Vomit draft: write badly the first time

I first heard the term “vomit draft” at an introductory course to filming & scripting. The words of my colleague “to write badly the first time” suddenly made sense.

The first draft is to “get it all out” — in other words, throw it up. There’s not a moment to waste on perfecting your grammar or spelling.

Just get it out.

Similarly, the first time you read a score, you can’t afford to play it perfectly. You want to get an idea how it sounds and what you need to work on.

Playing a piece for the first time, however, is different from writing your first draft. In the latter case, you have stuff you want to get out.

Google “vomit draft” and see what others have said about it — a nice secret to successful writing, for sure.

Piano playing in Taipei, Taiwan

What a joy it was to meet up with my old friend Tina, whom I’ve known since my teenage years. The way we met was in class in the Hakka town of Miao Li Gong Guan. She was accompanying choir – and I noticed she played a wrong note on the piano.

To discover after a lifetime of wedded bliss, motherhood, career, …. she still plays the piano — that’s the joy!

I grew up in a neighborhood where our fathers were colleagues, our mothers volunteered for community activities, and we kids went to school together. We were competitive, and we all learned to play the piano. Every other year, we’d “return” to our native lands (Taiwan, Korea, etc) on “home leave.” Some industrious parents (like mine) would put us through school so we’d progress in our own languages. That’s how I met Tina.

How many of us still play the piano? Few.

My entire family learned to play the piano. First my father — in college — he learned to play the black keys. He bought a new Yamaha upright (a console) in Okinawa. My mother, my 6-year old sister, and I started piano lessons from a Japanese neighbor, the wife of one of my father’s colleagues. Eventually when my brother became of age, he started lessons, too.

As I listened to Tina sightread the Chinese equivalent of “fake book,” that is, jian pu (simplified Chinese music notation) as right hand melody and accompaniment in Western chords, I thought of all the years that had gone by. Suddenly I felt a shake. The ground beneath me trembled on the morning of Wednesday 27th March.

I stopped her. “What is it?” I asked.

Tina stopped playing abruptly.

The IKEA loft bed above the covered upright piano was shaking from side to side.

“It’s an earthquake,” she replied and went back to playing the same piece.

Barely a week has gone by since she came to pick me up at the airport. Today she waited for me at the same airport with presents.

I wish there was more time to play music — we have not even managed a duet together — ever.

“Come visit me,” I said. “You’ve missed out on all those great places I’ve lived.”

A future blog: jian pu — simplified Chinese music notation

A Thousand Years for easy piano

How do you teach complete beginners how to play the piano?

Start with a tune they want to play.

So I searched Pandora and Youtube for the most popular movie themes. Christina Perri’s “A Thousand Years” is one of those sticky melodies that haunts me like the movie Twilight. Although I’ve yet to see Breaking Dawn, I can see why young people like it so much.

The short cut is to search for the sheet music online. However, it’s in a key too challenging for most beginners. Plus there are too many notes. Too much variety.

So I reduced it from 6/8 time to 3/4 time and transposed into the white key of C.

The result is something quite do-able, particularly with added fingerings. Of course, it’s always possible to simplify this further still. I will assign my students to figure how how it ends.

A Thousand Years for easy piano

Missing sheet music

The boxes from Utrecht arrived on a daily basis. I anxiously opened the weather-beaten boxes that Robert had so meticulously packed in Holland.

For every shelf of books, we spent an hour on Facetime webcam video, Robert showing me each book, and I saying yes or no. Several weeks went by, we tried Facetiming morning and night, provided the Internet was working. We examined every shelf of four bookcases of books and sheet music.

I had spent 30 years collecting the sheet music, a pastime I rewarded myself. It was my prized possession, boxed and shipped from London to the Netherlands, and now facing a consequence of life or death. Whatever I wanted to keep would cost money to send or store. Whatever I was willing to let go faced exile in a music bookstore or library. Whatever could be sold fetched enough to pay the postage for what I wanted to have — now.

In the process of “letting go” I told myself that

1. It was time to let go.
2. I didn’t have time to practise piano, let alone sightread my collection.
3. I didn’t have any musician to play with.
4. I did not have access to the piano when I had the time to play.
5. Everything is on the Web nowadays, and I should be able to find whatever I want.

And so we threw away the photocopies and donated the library editions (I had paid for).

Shortly after I unpacked the boxes, I put my name on the first page of the music books I transferred to the piano classroom at the college where I teach. I made sure there was no gap between the books in the bottom shelf. It was tightly packed on  Saturday 22 September 2012.

The following Friday 28th September, I noticed a big gap. Who took my music without leaving a note? I put a sign up: “private collection of Anne Ku. Please do not take.” I patiently waited until the following Friday. The gap remained. I asked my colleagues if they’d help me. Did they have students who played at that level? Who would have taken my books?

Four bookcases reduced to two bookshelves was difficult. Discovering the books that went missing was painful.

Missing book: Grateful by John Bucchino, a present from my friend Tim in London

An album full of great arrangements to play at weddings and other occasions:

Dan Coates Complete Advanced Piano Solos

Ludivico Einaudi’s 3 albums all went missing. I had wanted to introduce his music to audiences on Maui.

Some day when I will have access to a piano to practise on and musicians to practise with and occasions to perform, I will regret not having that music. It’s not true that I can find them on the Web. Some piano solo arrangements, like Saint-Saen’s Carnival of Animals, are out of print. The photocopies were precious because I did not own the originals but wanted them. I took the time to photocopy them. The library copies that I had purchased at second-hand bookstores were sturdy and withstood the wear and tear of time. They could not be resold but should not be discarded.

Looking at the bare collection I have now just reminds me of all that I had to give up.

And those that went missing are the most painful to bear.

Sheet music for sale

Books on bookshelf for sale

When Robert told me a few weeks ago that he had packed my sheet music into 12 moving boxes, I mentally switched off. What he really meant was, “What are we going to do about your 12 boxes of sheet music?”

These books and scores were stacked in 3 huge Ikea book cases. Every time he mentioned my music, I fell silent. Already I had to let go of 400 CDs. sheet music was even more precious. I was not ready to decide.

To make space to photograph the house for sale, he declared that he’d move the boxes into the bicycle shed. Out of sight, out of mind.

I have nowhere to put those 12 boxes in Maui. I don’t want to pay for shipping. I simply don’t want to deal with it. Why not?

I had gone through my music in London before I decided to pack them into boxes and move them to the Netherlands in 2003 and 2004. Thereafter I continued my curious hobby of visiting music bookstores and music libraries to select sheet music to buy or copy. This unusual pastime of a person who loves to sightread started a long time ago. It accompanied my travels. Every time I visited a city that had a music book store, I would treat myself to buying sheet music.

Houston. New York. London. Amsterdam. Paris. Milan. Prague. Taipei.

I began by collecting music for piano solo. When I discovered the joy of piano duets with my piano teacher at Duke University, I started collecting music for 4-hand, 1 piano and then 4-hand, 2-piano. When I discovered the joy of chamber music, I started seeking scores for piano and other instruments whose players I befriended: clarinet, flute, bassoon, oboe, French horn, violin, viola, cello, harp, guitar, recorder. I bought the music so that I could play them by myself or with others.

Once at conservatory, I reasoned that it was important to learn about different instruments so that I could compose for them. While pursuing my teaching diploma in piano, I began collecting piano pedagogy, methods, techniques, and other related books. Collecting sheet music was no longer merely to feed my insatiable thirst for sightreading. It was necessary for teaching piano, my composition degree, and performance. I discovered the buzz of performing long before composing and teaching. In the Netherlands, the world of getting paid to perform with guitar, French horn, cello, and voice opened up — as did the need to expand my chamber music repertoire.

I knew that I was the most loyal client of second-hand sheet music stores. There were two I visited on a regular basis: one in London and the other in Amsterdam. I also knew that the owners regularly scanned the obituary column in local newspapers, looking for famous musicians that had died. They knew that they could get their sheet music for next to nothing. They’d get them in bulk and price each piece individually.

Second-hand sheet music are typically cheaper than newly printed scores. However, often second-hand sheet music is no longer in print and thus no longer available. As a graduate student in London, I’d go after second-hand sheet music. As a full-time magazine editor traveling between London and New York, I’d go for first-hand music books and collections. Over time, I built a sizable library of sheet music that included composers from A to Z.

With less than 2 weeks before Robert’s return to Boston, I finally gave in. “Let’s take a look at those boxes,” I said.

There were now 15 boxes stacked in the garden house bicycle shed.

The first box took half an hour to go through. The second box a little less than half an hour. By the 3rd box, we had gained momentum and criteria. Say good-bye to anything that can be found on the Internet, too hard to play, boring, old, falling apart, or duplicated. Keep the really interesting pieces that I can’t get anywhere else, including out-of-print editions and those I paid dearly for.

We are now half way through my music. I’m letting go of all chamber music except for piano & guitar duos that we’ve yet to try but want to. I’m parting with that collection of Dutch composers, piano duets, piano methodology and technique books, easy piano for students, and countless binders full of photocopied sheet music — which Robert said is illegal to sell.

Out of 15 boxes, I expect to extract enough for just 3 boxes to ship over.

That’s a lot of music to say good-bye to. A lot of music I won’t be playing. A lot of time spent choosing and acquiring the music.

I just hope what I don’t keep will find a home very soon.

FOR SALE:
400 CDs and sheet music for piano, duets, piano methods, piano technique, chamber music with piano, dictionaries, travel guidebooks, and more!!
Saturday 1 September 2012 from 1 to 4 pm
Keulsekade 25, 3531 JX Utrecht
or by appointment (REPLY BELOW)

Many hands, many pianos

I was surprised how difficult it was to get my students to play the same note at the same time to make the sound of one note.

Pianos are, after all, not stringed instruments that can ease into a single sound. Pianos are not wind instruments either.

At my first rehearsal with three other pianists on four pianos, I noticed the same phenomenon as I had in class. We were easily out of sync. Our leader turned up the volume of the metronome. We followed the loud beatings at the expense of not hearing each other. Eventually we stopped the amplified metronome so we could really play like an ensemble.

At the second rehearsal a week later, we had improved greatly. Not that we had practised more, I think, but that we got used to each other. We were in tune. And in sync.

It’s hard to expect 4 pianos to sound like an orchestra. But it sure is fun to play. And it’s difficult to hear who is playing what part. We are all pianos after all!

Concert date: 14th July 2012 at the Maui Music Conservatory in Queen Kaahumanu Shopping Mall

Pachelbel Canon in C

Johann Pachelbel’s most famous work is his Canon in D. George Winston played his version of it in the key of C. Why not? C is 2 sharps easier than D major.

Is it possible to decompose it further? Simplify it so that even beginners can have fun with it?

I recall a post-concert spontaneous “jam session” in Houston, Texas where Robert on his guitar and I on the piano played the chords of Pachelbel and the host improvised on his flute. It was such fun that I wanted to do it again.

A canon, by definition, is a piece of music where one voice repeats the part of another, throughout the whole piece. Pachelbel’s Canon is often subtitled with “basso ostinato” — a repetitive bass. Once you know the bass line and the sequence of chords, you can repeat it over and over again.

Pachelbel's Canon arranged for solo and group playing by Anne Ku

In the above score, notice there are 4 parts. Four different players can play in sequence. The first begins. The second joins at the beginning when the first reaches rehearsal mark A. Similarly the third player joins at the beginning when the first reaches rehearsal mark B and the second reaches rehearsal mark A.  And so on.

Of course there is more development than these 16 bars, but at least beginners can play this.

I googled “Pachelbel Canon and C” and discovered that others have arranged simple versions for solo piano in the key of C. And there are plenty of free sheet music on the Internet such as this one.

Academy Awards Concert

Over the years, I’ve collected quite a portfolio of music to suit all occasions. Music from movies, in particular, fits well as background and foreground music. I’ve used several in my most recent concert on Valentine’s Day, for love songs proliferate radio, TV, and cinema.

To precede tomorrow’s Academy Awards ceremony, I decided to put together a concert of movie themes.

At first, I selected works I have and love. These include classical pieces that existed well before their being chosen for the movies. Chopin’s famous posthumous nocturne in C-sharp minor was used in “The Pianist” and Rachmaninoff’s piano solo from the “18th Variation on a Theme of Paganini” was played many times in the movie “Somewhere in Time.” More recently, Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” was strategically placed in “Twilight.” There are countless classical works that preceded the movies and whose composers, long dead, never saw the light of day to receive royalties or recognition. Yet somehow these movies revive those classical works, bringing them new context and new audiences.

That was my initial idea — to introduce instrumental music that inherit new meaning as a result of their selection and placement in movies. After hearing Bach’s harpsichord concerto in “Hannah and Her Sisters” one may associate that piece only with that movie, for instance.

To counter pre-existent music chosen for film, I intended to also play music written specifically for movies which take on a life of their own. For instance, Whitney Houston made Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” more famous than the original version and the movie it was used in — “The Body Guard.” It stands separately as a song in its own right. Other songs written for film have gone to hit the charts as singles the world over.

Then there is the specific genre of so-called “film music.” You’d recognise it when you hear it. Some of my fellow composition classmates at the KMT (Kunst Media Technologie in Hilversum, Netherlands) wrote such music and aspired to continue doing so after they graduated. I was impressed how they, after only a few years of study, managed to score orchestral music that echoed a familiarity not distant from James Horner and John Williams. For many composers, film music is the breeding ground for new compositions.

When I sat down to put together my one hour programme for tomorrow afternoon’s concert, I discovered that I had enough music to cover just the Oscar winners of best original score and song. There was no need to include the nominees that did not win or works that did not get nominated or works of movies that did not get nominated at all.

I wanted to play Dan Coates’ wonderful piano solo arrangement of “Miss Celie’s Blues” from the movie “The Color Purple.” But that 1985 nomination lost to “Say You, Say Me” from “White Knights.” In the end, I decided that I really should propose another concert — Music from Movies for Mother’s Day — to include all those works I had prepared but discarded for tomorrow’s Oscars.

The programme for the Academy Awards Concert at Roselani Place in Maui goes as follows:

• 70th Academy Awards Winner of Best Original Score – 1997 – “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic
• 65th Winner – 1992 – “A Whole New World” from Aladdin
• 54th Winner – 1981 – “Arthur’s Theme: Best That You Can Do” from Arthur
• 49th Winner – 1976 – “Evergreen” from A Star is Born
• 46th Winner – 1973 – “The Way We Were” from The Way We Were
• 43rd Winner – 1970 – “Love Story” from Love Story
• 42nd Winner – 1969 – “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
• 38th Winner – 1965 – “Lara’s Theme” from Doctor Zhivago
• 38th Winner – 1965 – (Scoring of Music – adaptation or treatment) The Sound of Music
• 29th Winner – 1956 – “Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)” from The Man Who Knew Too Much
• 12th Winner – 1939 – “Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz

I have several arrangements of “Over the Rainbow” – from Dan Coates’ arpeggiated piano solo to a jazzy soul version, one by Keith Jarrett, and ultimately, the ukelele version by Iz which stayed at number 1 in Germany for 12 non-consecutive weeks in 2010. It’s a nice way to end an afternoon in central Maui.

Teaching piano, teaching music

I described what I’m doing in my evening piano class to the husband of a colleague, both music aficionados.

“I teach my students to play the chromatic scale one hand at a time. The right hand goes up using the thumb and third finger. The left hand goes down. At the next lecture, I demonstrate the application with Flight of the Bumble Bee.”

“I tell them about pentatonic scales and exotic scales. I give them the formula for major scales: whole step, whole step, half-step, whole, whole, whole, half-step. I also have them listen to major vs non-major scales as I play them on the piano. I play the last movement of Vivaldi’s Summer from the Four Seasons and I ask them to count the scales.”

“I plan to teach them the Circle of Fifths with respect to Pachelbel’s Canon in D. That’s also useful to demonstrate descending bass line. “

My colleague’s husband responded with awe. “And you say this is a beginning piano class? Seems to me you are teaching them music!”

I replied, “Yes, I guess you are right. By the end of the semester, they will have not only learned how to play piano but how to look at music differently. I want them to overcome stage fright, build self-confidence, learn to conduct, learn to play and work with each other, appreciate different kinds of music, listen, analyse as in identifying patterns before they start to read the music to play, and so much more.”

Piano orchestra

What do you do with 22 students in a classroom of just 15 electric pianos (2 of which do not sound) and one portable synthesizer for 3 hours?

1. Let them take turns at the piano, one at a time. Give a lecture to the rest of the class. Swap.
2. Put two students on each keyboard and have them play duets.
3. Put two students on each keyboard and conduct them like an orchestra.

When I googled “piano orchestra” I found a variety of piano concertos and questions about the role of piano in the orchestra.

Truth is, it is rare to see so many pianos in one room, unless they are all for sale, in which case you can’t play on them as you wish.

On day one, I asked my students to play just the black keys. I split them into several section. One section played successive quarter notes. Another joined with half notes. The third joined with whole notes. I then improvised on high treble.

My father used to play Chinese songs just on black keys. Pentatonic music (using just the 5 notes of the 5 black keys) blend well in any order in any octave.

Now is my chance to deconstruct my favourite works, be they classical concertos or pop songs. Assign the parts to the various pianists. This way, everyone gets to play. Doubling up is fine. The string section does it all the time.

What I want to get across is simple:

1. Most students of piano learn to play solo piano works. They advance to become soloists.
2. Some learn to accompany choir or other instruments or voice.
3. Others move on to become organists.
4. Whether you’re an accompanist or organist, you serve the choir or congregation. You’re not equal.
5. But when you play in an orchestra, ensemble, or chamber music group, it’s totally different.
6. String players know this. Wind players, too. Brass players. Singers in choirs.
7. But pianists in a piano orchestra? That’s nearly unheard of.

It’s hard to find pianos you can play in one place. It’s hard to move pianos into one place. It’s hard to find pieces written for many pianos.

But ah! such joy to play together! The full polyphonic sound of a piano orchestra!

[Note: this is my first blog post on an iPad!}