During these difficult times, it's incredibly important to find the silver linings and always remember to count our blessings. One of the upsides of social isolation from my fellow musicians in these past several months is that I’ve been really enjoying shedding some solo piano!
I was wanting to learn some more tunes but instead of trying to expand my repertoire of jazz standards (which is never a bad thing!) I decided to work on songs that really resonated with me and the music I grew up listening to. I was finding myself more drawn to pop tunes with strong melodic content which I thought would make great vehicles for solo piano arrangements and improvisation.
One that I’ve been having some fun with recently is the Beatles’ "Michelle." I tried to keep the main elements of the harmony in tact to not disrupt the beautiful play between major and minor resolution present in the original. However, I wanted to sneak a few surprising changes in there to give the arrangement its own identity. When I arrange a piece, I like to incorporate some concepts that I’d to more fluidly include in my solo piano playing -- in this arrangement I was trying to sneak in some atypical drop 2 voicings (with a crunchy diminished sound), some hybrid chords, 4th voicings, along with melodic counterlines in the left hand. See if you can spot these different techniques in the arrangement!
This is a fairly advanced arrangement so instead of the typical tutorial I usually do, I decided to perform the arrangement (along with an improvised solo) and transcribe it note-for-note! This was a labor of love for sure and an experiment in learning some new technology. Let me know what you think!
You can show your support for all things Piano Shed by purchasing the sheet music by clicking HERE.
Thanks for checking it out and happy shedding!
I was wanting to learn some more tunes but instead of trying to expand my repertoire of jazz standards (which is never a bad thing!) I decided to work on songs that really resonated with me and the music I grew up listening to. I was finding myself more drawn to pop tunes with strong melodic content which I thought would make great vehicles for solo piano arrangements and improvisation.
One that I’ve been having some fun with recently is the Beatles’ "Michelle." I tried to keep the main elements of the harmony in tact to not disrupt the beautiful play between major and minor resolution present in the original. However, I wanted to sneak a few surprising changes in there to give the arrangement its own identity. When I arrange a piece, I like to incorporate some concepts that I’d to more fluidly include in my solo piano playing -- in this arrangement I was trying to sneak in some atypical drop 2 voicings (with a crunchy diminished sound), some hybrid chords, 4th voicings, along with melodic counterlines in the left hand. See if you can spot these different techniques in the arrangement!
This is a fairly advanced arrangement so instead of the typical tutorial I usually do, I decided to perform the arrangement (along with an improvised solo) and transcribe it note-for-note! This was a labor of love for sure and an experiment in learning some new technology. Let me know what you think!
You can show your support for all things Piano Shed by purchasing the sheet music by clicking HERE.
Thanks for checking it out and happy shedding!
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