>>>>Same here. I took piano lessons, guitar lessons, flute lessons, and even the coronet. I played in the band one year. We always had musical instruments around. My mom could play by ear and loved boogie woogie (which is probably why I love it so much). We had people over for years jamming on different instruments. There lots of fun jam sessions. My daughter took piano lessons and violin lessons. Neither of us pursued it much beyond a couple of years. We all learned to love music (and to read sheet music which was my goal for my daughter) though.
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>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ojt7e88g2I&feature=related>>>>>
>>>>>Wow, amazing! I should have paid more attention to my mother when she tried to teach me piano when I was young. <g>
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>>>>>~~Bonnie
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>>>I love to play piano as it is something at which I am not naturally gifted ( poor muscle-memory and serious ADD ) but from which I derive enormous satisfaction. I won't play in front of other people as that would completely inhibit the discovery process. The coolest thing is sight-reading - whether scores or just charts - especially of stuff I've never actually heard played or of arrangements that are unfamiliar ( Matt Dennis and Jim Progris are masters at creating this kind of stuff ) That way the first time you ever hear a piece of music or a particularly interesting chord progression it has come from your own fingers.
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>>>When I hear about musicians that can't read music it sounds like painters who can't draw. Maybe you can get away with it, but it sure limits what you could do if you could do it.
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>>Your goal is entirely different than mine - I think you love it more for the challenge it presents :o) However, it is similar in some ways (loving the sound of the music). I always recommend people, who would love to play the piano but cannot afford lessons, to watch "The piano guy" on youtube or PBS... It's all chord based, but fun (for those who just love music and want to be able to create it themselves)...
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>Completely agree about The Piano Guy ( I have all his stuff ) and chord based playing. I first learned to play keyboard when my father got us a Lowrey Organ. It had lesson books with what it called The Pointer System - showing how to play 2nd position chords ( V - I - III ) to accompany the right hand. Once I could do that pretty well I discovered inversions and then music theory suddenly got very cool and very interesting as I got fascinated with the roles different chords played in different keys and then how key changes used transitions that were kind of like puns or some of the more clever things Dragan does with English ( I think I once likened his command of the language to a jazz improviser ) And when I figured out that a diminished chord was like a room with four doors or how chords could be extended or how substitutions could be ...
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>Listening to Bill Evans a lot what when I first realized the thrill of going off on a diversion and then actually laughing when the whole thing was resolved and suddenly you understood where it had all been going. I knew how to do it with words and when I found you could do it with music, it was one of the greatest revelations of my life.
Funny that you mention Bill Evans. I had not listened to him in some time, then on a whim popped his Village Vanguard recordings from 1961 into the car for my new commute. There are worse commutes than this one but there are enough ugly stretches that musical diversions are welcome.
