It's moving day

Finally.

Jason passed Schaum Book One

Jillian and Jason have been real good sports about this whole moving thing. Consider: they're going to a new school. The pool is closed for the summer. We've pretty much packed away their toys. And they aren't as good at going outside and creating their own mischief as we were. They've been pretty bored, but considering the circumstances, they've done a pretty good job keeping themselves busy and out of trouble.

Jason, in particular, has been spending quite a lot of time on the piano. For those of you just joining us (where've you been, anyway?), Jillian has been teaching Jason everything she knows about piano and music. That's cute enough in and of itself. That they chose this without any prodding from us makes it doubly so. Here are some shots from a recent lesson.





She has assigned him pieces out of her Schaum Green Book, and has given or withheld stickers, as appropriate, depending on how he's progressed on the little songs. Stickers are apparently a fiendishly powerful motivator for 5 and 6 year-olds. Who knew? As we neared the end of the summer, Jillian and Jason reached the end of the book, which meant it came time for a recital and exam.

Jillian wrote her own exam. She took some questions from the Schaum book verbatim; took others and transmogrified them slightly; and simply concocted others right out of thin air. Here is the exam she wrote for Jason.


I'll translate for you.


Write down the answer. If it's right, put a "T". If it's wrong, put an "F".
This means "Right Hand".
This means "Left Hand".
This gets three (beats, I assume).
This gets two.


This is an 8th note.
This means to go 8 keys higher.

He got 5 out of 6, which is passing. Then he played a selection of songs from the book. (I'll post a clip once we get new batteries in Flip.) Jillian then created a certificate, certifying that Jason had passed the course.


Not bad. More than I can say, that's for certain.

Gosh, this seems like he's in a hurry

Clearly, it's a matter of interpretation. But even if I could play this fast, I am not sure I would.




I got about 20 minutes or so to experiment with Stella yesterday. It's a slow start, I must say. I don't expect to be able to sight-read this material, but at this point in my development, getting up and going on the new patterns for each new piece is a slow process. And to be honest, I don't really enjoy it.

Holding pattern

Sorry for the radio silence here at AW2PP. Hopefully you haven't gone and become addicted to some other "I'm learning to play piano" blog. There are lots of quality players in the genre, to be sure.

You may recall that we're building a new house, one big enough for Sue's folks and our family of six. (And no more.) You may also recall that for many moons now, we've been targeting August 22 as our closing date. You may then be unpleasantly surprised to hear that August 22 came and went, and we did not close. Two words: lender approvals. It's apparently a bleak new world out there for underwriters, who are just itching to reject applications these days, even those (like ours!) with enthusiastic pre-approvals. Here's hoping that our new target closing date (this Friday, August 29) does not slip.

In between packing boxes watching Sue pack boxes (she's very good at it, takes pride in her skills, and even, egad, seems to enjoy it), I have been:

• Moving packed boxes to our staging area, formerly known as the garage.
• Making meals.
• Turning on new shows for Rowan, who seems to be developing a hearty love for television. She is particularly fond of the Backyardigans, even though she's nowhere near being able to pronounce "Backyardigans". Which, as is often the case for the just-turned-two-year-old, doesn't stop her from trying. Hey, we understand her.
  
• Watching as much Olympics as I possibly can.
  
• Getting updates from our mortgage broker, and providing requested documentation.
• Sitting down at the bench and getting many short, focused repetitions on Ombre.
  

With Ombre, I am roughly at the same place as I was with Limbo when I snatched and posted that clip about a month ago. Which is to say, while I can make it through the whole thing, I consistently struggle with a couple of passages. One in particular is the second instance of the triplet quarter notes (see measure 69)... I've accidentally gotten that right maybe a couple of times, but that's because I wasn't paying attention. I can't do that triplet correctly on purpose. I've yet to make an entirely clean run through Ombre. And I haven't paid as close attention to dynamic and tempo markings as I should. While I tinker with those items, and continue to polish Limbo, my wandering mind has already moved on to the next piece. But which would that be?

The candidates are Stella del Mattino, Tracce, and I Due Fiumi. The first two are pieces that were recommended by Josh, a professional pianist over at the Einaudi forums. They gently introduce techniques and patterns that are reused in other, more sophisticated Einaudi pieces. I Due Fiumi is a very interesting, albeit lengthy piece that our own sawtooth has worked on, and recommended. I played all three of these on the iPod for Sue, and we talked through them.

Tracce first. We decided it was very serious. And in some ways, reminiscent of the first two Einaudi pieces I have learned. I'll probably learn it some day, but it's time to break things up with something lighter. Fortunately enough, Stella fits the bill there nicely, with light, repeating patterns that supposedly sound harder to play than they really are. And while we liked I Due Fiumi too (perhaps that will be next?), Stella won out with its (her?) light, happy mood, and comparative brevity.

So, as is my custom, have a listen for yourself. Go ahead, it's only 2 and a half minutes.

• Jason's update - His teacher (that would be Jillian) graded his exam and recital.
• A comment on Olympic volleyball
• Closing / moving pictures and updates (let's hope)
• More baby pics
• Costco and Digital Pianos
  

Not much going on this week

Baby Joe (trying on new names for the boy, that's the one I am going with right now) is now two and a half weeks old. Like all of us, he wasn't born with an innate sense for day versus night. So we're still working with that. He seems to be growing, though, and that's a good thing.

The (new) house looks great. It seems to be ready for us; we're certainly ready for it. Thing is, our lender is backed up, and because of their slow processing, it appears that our target closing date (um, that would be this Friday) is going to slip. We're real happy about that, as you can guess. Still, we're packing up the current house, in preparation for moving as soon as we're allowed to.

At work, I have been assigned an entirely new set of accounts. This means I have had to gracefully hand over my old customers (a mixed bag there, to be sure, I am glad to be rid of some, sorry to see others go) and begin visiting a whole new set of customers. My new group is called, euphemistically, "General Business". These accounts used to be called SMB ("Small to Medium Business"), but it turns out that no business likes to be called small. Even those that are. And, given the size of my company, what we defined as "small" (you know, companies like, oh, Motorola) was a bit mystifying. Anyway, things have been very busy at work, which, combined with the new baby, moving out of the old house, getting ready for closing on the new one, and living day-to-day life means things seem to be going by very quickly these days.

This leaves very little time for, you know, watching the Olympics, or learning Ombre.

So, since I have very little to offer you from my own experience, let's all appreciate the #2 All Time Muppet, Beaker. I swear, I had a dentist once that was his long-lost identical twin brother.




Now if you'll excuse me, it's garbage day.

The Olympics are awesome

On the Interwebs these days, it seems fashionable to bash the Olympics. In their idealized version, the Olympics are pure sports competitions, pitting the top amateurs from around the world. Young, beautiful, athletic people competing against each other, representing their country out of pure National pride, trying to be the best. Faster! Higher! Stronger! No politics, no prejudices, just pure, unadulterated competition.

In reality, of course there are politics, doping scandals, corrupt IOC Members, professional athletes, last-second citizenship changes, and sponsorships from super ginormous multi-national inter-galactic corporations. I sympathize with the cynics among you.

And yet? I, the biggest Olympics sucker of them all, willingly suspend my cynicism. You know I play volleyball, and I am watching all the volleyball I can. (I highly prefer the indoor game, by the way.) But it's not just that. The vast majority of Olympic athletes are regular people with day jobs (where there are such things). These are regular Joes and Janes* who just happen to be really good at, and have a burning passion for, a particular sport or activity. There is something totally compelling to me about watching people who excel at something they love. I'd watch a competition between the world's best Monopoly players if NBC covered it.

* - And Sergeis and Svetlanas and Hidekis and Ikos and Deepaks...

So I don't mind staying up late these days with the baby*. Those of you who have not had any children, but intend to some day... make a note to yourself that, should the opportunity arise, try to have a newborn baby right around the Olympics. It provides a socially acceptable reason to be up at 3:00 AM watching preliminary heats in single sculls.

* - Not that I can do much anyway, short of looking plaintively at Sue and asking, in futility, if there is anything I can do to help. Last night she let me get her some water. I felt useful!

And the requisite piano-related comment? At this point in my progress on Limbo, I had accumulated about 10 or 12 hours of practice on the piece, including most of an entire Saturday. I've probably put about 4 hours into Ombre, and it shows. Progress is very slow. Make no mistake, I LIKE OMBRE A LOT! It goes places, musically, whereas Limbo sort of meanders around in one place, examining the same space from various perspectives. I'm sure when I reach an acceptable level of expertise on both, I'll probably prefer Ombre. It's just that, with the new baby, requisite attention paid to the three we already had, preparations for moving next week (I mentioned something about a new house, right?), and life as usual... something has to give.

But it ain't gonna be Water Polo. Those people are unbelievable.

Ombre, then three more baby / kid pics

I had it in my mind that all I had to was memorize the LH pattern of Fuori Dal Mondo, and it would all come easily after that. This may be true, but the first part of the equation is much harder to solve than I thought. The pattern has subtle changes that are not coming easily to me. For this reason, I decided to shelve it for the time being, in favor of something easier.

I am now working on Ombre. Take a listen while you go through the rest of this post. Should make for some good baby-ogling music.



The RH part of this piece, though important, is trivially simple. The LH is where the party is. Like Fuori Dal Mondo, there is a pattern in play here, but it is a much simpler one than Fuori's, and I hope to pick it up quickly. My LH could stand some improvement before I tackle some of the more challenging pieces in the Best of Einaudi book.

In the meantime, here are more baby pics. You knew these were coming. You know more are on the way.

It's a boy!

Joseph Martin Amsler was born just shy of midnight, August 2. I've got plenty to say on that in a second, probably more than you wanted to know. But let's get the piano talk out of the way first. Not much is going on. There has been no time to sit down at the piano, as you can imagine. Nor have I missed it. The next few days might have some time, however, as I am staying home to:

a) Keep the kids off Sue
b) Make meals
c) Change diapers
d) Take pictures
e) Periodically check emails when there is nothing better to do
f) Update this blog with updates on the baby. Mostly stuff like "took another nap. Seems tired from the move."
g) Work like a dog.*

Take your pick there. Multiple answers are accepted. The correct answer(s) depend(s) on your role in my life. Unless you are my manager, in which case the only answer is g) (hello, Mr. O'Neil, thanks for dropping by, I'm setting up that session on AJAX and Rich UI Development Frameworks, I promise).

* - Why "work like a dog?" I have known many dogs. Very few worked, and those that did had an awful attention span. I was going to quote Homer Simpson here ("I work like a Japanese beaver!"), but I felt like that would have been too obscure.

I'm getting good and useful feedback from the various places where I've posted my Limbo clip. Thanks to all of you who have commented. If you've been wanting to post some feedback, and haven't gotten around to it, I'd welcome your comments. Any piano time over the next few days will be spend polishing Limbo and learning the LH patterns of Fuori Dal Mondo.

Anyway, since you're here, you have some interest in all this, so if you've 15 minutes to spare, and if you are interested in labor and delivery details, read on. If you just want to see a picture, here's one. I will say, he's really, REALLY cute. And this being our 4th (and final) baby, I feel like I have amassed some expertise in identifying cute babies. So trust me on this. Or see for yourself.

So here you go, the announcement I sent friends and family yesterday afternoon.

---

Many of you have already heard the news that Sue, Jillian, Jason, Rowan, and I welcomed Joseph Martin Amsler into the world last night, August 2, at 11:54 PM. We just completed our first-ever family pow-wow, then left to leave mommy and baby some time to rest and discuss things. On the way out, Sue reminded me that some of you are probably patiently waiting for your more detailed baby announcement, such as you’ve become accustomed to with previous Amsler babies. So here is the 4^th (and final!) Amsler baby arrival announcement / recap.

To set the stage… our fourth (and final!) baby was due some time mid-August. As before, we didn’t know the sex of the child, and didn’t know exactly when to expect him. If the baby didn’t take matters into his own hands by August 8, 2008, we had tentatively scheduled that day to be induced. Many of you know that Sue is into the number 8, it being her number in college, so that date seemed like a natural choice. However, ultrasounds showed that the baby had met all requisite developmental milestones, and was sitting VERY low, perhaps ready to make a move. More importantly, mommy was CERTAINLY ready to get things over with, and it had become clear that we simply weren’t going to make it much further. Yesterday morning, we paid a quick visit to Jill, Sue’s midwife, and they decided that the time to have a baby had come.

Note: For those of you (like Sue’s brother Marty) who are not interested in Labor and Delivery details, you are going to want to skip ahead now. Scroll down until you see the words A TINY LITTLE BABY BOY…

We checked into the hospital a little after 3:00. Like the pros we are, having done this three times before, we went straight to the Labor & Delivery desk. “Hi, remember us? We’re here for our fourth (and final!) baby delivery? Can we have the usual room?” Only, it was no longer the L&D desk; the hospital had done some sort of remodeling. We hung our heads like rookies and traipsed down the hall to the new L&D wing. On the way, we passed the room that Rowan had been born in (two years ago next week), and saw that it was unoccupied.

This was important, because this room has a large tub. Sue was very interested in going through labor from the comfy confines of a warm bath. We’ve gone to the swimming pool a lot this summer. And though, as you’d expect of a pregnant woman in the summer, she’s been very uncomfortable a lot of the time, she was always happy in the water. By extension, if she could go through labor in the water, she’d be more relaxed, more comfortable, and have an overall easier time of it. This being the 4^th (and final! Did I mention that?) pregnancy, Sue would never again have a chance to experience this. If it didn’t work out, we could always say “Well, we tried” and call for the epidural, as we’ve done for the first three babies. Sue was excited about this, Jill was on board with it, and I was happy to spin appropriate music selections on the iPod.

Helen, our L&D nurse, was considerably less enthusiastic. Helen was a fill-in from another hospital, one with extremely conservative birth procedures. No tubs. No midwives. No walking around if your amniotic sac bursts. (“You’ll use a bedpan, and you’ll like it!”) Helen began our stay by telling us how unfamiliar she was with our hospital’s computer system. She then proceeded to whiff, twice, on connecting Sue’s IV. The first failed attempt was, in fact, as painful as anything Sue had ever felt (to that point, anyway, but hold that thought). With each step in our unconventional labor plan, Helen grew visibly less comfortable. We felt bad for her. But by the time Jill arrived later that evening, everybody was happy to let Helen take a step back and let Jill run the show.

We started the Pitcocin (a synthetic hormone that stimulates contractions) around 6:00 PM. Sue and I walked the halls a little, once or twice leaving telemetry range for the sensors. Poor Helen, chart stickler that she was, gently reminded us not to stray so far. We fought with blood pressure cuff every fifteen minutes. (“Sue, hurry, you’ve only got 12 seconds, get that thing on!” “No, Jim, not that way, it’s backwards! Oh, geeze, we’re too late!”) I got some pizza, and refused to smuggle some into my now-hungry wife. Helen was stressed out enough as it was, Lord knows how she would have taken that.

When Jill arrived around 9:00 PM, Sue had only dilated to about 3 cm. After some discussion, it was determined that it was time, now or never, to get into the tub. Apparently, they don’t do this very much, because the act of filling the thing brought a crowd of L&D nurses and techs. I think some came to watch out of morbid curiosity; others came to issue their opinions about how it should be done. This was a very lively 20 minutes or so, for all of us except poor Helen. She was mortified. “I’m just going to come in here to see what music is playing. You can’t go wrong with Van Morrison.” I bet Death Cab for Cutie would have been prohibited at her hospital?

Sue got into the tub. Sue was very, VERY happy to get into the tub. The discomfort had been steadily increasing, but that all disappeared pretty quickly. Warm water, no pressure. And I had nothing but winners coming up on the iPod.

Before going any further, let’s step back to clarify two things. First, it was not our intention to actually give birth in the water. Indeed, the hospital regulations specifically forbid this, and we knew it. (Maybe the local Baptist hospital would be OK with a full-immersion birth, but we were at a Catholic hospital.) Instead, the water was simply to make Sue more comfortable during and between contractions. Second, it wasn’t necessarily the intent to do this in lieu of an epidural. We (well, I, but what do I know?) figured she’d stay in there for awhile, and when the pain became too much to bear, she’d get out, and call for the big needle. What I underestimated was the anxiety that accompanies an epidural. It’s a really scary thing, I gather. I don’t know, though, because they kick the husbands out of the room when they give it. Three times, Sue said something along the lines of “Ok, let’s give this another 15 minutes, and see where we’re at.” Three times, 15 minutes expired, and she stayed in the water. Next thing you know, an hour had gone by, Sue was in a LOT of discomfort, and she was now 7 cm dilated. That must have taken an hour, but it seemed to go by really quickly.

However, by that point, an epidural was out of the question. Jill proposed an alternative med, something that would relax Sue much like “5 glasses of wine” would. Candy said, “Oh, you wouldn’t like Sue after five glasses of wine.” Me, I didn’t see anything wrong with this. 5 glasses of wine are how we ended up in this situation in the first place, so I found a natural symmetry to this idea. However, in order to administer the med, Sue would have to leave the tub.

No dice.

Another 30 minutes. Discomfort had turned to pain. Sue was 9 cm, and it was time to come out the warm, comfortable tub. Sue and Jill made their way from the tub to the bed, a process that took about 10 minutes, including three powerful, knee-buckling contractions. She wailed in pain during the contractions, but was still coherent enough to announce “Next song!” when I started dialing up annoying iPod selections. Suddenly I couldn’t pick any winners. It is during this time that poor Helen had seen enough and ran away screaming got to go home, because her shift was finally over. She introduced us to her replacement, Cari (I think), who said nothing, just sort of nodded in our direction, and started reading the chart.

Sue finally made it to the bed, just in time for another contraction. Jill told her it was time to push. Thing is, while the baby’s head had cleared the cervix, the cervix itself was still not entirely ready for prime time. In the middle of a contraction, Jill did something or other (I sort of lost my train of thought when she later explained what was happening… go figure). Whatever she did forever redefined the word “pain” in Sue’s mind.

If you’ve seen The Princess Bride, you know the sound. For those who haven’t (shame on you, first of all), there was a scene in which the protagonist, Wesley, was hooked up to some sort of torture device with lots of suction cups, and subjected to 50 doses of whatever it was that the machine did. His grunt / scream (a gream, if you will) sounded throughout the kingdom. Everyone, wherever they were, stopped in their tracks, alarmed, looking around, trying to figure out what the sound was, who or what was making it, and where it was coming from. Everyone except Inigo, the Spanish Swordsman, who correctly identified the sound as The Sound of Ultimate Suffering. (The movie ends well; all the good guys live happily ever after. Go rent it, or better yet, read the book.)

(In the announcement, I neglected to finish this thought...) As Sue made these sounds, I couldn't help but wonder whether they too penetrated out into the world, making people wonder "Good Heavens, what is that?"

When Sue made her first push with Jill helping, Sue greamed in a deep, gutteral way. The Sound of Ultimate Suffering was not a shriek, the kind you see in Hollywood depictions, usually for comedic effect. No, it was a deep, from-the-soul response, something that you can’t reproduce. It was also very alarming. Sue later told me she was very frightened, as if pushing would… well… be a very bad thing, let’s leave it at that. And it was at that time that “Cari” decided it was time to speak for the first time. She was making charting notes, and apparently didn’t have enough information to make a required entry.

“Um, so what would you say your pain level is right now? (On a scale of 0 to 10) a 10, maybe?”

To her credit, Sue did not kill Cari. Jill answered on Sue’s behalf that the pain level was probably a 20, and for all we know, that’s exactly what Cari wrote down. My response was to turn off the iPod. I couldn’t bear the thought of, oh, Rock Lobster coming on in the middle of a push.

Jill let Sue “relax” a little… “relax” being a relative term. Sue pushed on her own for about 10, maybe 15 minutes. Then it was time for Jill to help out again. The baby’s heartbeat began to drop, and Jill told Sue, “Look, you are in control here. You can have the baby in two minutes or ten. But I need to tell you, this baby needs to come out now.” Two pushes and three greams later (each as mournful, gut-wrenching as the first), we had a baby boy.

Not just a baby boy… A TINY LITTLE BABY BOY. (Welcome back to the story, those of you just joining us here.) It’s funny, Jillian and Jason were big babies. We induced Rowan because we were concerned she was going to be too big, and she came out a mere 7 lbs. 9 ounces (or thereabouts). It was clear to me on first sight that our little boy wasn’t even in that neighborhood. To be honest, when I heard he was 7 lbs. 1 ounce, I was surprised it was even that much.

Back to Sue. She has always (correctly) self-identified as a wimpy, lousy patient. She’s now forever cast some doubt on that status… she did this without an epidural. Those of who know her, you are, of course, aghast. And while it’s true that they don’t give out Girl Scout patches for that (insofar as I know, maybe scouting is different these days), she did say this: “I had a natural childbirth. Anything else, from now on, is going to be easy.”

Joseph is not only little, but quiet and calm. He has already nursed for about 20 minutes (and potentially more during the couple of hours it has taken me to type all this out). All his parts are in place, and he is not as beat up as his older siblings were at this point in their lives. While he can (and does) cry, he also has long spells out quiet, studious wakefulness. He has lots of hair, which seems equal parts red / brown / blond (if that is possible). Of course, Sue says he looks like me, but she always says that.

Jillian, Jason, and Rowan are beside themselves. They are so happy. Ever since we got home from the hospital, all they want to talk about is going back again.

Pictures attached. Which is, of course, what you wanted in the first place, right?

Expect mommy and son to come home tomorrow, August 4. Y’all come by and see us when you get the chance.

Going to the hospital this afternoon...

... expecting to deliver a baby this evening.

Baby update

Basically any time now. We're scheduled to induce a week from today if the baby doesn't decide to come on its own before then. I'd say the odds are we won't make it that far.

Finally, a clip for you

I got home from work early today, and had the house to myself for an hour or so. Sort of. It was me, the dog, and the cat. But they cooperated.

Although it took me about 30 minutes to get this take, it still has three major stumbles in it. But I am posting it anyway. Lord only knows how long it would take to capture a "perfect" take (whatever that may mean). This clip, errors and all, is a pretty accurate reflection of where I am at the moment. While I'm proud of and encouraged by my progress, there are acres of improvement to be realized. I have to eliminate the stumbles, even out the tempo, get smoother with the LH transitions. Once I'm done with all that, I can move on to the special sauce to really make this music. Things like paying really close attention not just to the dynamic markings, but also the way Einaudi himself uses dynamics in his recordings. I have also noticed that he tends to hold notes here and there for emphasis. I'm a long way from that kind of artistic subtlety.

(Once I get all that ironed out, maybe Monica K. will let me submit an improved version for the pianoworld.com recital. I'd really like to start accumulating those little recital medallions!)




Listening to the clip, I am struck by how out of tune Ole Bessie is. Sorry about that. I'm used to it, but it seems particularly annoying on this recording. On the other hand, it ain't getting any better. At least the soundboard crack is behaving itself these days. Summer seems to be good for it.

I can "play" Limbo

Since Friday, I have probably put in about 8 hours on Limbo. I can now "play" it (more on those quotes later). I put in two clean takes last night, in fact. I'll post a vid this week (assuming Sue doesn't go into labor in the meantime, which is a distinct possibility).

There were two obstacles to overcome. The first was having to play Eb-Bb-Eb on the left hand. Think of the demands here... black keys, left hand, even the requirement to use a thumb. My left thumb, no less. It's like all my piano phobias had a convention or something. Good gravy, I had a hard time with this. The first (and, for me, most difficult) occurrence of this transition is measure 16. It took a very long time to be able to do this without looking. I'm still not fully there yet, in fact, but I can do it now with only a slight hesitation. Getting this progression smooth will be one of the defining milestones to meet before calling this piece "done".

Second obstacle, one which Sawtooth also reported some difficulty with, appears a few measures later. Measures 25 and 26 are the first occurrence of a particularly tricky... arpeggio, is that what I should call it? I had to play this phrase over and over and over and... in fact, on Sunday, I totally had to ChuanChang* these measures. For 20 minutes, all I did was play them over and over again. And I found that after awhile, they got worse! So I shelved them and tried to work on the Eb-Bb-Eb transition I mentioned just a moment ago. Then, yesterday, magically, I had very little trouble with those measures (and their reoccurrences later in measures 29-30, 57-58, 61-62, 89-90, and 93-94...).

* - ChuanChang is a new verb I making up for use in this here blog. It means to quickly and mercilessly hammer a tricky phrase, in a highly repetitive manner. Theory being that there is no sense practicing that 99% of a piece you know really well when there is that 1% giving you fits...

As you know by now, there is a lot of repetition in Limbo. This is a mixed blessing. The good news is that you only need to play maybe two minutes' worth of notes on a five minute piece.* On the other hand, there is great risk that Limbo can sound really boring, mechanical, and repetitive. Playing the notes is one thing. That's where I am right now. Making them into music is an entirely different cup of meat, and that's where I go next. That I can "play" Limbo by no means suggests that I am "done" with it. There are extraneous hesitations to be exorcised. Dynamic markings, oh, mercy, are there ever dynamic markings! Notes to be held, emphasized, just a fraction of a beat longer than others. Grace-notes that you barely hint at, which start the next phrase.

* - Well, in theory, it's a five minute piece. Takes me about six and half right now, but that's just a technicality, right?

This is where the fun starts. This is the sort of thing I was hoping to progress to when I started learning piano back in January. Of course, I am also impetuous, itching to try my hand at the next Einaudi piece. I'm eyeing Fuori Dal Mondo. Give it a listen, tell me what you think.

Best Buy gets into the game

I know Best Buy has sold some Yamaha keyboards, and they had, it seems, a reasonable price on a Casio PX-110 Bundle, but now it seems they're going all-in, and opening a full-fledged music section in select stores.

Best Buy to open in-store music centers

A retail entity able to leverage the kind of scale BB has is bound to increase competition in the market. From the linked story, they are planning to stock Roland. That they already sell Yamaha and Casio boards suggests to me they might increase the breadth of their offerings there, too.

On first blush, I regard this as a good thing. I'm a little surprised, though, that they are going this route. For some reason, I thought it was hard to make money selling musical instruments. Guess not.

Getting long looks at my hands these days

Over the last three days, I've probably put about an hour and a half into Limbo. I'm still on the first page, which I can sort of play at half tempo. When I hook up the iPod and play it full speed, it's pretty messy, so I am not doing that quite so much right now.

But one thing I am noticing: I am watching my hands A LOT. I think I know why this is. I am having quite a bit of trouble with the transitions, both RH and LH. The movements are new and unfamiliar. I anticipate that this too shall pass.

The key to my learning this piece, I think, is to learn the RH so well that goes on auto-pilot. I have heard 4 or 5 different people's versions of Limbo by now, as well as two different versions from Einaudi himself. From what I can gather, the LH is the one that provides the depth and expression. Sure, it's just playing chords, but those chords (and their subtle changes) are what give depth to the RH arpeggios. So while I still need to get comfortable making LH transitions (heck, I'm still testing out different fingerings), I am going to be drilling those RH arpeggios over, and over again.

Using my iPod as a learning tool

My iPod was missing. In fact, it had been three months since I'd seen it. I missed it horribly, like a lost dog. I had come to accept never seeing it again, and even began shopping for a replacement. But I couldn't pull the trigger; I was horrified to learn how expensive new iPods are. Apple keeps improving them, and charging more and more for the improvements (go figure).

So imagine my delirious relief when, in the midst of looking for some nail clippers in my bag the other day, I found it, folded neatly in a folded, laminated 3" x 5" pamphlet of the Think Client Value Questioning Model. Clearly, I am not referring to this pamphlet often enough.

It was jarring to see what was on the iPod. "Dancing Queen? Funkytown? Who put those on there?"* Equally jarring was what was absent. Nothing from The Killers, The Nationals, Death Cab for Cutie, or Airborne Toxic Event? Had I not even heard of these groups when I lost the iPod? Has it been THAT long? It seems like I'd been listening to some of that stuff for months, but evidently not. So I spent an hour or so flushing old stuff, and added the new. And it was at this point that my iPod became my newest piano-learning tool.

* - Sue reminds me that I put these on there myself. Our children requested them. I originally left this detail out, as I didn't want to throw them under the bus like that.

I added Limbo.

Hear it for yourself (not my performance, mind you, but the composer himself, live, in concert):




I spent a couple hours yesterday introducing myself to page one (of four) of Limbo. I marked it up with all sorts of remarks and warnings to myself, and translated some of those off-the-scale notes into a letter I could recognize. (Wish I was better at this.) At the risk of sounding simple and naive, it was a true thrill when I played the first chords. My mind said something along the lines of, "Holy cow, that sounds like Einaudi music, only it's coming from Ole Bessie, not the kids' CD player!" *

* - For a couple of months now, Jillian, Jason, and Rowan have been falling asleep to an Einaudi CD I made for them. Subliminally, I am creating either great affinity for, or violent aversion to, modern piano music. Not sure which it is, but they seem to like it so far.

What I was doing was this. I listened to a phrase, played it by myself (many, many times, with lots of repetitions), then listened to it again, trying to accompany the track at tempo. I was basically unsuccessful at this, hitting just a fraction of the real notes, but that's ok, since the recording did a good job of hitting the ones I was missing. This approach has the added benefit of confusing those within earshot. "Wow, is that you playing that?" I'd be interested in knowing if any of you have used this approach when learning new pieces.

Limbo itself, as many of you have told me, does not seem to be that difficult. Just a handful of LH chords (I count six, give or take one or two), with the RH doing arpeggios on those chords. I am sure a seasoned piano player could get through it in an hour or two. For me, the transitions between notes are new and unnatural. I am going to have to actually learn / memorize them, and I could see it taking a month or so, depending on how much practice time I put in. That should be just about when we move into the new house (did I mention... I did, right?) It's also a new key for me, the key of Whatever-It-Is-That-Uses-Three-Flats. If I ever get a piano teacher, we're going to have some elementary music theory to rehash, that's for sure. And while I see why Sawtooth regards Limbo as exercise, unlike traditional exercises (scales, arpeggios, Hanons), I thoroughly enjoyed my first pass at it. Can't wait to work on it some more.

But there's more. This is going to be very difficult for me to explain, partly because I lack the words to describe it, and partly because I don't totally understand it myself. But here goes.

Even after two hours, I can already see that this music isn't composed of notes to be played, per se, but patterns to be realized, tweaked, and revisited. Sure, the patterns are made of notes, but the notes aren't what it's all about, any more than bricks and stones are what our new house is all about. The music feels like it is composed of shapes, and the shapes have variations. Limbo takes these shapes, gives them different colors, adds a new edge / vertex, then maybe examines the new (but nevertheless recognizable) shape from a different angle. At the end, you return to the original perspective, and look at the shapes you started with, but you see them differently, based on where the music took you to that point. When I come to understand the shapes, I'll have a better sense for the variations, and I'll be able to play the music, rather than just the notes. I like my chances.

I'll spare you the customary, polite "Does that make sense?" because I presuppose that it does not. It doesn't really to me, either. I'll understand if you roll your eyes, and conclude "Oh, heaven help us, AWTPP has gone all psychedelic on us, I hope he gets help soon." My feelings won't be hurt. But FWIW, that last paragraph is an accurate reflection of what it feels like to try to play Limbo, and to listen to it after having tried to play it. Maybe all music (or all good music) is that way, and I just haven't realized it yet. But with Limbo, this is now really obvious to me.

One of these days...

... I'm going to have to start Amazing Grace.

I'm at the point in The Entertainer where I am focusing on things like dynamics, maintaining tempo, and doing my best to honor those little staccato marks where appropriate. Mind you, I haven't yet gone the whole way through without making an error, but you'd have to know the piece pretty well to know that. (You're a pretty astute bunch, so I bet you'd be able to pick up on my errors.) But, point is, I am LONG PAST that stage where I would consider my grasp of The Entertainer good enough to go on to the next piece. And yet, I haven't.

Two reasons for this. First, Amazing Grace scares the Bejeezus out of me. I have dabbled a little with the RH (so I guess I sort of started it), and, wow. For such a familiar piece (I have all four versus memorized, thank you Camp Ozark*), it's really a baffling thing to play.

* - I learned many useful and important things at Camp Ozark. Scuba Diving, the correct pronunciation of "Regina, Saskatchewan", ropes safety, the words to all sorts of country songs I would never otherwise have heard, and how to differentiate between a king snake and a coral snake (a VERY important difference, mind you). But I don't think I any experience at Camp Ozark shook me quite as much as learning that you could sing Amazing Grace to the tune of the Gilligan's Island Theme**.

** - Of course you're trying this now.

Heck, my pseudo-instructor (PianoNoobAlexMan) never even really mastered it, as you can see here.



But there is another reason. I haven't learned everything Book One has for me. Part of the reason why I know this is because when I dust off, say, Good People, I still can't play it very well. In fact, these last few days, I have tried pretty much everything from Lavender's Blue on. And it takes, depending on the piece, maybe 5 to 10 times through it to get a clean take. I am also finding that when I played these earlier, I had gotten used to watching my hands. I had played all of these enough to have memorized the music. Turns out I had only temporarily memorized these things. So today, I have to look at the music, but then, to my horror, I find I cannot play the piece unless I am watching my hands. I wasn't aware of this habit at the time, but I'll be darned if I'm going on to Book Two without fixing it.

Sawtooth, the new house is about 5 miles due west of Geneva. The mailing address is Elburn, and the kids will attend schools in St. Charles. (Registered them yesterday, we did!) So we're moving to "St. GenElburn".

mom3gram... HOLY COW! 10 grandchildren!

Completely piano-free post

Thanks to mom3gram for her warm welcome back. To answer her question, the baby is due in about three weeks. We never got a firm due date on this baby, which is probably just as well, as we've had to induce his/her older siblings. Jillian's water broke at about 38 weeks. Jason was induced at about the same stage when an ultrasound suggested (correctly) he was getting too big. Rowan likewise was induced when an ultrasound showed her to be getting big, but when she was born, she came in at a piddling 7 lbs. 9 ounces. Ever since, she's been trying to catch up, size-wise, with big sister and big brother. I don't like her chances, but she is charming enough to make up for it.

(Just to prove my point, she has just now brought the roll-up piano over to me, cranked up the volume, and is dancing to the demo tunes stored therein. She seems to like Red River Valley best. She'll be two next month.)

The target date, unless baby #4 takes matters into his/her own hands before then, has all along been August 8. There's a lot to like about this date. First, obviously, the awesome birth date (8/8/08) means the child already has its lucky numbers assigned to it. Second, it's a Friday, which is not a bad day of the week to have a baby. Third, we've got Olympics coverage starting up then, so I (I mean, Sue) can watch wall-to-wall coverage those first couple of days from the hospital bed. Unfortunately, Sue's midwife is not available on that day, so we'll see how it shakes out.

We're now in week 35, according to the latest Babycenter.com email update. And it's HOT in Chicago this week. So Sue, who has been measuring about a week ahead in that belly-circumference measurement thing they do, is pretty much ready to get this over with.

(Rowan is now making sleestak noises. And in the process of looking that link up, because I know none of you has any idea what a sleestak sounds like, I learned that a new Land of the Lost movie is in production, to be released next year. Starring Will Ferrell and Anna Friel. Good heavens, that sounds like a train wreck.)

So what about the house? Isn't that supposed to be done about that same time? Thankfully, we have some say on the closing date. Our builder needs to close "some time in August". We figure (well, Sue figures) two weeks should be enough time for her to recover enough to be a useful mover, so we're looking to take the keys to the new house August 22. School starts five busy days later.

She went out last week to take a look at things, and came back with this picture (among others):



Finally, the math geek in me thinks this is funny. Poor 8.




(Rowan is now playing Hullabaloo. Add that to my list of recommended kid games, for those of you shopping for birthday parties and such.)

Back at it

So yesterday, I got about 30 minutes at the piano, to see if I'd forgotten anything in the last three-plus weeks. Um, yes, I had. If I had been live-blogging the event (I wasn't, I'm not that geeky... yet), I would have recorded something like this.

Opens straight to The Entertainer. "Wow, that looks really hard."

This is one of those things that probably keeps me from using my time as wisely as I could in practice sessions. I don't have a proper, repeatable warm-up routine. I haven't gotten into scales or arpeggios, and I have rejected (for now) the Alfred's Hanon pages, as I find them really boring. For awhile, I was warming up with pieces that I had "mastered" earlier, but for some reason, I got away from that. But as I looked at the music I had just opened up, it looked too hard to play. And I had been threatening y'all for quite some time that I was going to go back and revisit old Alfred's Book One pieces.

Turns pages back to Lavender's Blue. "OK, that looks doable."

Or so I thought. But I had quite a bit of trouble the first few times through this. After maybe 10 minutes, I got it down, but that was a disconcertingly long time to spend on what I had hoped was just going to be a warm-up.

Flips forward to Blow The Man Down.

Yikes. Takes three attempts to get through it without error. Is it a warm-up if you can't do it?

Jason asks to play the piano. I relent, and let him at it. Five minutes later, it occurs to me that nobody is on the piano, so I return to it, and attempt Lone Star Waltz. "That's one I can do."

This was the low point. It got better after this, but I had forgotten that Lone Star Waltz required some RH movement. Once I had that down, I had my sea legs under me, so to speak.

Jillian showed up about this time, and let me know that Lone Star Waltz is her favorite piece in Alfred's. She's even asked me to play it while she dances with various stuffed animals. I think she could play it, and told her so. Maybe we'll work on it.

With new confidence, I race through a couple of Blues pieces, then return to The Entertainer.

There was one measure that kept me from being able to go through this the whole way without stopping. So rather than just jump into the thing from the beginning, I spent about five minutes, hammering this measure, Chuan Chang style, over and over again. I probably played it 50 times in those five minutes. I then played the piece a couple times, in its entirety. I still have a couple of hesitations, but by the time I had to shut it down, I felt like I was finally back to where I was in June. Maybe even a little further ahead. It was good to be back.

And we're going on three weeks now...

In case you're wondering, no, there still hasn't been any piano time this week. Maybe Sunday?

I'm back, but not really

Hi. It's been awhile. Since last time, I spent an afternoon at DFW, flew home, loaded up a rented minivan, and drove an 1,800 mile round trip with my 6 year-old daughter, 5 year-old son, and 1 year-old daughter. We stopped in Nashville for a short vacation with my mom, who had flown in from Houston. We spent a couple days with my dad in Montgomery. And through it all, I neither touched my computer, nor a piano.

We are all glad to be back, but none of us is gladder than Sue, now 8 months pregnant. She survived the road trip, but as soon as we got home, she crashed for several hours. This suggested to me that she was going through more, um, discomfort than she was letting on. I mentioned to Discopalace that she is clearly ready to never be pregnant anymore. He had a very appropriate response, one which I wish I'd thought of: "I feel the same way."

My dad has a 31 key unweighted Yamaha keyboard, on which we all tinkered here and there. The stand brings it up to about the height of my knee. After a day or two, I got to the point to where I could render The Entertainer, but it was no fun for me. Jillian liked the variety of sounds.

Now that I am back, you'd think I'd head straight for Ole Bessie, but really, there is no time for that this week. Lots of catching up with work, and summertime kid activities. This means two things... first, I will be making no progress on Amazing Grace. Second, I won't have much to post here. I was working on a long, geeky post on the airplane ride back from Dallas... maybe I'll clean that up and post it later in the week.

But enough about me...

I promised, months ago, that we'd be keeping track of not only my piano progress, but also the progress of Jillian, my 6 year old daughter. And yet, some ginormous percentage of the content here is about me. Could I be more narcissistic?

Jillian, as you might recall, takes (well, took) piano lessons earlier this year. We signed her up at the local Park District (the equivalent of a community center, or whatever quasi-governmental taxpayer-funded recreational entity applies to your locale). She went once a week, from January to the end of May, where she and another beginning piano student shared a half hour lesson with a teacher. Her progress astounded us; and not only us, but her teacher as well. Jillian, as is her wont, was less impressed with herself. In fact, she was quite discouraged at one point, but those days are a distant, vague memory now.

The summer is presenting a little bit of a challenge for Jillian. Lessons are over; she doesn't have pieces regularly assigned to her; she doesn't have deadlines to meet. She has, therefore, asked me to print things out from the Internet. She has asked for, and has worked on, simplified versions of:

• Ode to Joy
• Amazing Grace
• Away in a Manger

So that's cool. So cool, in fact, I should have mentioned it earlier. Sue and I are totally proud of her. But last night, Jillian found a new way to test the limits of her piano expertise. She began teaching her brother.



I mean, not to channel Harry here, but Holy Cow! My six year old daughter is teaching my five year old son how to read music, and how to play the piano. I'm... I'm... stupefied. Sure, the piece is almost trivial in its simplicity (it's the first piece in Jillian's first lesson book, the Schaum Green Book), but can you remember the first time you made notes on the piano? Wasn't it thrilling? I remember thinking it was pretty cool when I played this back in January. Sue tells me it's hard to tell whether Jillian or Jason is more excited about this. She also tells me nobody quite knows whose idea this was. Which is as it should be.

Then this morning, as soon as they woke up, they worked on scales.

Lord only knows how long this will last. But it seems likely to me that when we move to St. GenElburn at the end of the summer, we'll be signing up another piano student. Grandma says she is going to go buy earplugs.

Like the new look?

Just wondering. Feel free to complain, prop, or what have you.

Day One in Dallas: Foiled!

I walked into a music store across from Chipotle, last night's (and potentially tonight's) dinner destination. The Stoner Behind the Counter greeted me:

Stoner: "Hi. Can I help you?"

Me: "Yeah, do you have any practice rooms? With pianos?"

Stoner: "Um, for what?"

Me: "To practice piano. I'm in town on business for the week, and thought I would kill some time playing some of my piano lessons."

Stoner: (picks up the phone, for a moment, then puts it down) "Well, we give piano lessons here."

Me: "Right, but I have my own teacher." (Yes, I'm a liar.) "I just figured I'd check around and see if there were any places that had a piano I could practice on while I'm in town."

Stoner: (picks up the phone again and stares at the receiver... but says nothing)

Me: "You don't get asked this question much, do you?"

Stoner: (puts the phone back down) "No, nobody ever asked that before." (pauses, thinks really hard) "We could maybe let you use our piano. I'd have to ask my manager, though. We'd probably have to charge you something."

Me: "Ok, no problem. How much do you think it would cost?"

Stoner: "Well, the hourly rate is $25 for piano lessons. So probably that."

Me: "Even though there would be nobody giving me a lesson..."

Stoner: "Well, yeah, we'd work with you on that. Can maybe my manager call you?"

Some guy in a suit was perusing sheet music behind me. He was apparently listening to all this. I'm sure he tried to hold back, but at this point, he could no longer contain himself, and he burst out laughing. Anyway, I actually gave Stoner my number, saw him write it down, and headed out the door.

I haven't heard back from them, by the way. Nor do I expect to.

I then went across the street to Walgreen's to pick up some AA batteries for the roll-up I brought along. Got back to the hotel, only to discover the roll-up takes AAA's. Three of them. (3? WHAT? Don't these people know that batteries come in even number packages?) The good news is that our TV remotes at home all take AA's, and the price was right, so I will bring the AA's home with me. We'll be needing these eventually, I'm sure. Hey, kids, daddy is bringing presents home from Texas!

Finally, I DID find a piano at my hotel. It's in the bar / restaurant. Surrounded by people. At all times. Except after 10:00 PM Sunday through Thursday, when it's off limits.

So day one ended, with no piano playing.

(Hat tip to Sawtooth on the Grand Staff recommendation. I fired off an email to them this morning, and will probably go by there later.)

Hello from somewhere over Missouri

Looks like Missouri, I guess. Come to think of it, if I asked you to describe Missouri, from 32,000 feet, what would you say? Sure, it's got that big muddy river on it's eastern border (and boy howdy, it is ever bloated these days). But let's say, like me, you passed that 20 minutes ago. Is there a single identifying characteristic you could use to decide whether you're over Missouri? Illinois has miles upon miles of cornfields. Missouri has those, too. Arkansas has all sorts of lakes and hills... (you could even call them mountains, unless you're a Mountain Snob because you hail from a place like Colorado or Alaska or Tibet that has real mountains.) Missouri has those, too. Texas has a couple of very large cities. Missouri, too. It's like Missouri is a mash of all central time zone states.

Eh. Probably none of this will make sense when the airplane lands and my brain begins consuming oxygen at standard atmospheric levels.

Anyway, I'm flying right now, and will spend this week in Dallas, for work-related reasons. Next week will be our annual mid-summer trip to visit my dad in Montgomery, Alabama. Could be some seriously light posting in these parts for the next couple of weeks. Unless I find a piano in my hotel, in which all bets are off; you might even see daily updates.

I did, after all, bring both Alfred's Book One AND (gasp!) Book Two. Why Book Two? I have now made it far enough in The Entertainer that I actually turned the page before I left, and began the RH parts of Amazing Grace. Having done so, I actually feel better about Amazing Grace, after day one, than I did day one of The Entertainer.

Speaking of The Entertainer, I have two questions. (This has to be the worst post ever... I'm all over the place. I apologize to new visitors, it gets better, I promise.) The music in Alfred's isn't the whole thing, of course, just the first part. There are three, IIRC, with the first part repeated in between. So my first question is, how hard is the rest of it? I figure I may as well give it a try.

Second question... I feel like swinging the 8th notes when I play it. Is this an acceptable thing to do when playing ragtime?

I'll let you know tomorrow whether or not the Crown Plaza in Addison has a piano I can practice on. Won't that be fun?

Furniture-Style Digital Pianos

I've been thinking a lot about last week's Guitar Center visit. Up until recently, I have always assumed I was going to buy a stage-style digital piano. Something that looks like this:


Casio PX-120 (going retail price: $499)

Pretty simple, huh? It's just a keyboard. The main reason why something like this appealed to me is that it's cheaper. (Did I mention we're building a new house? I did, right?) And in the case of the Casio Privias, I believe they represent good value. At $500, the PX-120 is the base model of the Privia line, and is the cheapest weighted-key keyboard currently on the market. (Of course, you can find some other discontinued models out there, like the Casio PX-110 and Yamaha P70, for less.)

I am very interested in a digital piano that feels and sounds (insofar as is possible) like an acoustic piano. The closer the resemblance, the more I'm interested. I am somewhat interested in being able to record from my digital piano onto my laptop. But with the little research I've put into how to do this, I am sufficiently persuaded that it's a pretty trivial thing to do. I am completely disinterested in other features, like using it as a MIDI controller, synthesizing sounds, using hundreds of voices, etc. So any digital piano that brings these extra features to the table (and of course charges for them) is pretty much out of consideration, for me.

Here's the problem. A stage-style digital piano needs a stand and three pedals if it is going to be a reasonable replacement for an acoustic. (Yes, I know that one pedal might suffice, but I am not at all impressed with the single pedal units I have seen.) Throw in these extras, plus some headphones, some chords, and a bench, and suddenly the $500 PX-120 (the cheapest weighted-key unit on the market) is now $700. At that price point, you're getting close to the entry fee into furniture style digital pianos. Something that looks more like this:


Casio AP-200 (going retail price: $799)

Then there is the sturdiness factor. Ole Bessie, our piano, doesn't bounce around when we play her; neither do the pedals don't slide around all over the floor. I don't want a digital piano that bounces and slides around, either, but unless you have a large, sturdy stand, it will. What's more, I believe that if your keyboard looks like a toy, young children will treat it as such. (I read it on the Internet, it must be true.) Conversely, if your keyboard looks like a piano, kids will treat it like one. Our kids beat up on Ole Bessie, sure, but she's up to the task. That a furniture-style digital piano looks sturdy means something to me. A stage-style digital piano, even on a factory stand, looks like a piece of equipment. A furniture-style one looks like, well, a piece of furniture. This is a meaningful difference to me.

So next time I find myself at a Guitar Center or Sam Ash, I am going to see if they have one of these lying around. (Headline from this link: "Basic CELVIANO wiht grand piano level sound quality." Doesn't anyone proofread any more?)

If Ole Bessie makes it to the new house (cracked soundboard and all), I will want to forestall a digital piano purchase for a little while longer, in order to get something like an AP-200.

If any of you have (or have tried) a furniture-style digital piano, I'll take your recommendations.