek


greg

Hey, guess what...... after tons of practice yesterday, i woke up today and played the the first 5 measures of the Gavotte from Schoenberg's Piano Suite without a mistake. And I don't play piano, btw, although it is tempting to learn.....
the Gavotte is only 3 pages long, and i got in over half a page...... and the rest is mostly not that hard, actually. I think I'm going for it..... 0:)

Haffner

Van Halen "Somebody Get Me a Doctor"

Learned this one over twenty years ago, still alot of fun to play!

Joe_Campbell

Just starting with a new teacher! :) He has a lot of confidence in me, which is quite inspiring. He also started playing later in life, at 17.

Bartok - Mikrokosmos Vol. 6 No. 1 Free Variations
Debussy - Preludes bk. 1  De pas sur la neige (sp?)
Mozart - Adagio in B minor, k540
Handel - Suite in G minor HWV 432 #5 Gigue
Medtner - Fairy Tale, Op. 26 No. 1 (I really think this one might be beyond me at the moment, but I shall try)
Scriabin - Prelude in E flat minor, Op. 11 No. 14

Woohoo!

greg

Quote from: AndyD. on September 01, 2008, 04:17:39 AM
Van Halen "Somebody Get Me a Doctor"

Learned this one over twenty years ago, still alot of fun to play!
I've downloaded the tab book that's in, so I took a look. The main riff is simple and loose, even if you're not staying in the same position. The solo is typical of the little I know about Van Halen- especially at the end, with the interesting shape repeated over the end of the fretboard. Supposedly he does this type of stuff a lot- like, in a book I have, they had a long line with just harmonics- like a scale going from the last string to the first, with the frets 5 7 and 9.  The comment was "it's like Van Halen- use a simple shape and just stick with it throughout the fretboard" or something like that.
Also, I noticed a technique that I've only seen in Joe Satriani- the hammer-on while touching your right finger on the string- harmonic thing- so that's where he got that from!

Joe_Campbell

Quote from: JCampbell on September 13, 2008, 10:43:27 AM
Just starting with a new teacher! :) He has a lot of confidence in me, which is quite inspiring. He also started playing later in life, at 17.

Bartok - Mikrokosmos Vol. 6 No. 1 Free Variations
Debussy - Preludes bk. 1  De pas sur la neige (sp?)
Mozart - Adagio in B minor, k540
Handel - Suite in G minor HWV 432 #5 Gigue
Medtner - Fairy Tale, Op. 26 No. 1 (I really think this one might be beyond me at the moment, but I shall try)
Scriabin - Prelude in E flat minor, Op. 11 No. 14

Woohoo!

Update:

I've been focusing mainly on Handel's Gigue, Bartok's Free Variations, and Scriabin's Prelude, as they offer unique challenges. The main with the first one is clean articulation, as we're getting creative with the phrasing. With the Bartok piece, the constant metre changes are brutal for reading, as is his very unfamiliar (to me) harmony. With Scriabin, the massive jumps on the second page are taxing on concentration - especially while site reading - but they're finally coming through!

...if anyone is interested...

M forever

Just relax, keep the remote control steady in your hand, but don't cramp and don't push any buttons randomly - then you should be able to get through the piece.

Joe_Campbell

They're all really short, too. I find if I keep hands off the remote control entirely, I get through things OK.

Haffner

Quote from: GGGGRRREEG on September 18, 2008, 12:50:16 PM

Also, I noticed a technique that I've only seen in Joe Satriani- the hammer-on while touching your right finger on the string- harmonic thing- so that's where he got that from!


For me, Satriani was just the MTV "lite" version of truly great players like Michael Schenker and Edward Van Halen. Go check out the last song on Michael Schenker Group's Assault Attack ("Ulcer") and you'll hear the obvious template that Satriani built his whole career on. Satriani never wrote anything as innovative.

Alot of Van Halen's riffs are simple, but that often equals SUPER fun to play!

Haffner

Eewwps, what I'm playing. Lots of stuff from here:

greg

Quote from: AndyD. on September 27, 2008, 08:22:42 AM

For me, Satriani was just the MTV "lite" version of truly great players like Michael Schenker and Edward Van Halen. Go check out the last song on Michael Schenker Group's Assault Attack ("Ulcer") and you'll hear the obvious template that Satriani built his whole career on. Satriani never wrote anything as innovative.

Wait, is this true? I've never heard him mentioning Michael Schenker in any of his interviews (although I could be missing something).

Okay, just finished listening to that track on youtube. Pretty amazing for 1982. I don't know about saying  that "Satriani never wrote anything as innovative," though. Sounds like a template for the song Satch Boogie, and a lot of Surfing with the Alien, but there's much more than that. There's so many ideas that, even if he wasn't the inventor, he sure did take "distant" stuff and use it as his own- for example, the pitch axis theory. Or the tapping techniques- Midnight, Day At the Beach, the Headless Horseman, for example- all tapping with acoustic guitar, the first two  you have to use a rag to dampen the strings, then just tap freely with both hands, which is seriously FUN!!! Or the tapping techniques/patterns used in the Mystical Potato Head Groove Thing or the Power Cosmic- every time I think about that lick, it makes me laugh because he said he actually had difficulties with it at first- serious difficulties and it isn't even that hard!  ;D

Or the insane whammy bar effects on Ice 9, such as the "lizard down the throat".... or the first disc of Time Machine, which is just a bunch of early avant-garde experimentation, such as the ending in the song Dreaming#11, where he pulls off making two guitars sound exactly like a train that is speeding up. Or the entire album, Engines of Creation. His newer stuff isn't that interesting, though.

Haffner

Quote from: G$ on November 04, 2008, 12:55:23 PM
Wait, is this true? I've never heard him mentioning Michael Schenker in any of his interviews (although I could be missing something).

Okay, just finished listening to that track on youtube. Pretty amazing for 1982. I don't know about saying  that "Satriani never wrote anything as innovative," though. Sounds like a template for the song Satch Boogie, and a lot of Surfing with the Alien, but there's much more than that. There's so many ideas that, even if he wasn't the inventor, he sure did take "distant" stuff and use it as his own- for example, the pitch axis theory. Or the tapping techniques- Midnight, Day At the Beach, the Headless Horseman, for example- all tapping with acoustic guitar, the first two  you have to use a rag to dampen the strings, then just tap freely with both hands, which is seriously FUN!!! Or the tapping techniques/patterns used in the Mystical Potato Head Groove Thing or the Power Cosmic- every time I think about that lick, it makes me laugh because he said he actually had difficulties with it at first- serious difficulties and it isn't even that hard!  ;D

Or the insane whammy bar effects on Ice 9, such as the "lizard down the throat".... or the first disc of Time Machine, which is just a bunch of early avant-garde experimentation, such as the ending in the song Dreaming#11, where he pulls off making two guitars sound exactly like a train that is speeding up. Or the entire album, Engines of Creation. His newer stuff isn't that interesting, though.


Laughing..well, obviously you like Satriani, Greg! Most established guitar players won't mention whom their most obvious influences are. Satriani is most obviously a disciple of the Edward Van Halen and Michael Schenker school of guitar, but never mentions them. Edward Van Halen was just as influenced by Schenker and even more by Ritchie Blackmore, he rarely mentions Blackmore and almost never Schenker. Steve Vai was mostly influenced by Satriani...but all the above mention folks whom could only have had a peripheral influence on them. Malmsteen in his early days used to mention only "Bach", though he sure doesn't exhibit any of the intricate contrapuntal work of J.S. It might be a way of heros distancing themselves from their idols.

Satriani does have often a fantastic left hand technique. I just don't feel anything from his playing, him or Vai. Or Malmsteen (at least since "Trilogy"). But that's me.

tr. pianist

Iam learning Grieg violin piano sonata op. 45 in C minor.
I have in my small piano repertoire Rachmaninoff op. 23 preludes 2 and 6, Chopin op 10 Revolutionary Etude and Etude on the black keys, Liszt Rigoletto Paraphrase. Most of the pieces I played before and now so to say resurrected.

Tomorrow I have to accompany a student who is playing in a concert of high achievers award. She is playing the first movement of Beethoven Spring sonata.

I don't know why I am so uneven. I can play so well and hear what I have to improve on. Yet at other time I feel like I am deaf. I know it has something to do with my mood and my outlook on life that probably influences these fluctuations.
Life is made up of disappointments and small victories and successes. I wish I could understand what I am doing wrong when things are not going well. I noticed that my students too push and even bang the piano when they are stressed.
There is a lot of psychology in piano playing.


greg

Quote from: AndyD. on November 04, 2008, 01:30:29 PM

Laughing..well, obviously you like Satriani, Greg! Most established guitar players won't mention whom their most obvious influences are. Satriani is most obviously a disciple of the Edward Van Halen and Michael Schenker school of guitar, but never mentions them. Edward Van Halen was just as influenced by Schenker and even more by Ritchie Blackmore, he rarely mentions Blackmore and almost never Schenker. Steve Vai was mostly influenced by Satriani...but all the above mention folks whom could only have had a peripheral influence on them. Malmsteen in his early days used to mention only "Bach", though he sure doesn't exhibit any of the intricate contrapuntal work of J.S. It might be a way of heros distancing themselves from their idols.

Satriani does have often a fantastic left hand technique. I just don't feel anything from his playing, him or Vai. Or Malmsteen (at least since "Trilogy"). But that's me.

All that is really interesting. And yeah, I always thought it was weird how Malmsteen uses such little counterpoint in his music.......

Ten thumbs

Rather appropriately for Remembrance Day, I'm working on Mel Bonis' 'La Cathédrale Blessée' Op107. This is something of a war poem with lots of crushing chords creating an atmosphere of dust and ashes (written in 1915 when the composer was working with war orphans and prisoners of war). I'm wondering if there are other piano pieces that are specific to wartime.
A day may be a destiny; for life
Lives in but little—but that little teems
With some one chance, the balance of all time:
A look—a word—and we are wholly changed.

Joe_Campbell

Maybe Debussy's Berceuse Heroique?

Ten thumbs

Quote from: JCampbell on November 09, 2008, 08:40:53 AM
Maybe Debussy's Berceuse Heroique?
Thank you for reminding me of a gap in my library. I have Debussy's Preludes and Etudes plus Piano Music (1888-1905) but none of his other later works. This I need to correct.
I forgot that I also have Children's Corner. The Etudes were published in 1915.
Debussy died 25th March 1918 shortly before a German shell hit the roof of St Gervais (29th March) killing over a hundred people. Mel Bonis' illegitimate daughter, Madeleine, was there at the time.
A day may be a destiny; for life
Lives in but little—but that little teems
With some one chance, the balance of all time:
A look—a word—and we are wholly changed.

Haffner

Quote from: mikkeljs on June 30, 2008, 11:34:15 PM
. As a teacher, I know, always says: Every child can move their fingers fast without problems.


That can be applied to guitar. The shred sound today is (OVER) done by so many today guitarists that it just sounds anonymous. There are so few guitar players with any personality (To be fair, I've heard that the guy from Mars Volta has a cool, personal style). When I listen back to Tony Iommi, Ritchie Blackmore, Michael Schenker, and Angus Young I hear four separate personalities. When I listen to Rhapsody, Dragonforce, Children of Bodom, Kamelot, etc., I hear the same, unmemorable, ultimately unmusical player. It could be a computer playing those leads (with the Pro Tools and other Ultra-digital recording software available today, practically ALL of it sounds over processed and produced).

For Metal, check out Ralph Santolla's playing on Deicide's "Stench of Redemption". He's using alot of effects, and he shreds, but it ends up not only fitting within the framework of the chords, but sounds intimate...individual at the same time. That's rare today.

karlhenning

Good morning, Andy!

("Stench of Redemption"?  :o )

;D

Haffner

Quote from: karlhenning on November 10, 2008, 05:46:51 AM
Good morning, Andy!

("Stench of Redemption"?  :o )

;D




Aye. The things kids do to be entertained (laughing).