It may be blasphemous in some circles of heady jazz musicians, but I love folk music.  I've even been known to call my trio music "instrumental folk" but that might be pushing it a bit.   But in any case, I can't deny it: old country music, folk songs, and Americana hold a special spot in my heart.  I just love the longing lyrics, the not-so-polished vocals, and the hypnotic rhythm of finger-picking.  Maybe in another life I was (or will be?) a guitar playing singer-songwriter.

This is why I was thrilled when I Skype student of the Piano Shed asked to learn the Willie Nelson tune "Crazy."  This is a song that I've always loved but never played on piano, so I decided to write an intermediate level piano arrangement for my student, myself, and for you all!  This song was made famous by Patsy Cline and has been covered like crazy (pun INTENDED).  Here's Willie's version:  

Below is a video of me playing the arrangement a few different ways.  Listen to the youTube video as you follow along with the sheet music.  

I thought this tune would be a good opportunity to work on a steady left-hand quarter note pulse.  This reminds me of the Erroll Garner style.  The left-hand chomps away on the chords, providing a solid rhythmic foundation, while the right hand freely interprets the melody.   Check out the master at work --  listen to the way he makes the quarter notes groove in the left hand!

Here's how I would go about learning this one:

STEP 1:  Get the left-hand solid until you can play along with a metronome.  Start with a metronome on all 4 beats, and then if you are up for a challenge, check it out with the metronome on 2 & 4 like I do in the video.  It's harder than you might think!  

STEP 2:  Right hand.  Similar to the Garner style, the right hand has a way of floating over the steady rhythm of the left hand.  It's important to mention that I didn't transcribe the melody exactly as Willie sang it. Why that's?  Well, Willie has a very unique way of phrasing the melody.  (Phrasing, by the way, describes the way a melody is interpreted by the performer -- the way he/she changes the rhythm, the timing, the dynamics, and articulations to make it sound more...well...human).  He plays around with the rhythm, often singing behind the pulse, giving it this great lazy and defeated feeling.  If I transcribed the rhythm exactly as he sang it it would be terribly confusing to read and wouldn't be fun for anyone.  It's more about a feeling than notes on a page.  
So, first learn the melody as I wrote it.  Again, it won't sound like the recording but it will be close (check out the video!). Then once you have it down, try and get a little more adventurous with the rhythm.  Listen to the Willie Nelson recording and see how close you can get to off-kilter rhythmic stylings.  

When working on playing melodies on an instrument, one of the best things we can do is listen to vocalists and imitate how they do it.  Miles Davis said that he used to listen to Frank Sinatra records to learn how to interpret melodies.  If we can make our instrument sound like it's singing, we are doing something right. 

Now see if you can that grooving persistent left hand, all while playing a loose melody on the top of it.  Make Erroll Garner proud! 

STEP 3:  As a final challenge for the advanced player, you can try to go off the page a bit and make your own stride arrangement of the tune.  Check out what I did at the end of the video for a guideline.  This is a whole other topic, but basically what I am doing is: 

LH:  plays root notes on beat 1 or (beats 1 and 3) then then the chord (or parts of the chord) on the other beats.  
RH:  plays the melody but thickens it up by adding in octaves and chord tones.  

Happy Shedding!

For my birthday last month, a friend of mine bought me a book called Mo' Meta Blues, an autobiography by Amhir "Questlove" Thompson.  For those that don't know Questlove, he's a killer drummer, co-founder of the live hip hop group "The Roots," record producer, musical director of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and DJ.  In my opinion, Questlove represents everything a musician should be:  someone with deep reverence and knowledge of the music that came before him but who is also always asking: "What's next for the music?  Where else can we take it?"  He also believes strongly in community and surrounds himself with a large group of like-mined musicians that he works with.  These days, solo acts dominate the pop charts.   Groups and especially entire communities of musicians are rare.  It is refreshing to see the way Questlove focuses on community-made music projects.   

As I read Mo Meta Blues, I started to think about how much I learn whenever I read a biography or autobiography of a musician.  One of the best ways to learn music, I believe is go to the source, the music itself.  But second to the actual music, you can go to the musicians. 

And not all of us are fortunate to be able to sit down with our musical heroes and pick their brains.  (Although you'd be surprised, especially in the jazz world, performers are a lot more accesible than you might think.  Buy them a drink at the bar after the show and you might have a new best friend.)  But what about when we can't have a conversation with someone we want to admire?  Well...why not check out a book?   I always find autobiographies in particular fascinating because you can really get inside someone's head.  

There's so much to learn from reading about musicians -- how they became who they are, what they practiced, mistakes they made, what they think about where music is going, what it means to be a musician.

One thing I love about autobiographies and biographies is the way that they take the mystery and the glamour out of success.  As an audience member we only see the final product.  We see an amazing performance, but don't realize the hours and hours (and hours) of practice that was involved.  We don't see last night's performance when there was only three people in the room.  When you read a biography or autobiography, you get the whole story, the behind the scenes.  You learn that all of these great successful musicians had many trials and failures before they became that person you see on stage.  To me that's inspiring.  These musicians are not gods, they are not superhuman.  They are plain old people just like you and me.  But they are people are committed to their craft and don't give up on who they are.     

It's summer, what better time to pick up a musician's autobiography for this summer and check it out!  If you know who Questlove is or are interested in hip-hop, I highly recommend Mo' Meta Blues.  But if not, there's plenty more out there.  Two classic, not-to-be-missed autobiographies are  Miles:  The Autobiography (if you can hang with the profanity..and there's lots) and Louis Armstrong's Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans.  In both accounts, you really feel like Miles and Louis are talking right to you.  Another favorite biography of mine is Footprints:  The Life and Work of Wayne Shorter.   What are some of your favorites?  Hit me up and let me know!

I'll leave with you with a Bill Evans quote that I first read in a biography called How My Heart Sings that always stuck with me. (I later learned this quote was originally from a fascinating video interview that you all should watch called Bill Evans - The Creative Process and Self-Teaching)  Here's Bill: