The Work Diary

Erik Satie, a common name on classical greatest hits CDs, was a relatively recent French composer most known for his famous Gymnopedies - the name's origin coming from the ancient Greek dance festival Gymnopaedia.  I don't know much else about him other than he hung out with other now famous musical contemporaries like Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.  This piece was composed when he was 22 years old.

Take aways
 - This piece is deceptively difficult because the left hand has a constant roll of hitting the low bass followed by a chord usually more than an octave away.  It gets really hard when you have to: look up at the music see the bass note, look down to find it on the keyboard, then look back up to see the chord, and then look back down to find the chord which creates this zig-zag motion in your neck.  Its also bloody hard just reading 2 staves of music at the same time!  Then you might figure it might just be easier to memorize the whole thing, but this piece is actually very hard to memorize!  Maybe I've just been playing it for too long, but I'd be more than 75% of the way thru using memory then suddenly forget where I am or what I'm doing.  I'm not talking like a memory slip but more of a legitimate state of complete confusion like you're on drugs.  So ultimately I had to rely on the music just to stay anchored and not float away. 

 - The left hand chords can spread more than an octave which creates pain in the wrist eventually. 

 - You have to slow down even if the music seems to drag.  The challenge is to avoid creating some kind of pulsing dance because...I just don't think thats the point..I think you are supposed to feel like you're on drugs, but thats just my opinion / interpretation.


The sound is a Yamaha Motif Wurlitizer w/ tremolo.  I like it.

Ishida

Someone asked me why I still practice / record classical guitar if I already know I don't want to take it to a pro / performance level.  Its because freaking classical guitar is the ultimate in contorting your hand to its most uncomfortable state whilst schizophrenically trying to sustain a posture of complete relaxation to even then even try create something that lands anywhere near the intended musical target.  This is a useful and transferable skill when working on any genre of music. 

Carcassi 2

Sor 8

I think, to my benefit, that I've had an extraordinary number of "Why am I even here?" moments where I felt like I was so far out of my depth that I thought someone must have made a huge mistake that would be soon corrected.  Lets see, when I was promoted to a new team in San Francisco at the where bank I worked, when I was moved out of the office answering emails to teaching kids how to ski in Japan, and my second guitar lesson with my teacher in college.  My first lesson was fine, but my second lesson ended after 10 minutes with my teacher Allen Krantz saying "So you tried to learn it but you don't have any specific questions?  Sounds to me like you didn't try at all."  My only thought at 18 was wtf!

But by far though the most outrageous ability gap was when my piano teacher during my sophomore year at Temple.  My teacher's name was Alexander Panku, and he still lives over in the Philly area teaching piano.  I knew he was from Romania, and although he did speak English the bulk of our lessons consisted of him inevitably saying:

"No no no no - let me.  Like this.  You know what I mean?" - Alexander Panku

Here's his picture

I would try playing my Bach or my sonatina, and he would stop me and take the bench and just play a mini concert where I could watch his hands right in front of me, and it was just the best.  He also would always write and circle things and draw arrows in my books in pen, which is just something you're not supposed to do!  I honestly hated piano lessons because I just didn't want to learn this extra stuff when I had all these other things to deal with - there were other things like choir, ear training, keyboard theory, and ugh renaissance music notation like what the hell I didn't come here to learn all that!  Maybe it was the gravitas of his accent or just how he would pound the little grand piano in the practice room where he would teach me, but he turned me right around, and I started practicing a lot of piano. 

Anyway, this is a Bach prelude I learned for my jury, which is like a final exam, and I remember being really let down at 20 years old because he didn't make it because of scheduling.  I always called him Dr. Panku, but in writing it has to be Alexander, because when he saw his name on a folder of mine he said "No no no no - Alex is my nickname.  My name is Alexander."  and fixed it. 

The sound the Yamaha Motif grand piano with a Line 6 guitar pedal with Reverb set to Hall.

Ishida

I learned a technique that I just made up on my own called Proactive Left.  When you're playing really hard chords or fingerings on the left hand, its natural to simply apply more strength and crush the strings into playing the right notes, but when you have a really lyrical melody this will inevitably result in a galumphing sound like you're just Hulking your way to the finish line.  Also if you're left hand is way way too strong then this will also influence your right hand where even if you want to pluck the strings softly, ultimately all the notes will have a dynamic range of kinda loud to loud.

So you're sitting there trying to tell your hands what to do, but the music is telling your LH its going to have to work harder to play the right notes.  This creates a conflict because now your Right hand is trying to follow instructions from your mind and is being persuaded by your LH as well.  So Progressive Left is getting your left wrist, elbow, and shoulder way more involved on the crazier passages in order to apply more leverage instead of strength upon the difficult fingerings.  You can't have overactive joints throughout entire pieces because that will lead to tension and stress that can spread all the way to your back which will then make the music sound stressed out - but when you have hard maneuvers coupled with a gentle / lyric melody you gotta get help from the rest of the team for your LH to smoothly navigate the passage.  At least thats what I did on this one.

Probably the most famous representation of this song is from Milo and Otis where Otis gets pissed off at Milo for getting a girlfriend and decides to run away and just figure out how to get home by...by himself.

There are still missed notes, but I've been working on this for so long I just have to move on.  

Ishida

In case you didn't know: I am a pretty big Bach fan.  This is the first piece of music in a new Bach book I got at the Fukuoka shopping mall - only 1,000 yen and its printed on legit music paper. 

This was recorded on my new (to me) Yamaha Motif keyboard, and I just can't get over how mind-blowing the sounds are that are built in.  For a long time I've always wanted to play the organ, and by that I mean play keyboard that can make organ sounds - not learn to use your feet and monkey around with all the stops and play three manuals all at once.  Although maybe eventually I could get one of those digital dual-manual organs...  Anyway, I like this sound because it reminds me of a small organ that was in the jury room of Rock Hall when I went to Temple to study music.  Here's a picture of what it looked like. 

It turns out this is called a Baroque Continuo Organ and the housing and all the pipes are made of wood - you can buy one online for $43,900.  The convenient thing about organ is that all the notes create the exact same level of volume - like the harpsichord and virginal and clavier, so you don' t have to pay attention to the dynamic markings like 'forte' and 'piano' - although those markings aren't original anyway and have been added in by the editor.  But it is a student book and you gotta learn to do that if you're playing piano so thats why they're there.  Thats why organs have stops and multiple sets of keyboards because each one would make different sounds or different volume levels.  The way to convey dynamics without a second manual is with a volume pedal - which I actually have, so uh I guess I should have paid attention to those markings afterall...  It wasn't until the 'fortepiano' was invented that people could play all kinds of different degrees of volume and intensity depending on how hard you smashed the keys.  This caused other instruments to quickly go out of style because rich parents now wanted their kids to learn to play the fortepiano at home instead of harpsichord and guitar. 

I'm getting back into keyboard because I'm pretty sure if you want to have a smooth workflow for songwriting you have to be at least a little bit proficient. 

Ishida

This one took a long time to nail down.  For me repeats of passages are more stressful than playing new material - maybe because if you did it once its just extra annoying when you screw up the second or third time because then you have to start all over again to get a good take.  So many barre chords.  Thanks to the Bach I did 2 uploads ago, my tone has really improved, and I think I really have a good handle now on how to reduce right hand "nailiness" on the guitar.  I'm not happy with the dynamics, but I guess at this point I'm still just trying to develop a command of the left and right hands to go where I want them to on time and accurately - once I'm super certain my fingertips are going to get there and on time I think I'll focus more on dynamic variety. 

I had to record using the sheet music in front of me.  I'm not really focusing 100% on classical guitar and there is just too much repertoire to try and memorize everything in a short amount of time so I read.  Plus I get confused when I have to take multiple takes of recordings, so if I forget where I am toward the end its really annoying to have to start all over again.

Each time I record a classical piece I'm dying to get over with, and its always a major struggle to get it recorded and finished so that must mean I'm challenging myself?

Recorded on a solo Rode NT5

Take aways
 - relying on the sheet music = OK
 - Used the Compressor a fair amount in the software to bring up the total volume - although this really makes it honk out that my performance was really loud the whole way thru.

Ishida

I've started using a new recording software called Reaper, and its way better than Garageband.  Just easier in every way and the videos you can find online aren't just random people making up a "lesson" as they go along.  Looking forward to using it more.

Recording reminds me a lot of going to guitar lessons.  You practice a lot and really think you're ready to show your teacher but for some reason when you get there, problems appear that were never an issue before.  Now you're suddenly behind the guitar and in front of it - you're the player and also part of the audience wondering whats going to happen next which is really stressful and frustrating because at home you might get to a place where you're not really thinking about anything at all when playing and the music just seems to happen but as soon as someone else is in the room (or a machine is listening), you are split into 2 people concentrating and trying to relax at the same time.  Its getting easier though because before I used to have the microphones set up for a few days trying to record a good take, but now I can get it within the hour.  Hopefully some day I'll just sit down and capture it right on the first try!

Ishida (Carcassi)

Ishida (Sor)

Take aways

 - My fingers hurt

Ishida

On day 7 this was like a Hail Mary pass. 

I thought I'd figured out on Sor #6 how to accurately prepare w/ the right hand in order to achieve better articulation / accuracy and sound more professional on recordings - so I took on a 3-page Bach Prelude.  It was going well, and I had it all memorized until I recorded myself and realized I was playing it way way too slow, and it didn't really make sense at that tempo - this was day 5.  I tried to speed it up, but that only brought back the bad habit of the Right Hand landing accurately only maybe 25% of the time which led to lots of clicks and general "nailiness" to which I want to say good bye to forever.  Yes I was striking the strings on time, but the tone of each one sounded random and amateur hour with maybe only 25% of them sounding full and rich.

So I changed to another Bach that I'd learned in college that I figure'd be recordable since its only 1 page and much slower - that was 2 days ago.  Today I realized that the second Bach was also too difficult and random to try and capture on the recorder even though I was landing maybe 60%?  This one also had a tougher left hand which tends to stress out my right hand and screws up accuracy resulting in tone that sounds like its gasping for breath.

I thought about skipping this week understanding that I'd made a mistake - but then I remembered this Carcassi study from college, and I remember it being 'super easy'.  After a few hours I was able to get this one pretty well under my fingers to record - its not perfect, but I gotta move on.  Thanks to the relatively static left hand and the always rolling in the same direction in the right hand, this one really removes a lot of the factors that were in the Bach.

Take aways

 - You can't tackle a fast piece with lots of varying right hand - or you can but it'll take a long time to get it up to tempo

Ishida

I bought new microphones when I was home in CA - what an upgrade!

These things are so sensitive you really need to come down on volume and play unnaturally softly - and then play even softer.  Or maybe if you had a bigger room to record in you could just set them up further away, but in the end practicing this study for these mics put me way more in touch with Right Hand preparation technique.  For classical guitar, you have to plant your fingertip right on the exact spot on the string before you play it otherwise the microphone can hear the clicks and drags of your fingers not landing accurately.  The players who have mastered it really look like their hands / fingers aren't even moving because they're so ridiculously precise.

Ishida