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It's gonna be a bad day
Topic Started: Apr 30 2008, 04:17 AM (1,072 Views)
DivaDeb
HOLY CARP!!!
Free Rider
Apr 30 2008, 08:46 PM
DivaDeb
Apr 30 2008, 11:28 AM
wow...ears turned off is something I can't even imagine!   For me, the playing is totally integrated with what I hear. 

That's really interesting, Aqua.  FOr me, the sight of my fingers on the keys is so foreign as to be meaningless...I just don't look enough to understand what I'm seeing, I think.  It's weird.

I have always played visually and aurally...with a healthy dose of feel for sight reading. Playing without looking at your hands IS important, I just have my own style of glancing down for big moves and some stride patterns.

I am opposite from Diva Deb in that my mind works on aural memory very well. I begin to hear the music as I first begin reading from a score and it's like a door opening and sunlight spilling through as I can begin to hear what it is supposed to sound like. A few play throughs and I find myself not even needing the music...It is like like I am singing it with my fingers.

Another thing I do is pick songs out of radio, recordings, etc and play by ear without the score. This has always been my style. I can hear a song and just sit down and with minimal effort just do it. This pisses people off so do not take it as bragging...just explaing how it works for me.

But I have been playing forever it seems, it's my job now so I get hammered all day with new music and challenges. I probably log 4-6 hours a day between practicing and performing. So many people do not relate well to my "inner game" of music because they are hobbyists.

I think you misunderstand. My ears are always in the game. My aural memory is fine, it's the visual memory that is totally disconnected. What I can't do is memorize the notes on the page. It is Aqua who expressed some kind of disconnect between his ears and fingers. When I first pick up a score, I read and hear it in my head in the store. My sight singing is ridiculously good, so I have no problem knowing what something sounds like before I have played the notes. Actually, I would describe what I do as 'singing through my fingers' as well, as my primary instrument is voice and I approach all music that way. I just can't memorize keyboard score. Not at all.

Music is my job also, but playing piano is my secondary job. I am first a singer. I wish I could fix my ability to retain the piano score (I know the music inside and out...I can sing you the individual parts of a fugue, I hear them as choral voices, often with words even though there aren't any words written) but it doesn't seem to go that way for me. I compensate well enough to do what I do, so I'll be satisfied with that I guess. I play well enough "by ear" although in my job, I have minimal application for that.

I am all about the ears and singing. I can sing all of the operas I've sung, start to finish, my part and everybody else's, even if I haven't sung for years. I retain vocal/choral/orchestral score effortlessly. The piano stuff I can't get to stay in my head, so I can't take my eyes off it even though I have played since I was 7.
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RosemaryTwo
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HOLY CARP!!!
Love to hear you play, Free Rider. What is the nature of your job (teaching, performing, accompanying??).

Deb, I think I know what you're saying. Sometimes I glance down at my fingers and I'm amazed at what they're doing. So far it has been a lot of work to pilot the helicopter without keeping my nose deep into the map. :mellow:
"Perhaps the thing to do is just to let stupid run its course." Aqua
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DivaDeb
HOLY CARP!!!
Ah yes, but you CAN do it R2...as evidenced by your recent accomplishments! I have come to the conclusion that I just can't. I can do damn near anything I decide I want to do, so I don't take it particularly well that I can't do this, but I've tried too many angles for too many years and must conclude therefore, that I just can't do it.
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Aqua Letifer
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ZOOOOOM!
Yeah, see, I suck at sight-reading. :P

In fact, I just don't do it. When I try to play something for the first time, it has all the flow and fluidity of a bowl of cookie dough that just came out of the fridge.

Actually for me, hitting the right notes at the right time, doing the movements, is almost as fun as actually playing the music. Nope, just as fun I'd even say.

But like I said before, the notes that come out of the keys is sort of a byproduct of what I'm doing. First I have to look at the notes on the page, and translate that to the piano keys, which takes awhile. I memorize the notes and what I should be doing real quick, but it takes my hands forever to adjust. Once they do, though, and my hands remember the score as well as my brain, I'm gravy. It's just that how the score actually sounds is not really a primary part of that kind of memory.
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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DivaDeb
HOLY CARP!!!
I am, functionally, a professional sight reader. Because, while I know very well what the music sounds like, and may have actually played, even performed, the piece a zillion times, the score is still like new to me. It's a good thing I'm pretty good at sight-reading because that is really all I can do at the piano.

I am a hack and always will be.
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Aqua Letifer
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ZOOOOOM!
DivaDeb
May 1 2008, 05:47 AM
I am, functionally, a professional sight reader. Because, while I know very well what the music sounds like, and may have actually played, even performed, the piece a zillion times, the score is still like new to me. It's a good thing I'm pretty good at sight-reading because that is really all I can do at the piano.

I am a hack and always will be.

It's a fun game I can play with other more "professional" music students. When I start talking about how I learn stuff and what I do to practice, I count how long it takes them to say something like, "yeah, well, I was told that it was bad to do that, I was told you're supposed to _________."


So, hooray for hacks! Me too, definitely. :lol:
I cite irreconcilable differences.
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Free Rider
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Fulla-Carp
DivaDeb
May 1 2008, 04:13 AM
My sight singing is ridiculously good, so I have no problem knowing what something sounds like before I have played the notes. Actually, I would describe what I do as 'singing through my fingers' as well, as my primary instrument is voice and I approach all music that way. I just can't memorize keyboard score. Not at all.

Music is my job also, but playing piano is my secondary job. I am first a singer. I wish I could fix my ability to retain the piano score (I know the music inside and out...I can sing you the individual parts of a fugue, I hear them as choral voices, often with words even though there aren't any words written) but it doesn't seem to go that way for me. I compensate well enough to do what I do, so I'll be satisfied with that I guess. I play well enough "by ear" although in my job, I have minimal application for that.

I am all about the ears and singing. I can sing all of the operas I've sung, start to finish, my part and everybody else's, even if I haven't sung for years. I retain vocal/choral/orchestral score effortlessly. The piano stuff I can't get to stay in my head, so I can't take my eyes off it even though I have played since I was 7.

Just woke up...read the posts.

Ah I see. Sorry if I misunderstood. It is exactly what i do, too. I pick up a score in the store and I'm already hearing it in my head as I scan the page. I do not have perfect pitch...only relative pitch. So the notes I am singing (in my head) are sometimers in the wrong key! Once I play the first notes or chords on a real piano I center my ear properly and then much like Deb I can sing all the parts (my voice is not trained). When I say sing I mean emulate the sounds using my mouth and even if I can't "hit" the note with my voice I still hear in my head that note. I am getting much better at singing but I really need help if I want to perform vocally...something I never have done.

R2 to answer your question I play as a studio musician for production company as well as hired gun for a couple of party/wedding bands, plus I have my own jazz-funk project we play a few times a month. I also play solo piano for wedding/parties/art openings etc. plus teaching approx. 40 students a week as well. At one point I had over 60 students but never again.

I used to tour around the west in a 7 piece funk band for about a decade from around 1993 to 2003. We played ski town bars circuit, a few festivals, nothing too ridiculous...but what a fun time that was. The gigging desire still is there, but now my life is so much more domestic...staying out late to play is getting harder!!
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RosemaryTwo
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HOLY CARP!!!
Quote:
 
R2 to answer your question I play as a studio musician for production company as well as hired gun for a couple of party/wedding bands, plus I have my own jazz-funk project we play a few times a month. I also play solo piano for wedding/parties/art openings etc. plus teaching approx. 40 students a week as well. At one point I had over 60 students but never again.

I used to tour around the west in a 7 piece funk band for about a decade from around 1993 to 2003. We played ski town bars circuit, a few festivals, nothing too ridiculous...but what a fun time that was. The gigging desire still is there, but now my life is so much more domestic...staying out late to play is getting harder!!


Cool. You must have had the babes at your feet. :cool:
"Perhaps the thing to do is just to let stupid run its course." Aqua
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Optimistic
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HOLY CARP!!!
R2, sorry to hear about your coffee woes.

Your coffee maker doesn't happen to have removable cones or anything, does it? Something along the lines of this:
Posted Image

You can only make one mug at a time, but it would be infinitely better than weak coffee!
PHOTOS

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up.
- Mark Twain


We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
-T. S. Eliot
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RosemaryTwo
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HOLY CARP!!!
That looks like it would make good coffee, Opti.

The weak coffee was my own darn fault, I filled the pot twice (enough water for 12+ cups) with grinds measured out for just 6. I was too impatient in the wee hours, I guess.

:doh:
"Perhaps the thing to do is just to let stupid run its course." Aqua
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Free Rider
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Fulla-Carp
RosemaryTwo
May 1 2008, 07:01 AM
Quote:
 
R2 to answer your question I play as a studio musician for production company as well as hired gun for a couple of party/wedding bands, plus I have my own jazz-funk project we play a few times a month. I also play solo piano for wedding/parties/art openings etc. plus teaching approx. 40 students a week as well. At one point I had over 60 students but never again.

I used to tour around the west in a 7 piece funk band for about a decade from around 1993 to 2003. We played ski town bars circuit, a few festivals, nothing too ridiculous...but what a fun time that was. The gigging desire still is there, but now my life is so much more domestic...staying out late to play is getting harder!!


Cool. You must have had the babes at your feet. :cool:

you know the saying..

"The odds are good but the good are odd"

Drunk women who are hanging around the bar after last call...yikes!

Still it was cool to see people's faces who were dancing and looking happy at the music we were making. Playing in a band is kind of an ego boost, but it is also a lot of work and a lot of hard road time. But for all the hassle those times are unforgetable. Most of the guys in the band had day jobs and girlfriend back home
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Optimistic
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HOLY CARP!!!
Ah, I re-read your first post. I had originally thought your coffee maker was malfunctioning.

Don't mind me. Too little sleep, not enough coffee. :)
PHOTOS

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up.
- Mark Twain


We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
-T. S. Eliot
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