musical happiness
Ah. Sometimes a piece of music just clicks.
My congregation is having a talent show at the end of this month (for the second time). Last year I wrote a song (with piano accompaniment) for it and that went well so I was planning to do the same again this year, but the muse does not always work to deadline and what I was coming up with just wasn't working. So, a little disappointed in myself, I fell back on doing a song written by somebody else. But there was a problem: I didn't have sheet music. I didn't need it for my part, but I needed something to give the pianist.
Several attempts to reach the author produced no results and I was about to hire somebody to transcribe the music from a recording (it was beyond my skills) when I got a message from her. She put me in touch with her pianist, who provided music and transposed it into a couple adjacent keys for me after we sang/played it via phone to get candidates. (For the record, F# minor is a happy key for me. F minor is pretty good too. Nothing is ever easy.)
Tonight I met with our pianist, who sight-read a reasonably complex piano score while I sang. And we both felt really good about it. Imagine what some actual practice will do! :-) (I've been practicing on my own against an mp3 the first pianist provided, which helps me but of course doesn't do squat for our pianist.) Our pianist would also like to do more with me, and would like to play more music that I've written (once I actually, y'know, do that). Nice.
This is going to be fun!
My congregation is having a talent show at the end of this month (for the second time). Last year I wrote a song (with piano accompaniment) for it and that went well so I was planning to do the same again this year, but the muse does not always work to deadline and what I was coming up with just wasn't working. So, a little disappointed in myself, I fell back on doing a song written by somebody else. But there was a problem: I didn't have sheet music. I didn't need it for my part, but I needed something to give the pianist.
Several attempts to reach the author produced no results and I was about to hire somebody to transcribe the music from a recording (it was beyond my skills) when I got a message from her. She put me in touch with her pianist, who provided music and transposed it into a couple adjacent keys for me after we sang/played it via phone to get candidates. (For the record, F# minor is a happy key for me. F minor is pretty good too. Nothing is ever easy.)
Tonight I met with our pianist, who sight-read a reasonably complex piano score while I sang. And we both felt really good about it. Imagine what some actual practice will do! :-) (I've been practicing on my own against an mp3 the first pianist provided, which helps me but of course doesn't do squat for our pianist.) Our pianist would also like to do more with me, and would like to play more music that I've written (once I actually, y'know, do that). Nice.
This is going to be fun!