Fakin' It

I'm staying away from anything of the thought provoking sort, though I've done more than my share of thinking this week in trying to figure out something to do about Problems 1-6. 6 decided to rear it's nasty self at me last night and I was up later than late. (No, problem 6 has nothing to do with Mehsha. We're doing better, since she's not here to fight with any more.) Both P. June's and Poly's posts weren't really helping me be distracted from what I've got going on. Remembering the past isn't good when you're trying to deal with the present. I've been trying to keep busy and forget about them. School has become a welcome distraction for me. I've been working on my favorite class, 5 Novels of Change. Right now, I'm living on the Mississippi instead of in the other O.C.

Skeeter and I have been bonding since Mehsha has been at school. He's a poodle, on the very small side, so he's naturally needy. He's bred to be one person's companion, but Skeet is sweet to all. Hands down, he's THE best dog we've ever had, besides Sam, but he couldn't come in the house. (That was our 200 lb. English Mastiff. He was that big too.) He's always preferred mom over me, but since yesterday, I've had little clicking paws following me around. It's really easy to hold him. It's like holding a baby, but I don't know of a single baby that I've held that only weighed 4 lbs. Except Skeeter continuously smells like dog. Babies smell bad every once in a while, but then they smell good again. I may bathe our little 2 year old today.

Anyway, piano lesson today. Wait...yeah, let's just skip straight to today's lesson. No wait, well, I'll share what I found out yesterday about my piano with someone eventually because I think it's interesting. Oh heck, YOU WILL ALL KNOW. I found the shrillest notes on my piano. The second highest A, and the highest D,E, and F. They are so shrill that they ring back with an extra tone, which may just be my ears. I'm supposed to have "perfect" hearing. Either it's so bad that I'm missing something when the note plays or either they are so good, I'm picking up something that most people don't hear. I'm surprised that my piano is still intact after I was banging on it yesterday. I was just short of taking the thing apart, or busting it to pieces. I found some tape on a key that was sticking. One of the lower B's. It played much better after I removed the tape. How did tape get on a key? The same way paper "snow" got under all of the keys, Barbie took a fall down a (never) ending pit, and the way some of the keys now have red and green accents. At least she's creative and imaginative. Mom beat her butt when she drew on the piano. It hasn't come off in 11 years. Wow. 11 years feels like a long time...hard to believe it's been that long. Today, with one less sticking key, I had the COOLEST piano lesson I've ever had. I took piano for 5 years, 5 years ago, and I know I liked doing it then, but I have a better appreciation for what I'm learning now. With the added dedication that I'm putting into my lessons, we're flying through stuff that took me 4 years to do. Some of that may be the prize at the end of book 4. By that time, Brother Piano Teacher said that we can do TORI AMOS!!! In my free time, I've been piddling with "Pretty Good Year," (if you have this one Poly, I don't know about it. The live improv before sounds easy in a cutesy way.) but not seriously enough to have any of it where it sounds cohesive, except maybe the first four measures. My favorite lesson until today's was the one where there sheet music book for Under the Pink came in and my piano teacher was quite intrigued, so he stayed 30 minutes longer than we pay him for and played "Pretty Good Year," "Bells for Her," "Cornflake Girl," and "Over It." I was enthralled that day. Humming along. (I can't sing. Especially not like Tori.) That was an exciting lesson. Today beat it. Just incase you haven't been reading the blog from the beginning, which most of you have, I LOVE LOVE LOVE David Berkeley. Mom had quite the engaging conversation with him the first time we saw him. We (as in mom and I) decided that we had seen David before and all we could come up with was Whole Foods. If he wasn't married, I'd be preaching to him for more than one reason. A few weeks back, Poly told me he had gotten the sheet music for basically my favorite song of David's, "Fire Sign." I printed it out and showed Brother Piano Teacher, and he started showing me how to play it. The first three pages are very simple to play, but then it gets to the part where it only gives the melody that his voice is making and the chords that he's strumming on the guitar. After all, the sheet music is written for guitar. That was probably three or four lessons ago. He asked me if I wanted him to look for a book that showed the chords and how to break them up for each scale so that I could break up the guitar chords and play the rest of the song. He said that people that play piano in bars and stuff usually carry around books called Fake books. He explained that Fake Books just have the chords for songs. They are about 1000 pages or something close to that with popularly requested songs. If they tried to put it down note for note, the book would be too heavy to carry around. People that play this way are "faking it" in a sense because all they have are the chords and they are breaking them up so where it sounds right and putting notes inbetween, thus, why they call them Fake Books. Hyped up once again because I was going to play something that I love, I enthusiastically said yes, please do. I love the piano and I love playing, but what I'm learning in the lesson books feels perfunctory and I'm not into it as much as playing something that I have a passion for. Today, he brought the book with all the chords in it. First of all, it's a new book, so I'm going to be excited. Second of all, he said to play the songs I was assigned last week and then we would look at the chords book and try and break up the song. Was I thrilled? NAW! That was the happiest I've been all week. I played the songs and then all we did for the rest of the hour was listen to "Fire Sign" and break up the chords. He did it first and in a surprised manner, I sat down after he told me to try it. There's not a way that faking it can be taught, so he showed me and helped me along. Each person is going to think that a different arrangement of a chord sounds better than another one, so it's the basic concept that can be taught instead of the notes. It's completely different from reading notes off a page. It is one step closer to playing by ear, which is something I hope to be able to do once I'm perfect. Since we didn't get to do anything out of my lesson books, my assingment for the week is to work on breaking up the chords so where I like the way they sound and incorporate the melody within the chords. Next week, I show him what I've got and he'll help me out if I've picked out a chord arrangement and there is an easier way. I'm learning how fake it, but even better; I'm learning how to play "Fire Sign." Sweet beans.