Sing Us A Song You're The Piano Man

Wow i never really contemplated the piano and how people play it until i ery slowly. I always knew that pianists were talented but now i have a new appreciation for their abilities as I am still struggling along. I am practicing the chords, all that major and minor key stuff is confusing me. Plus the notes that i need to hit always seem to be the furtherest point away from each other and i have to stretch to reach the keys, more often then not taking the next one along with it to produce that awful wrong note sound. But i know that its just practice and rehearsal. I am sure that Billy Joel or Elton John or Alicia Keys were once at the level that I am now. Only they were 5 years old. Well my dreams of being a rock star musician were always limited to vocalist. But being tone deaf kind of quashed that dream. And I know the whole spiel about if you want something badly enough yada yada but quite frankly there is not a vocal teacher on this planet that could make my voice listenable. Or tolerable. I'll put singing lessons on my list of things to do when i have so much money i can afford to flit it away on totally useless things.

On other not really interesting but i feel i should post something news I have started trying out new styles with my hair. I am getting little bit bored with it but after chatting with mum i don't think i will change it. She thinks the colour is great and even though I keep seeing pictures of brunette celebrities with fabulous hair, i think, at the end of the day what i am most unhappy with is my face and not my hair. Changing the colour of my hair will not change the way my face looks or the dark shadows under my eyes. I thought maybe darker hair would go better with my paler skin as i always felt that being blonde you should be tanned. So i am going to my hairdresser tomorrow so i don't think i will do anything drastic. If i got it cut off and shaped i would soon get sick of it and wish it was long and grow it back. Again change the face not the hair. Or the neckline under my jaw because it is heading south. I swear i would plastic surgery its ass so fast if i had the money but apparently the neck is one area that is very hard to nip and tuck (or so i have read). Besides at this point i would rather use the money to clear up the old acne scars and the rather unattractive dark spots and splotches (no not freckles, freckles are smaller,lighter in colour and usually cuter) that i have. According to my dermatologist its melasma which is hormonal and due to roaccutane. He says its much more harder to get rid of then say freckles and no over the counter stuff will fade it (i figured as much). Apparently lasers are the way to go; they have had great results at fading. Lasers = expensive. I is poor. Life never seems to go your way does it.

Guess i will just have to find a new way of doing my hair so that it covers my face.

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I Can Hear Music

I have taken up playing the piano,or more technically, the organ. I dug my old portable keyboard out of the garage and plugged it in. I had heard Fur Elise played on the piano and had grandiose visions of myself replicating it. I always wished I learnt the piano but we didn't have one and my parents wouldn't pay for lessons. Hence the organ, which was really good, the type that has all different instrument settings and rythmns and automatic chords. Ah chords, that was my downfall so perhaps it was best that i didn't take up the piano. I could never get my head around what both my hands were doing at the same time. If it was a one note chord on the left hand I was fine, but three different keys and stretching the hands to reach the keys and usually being slower than what the right hand is playing just totally threw me off. I could play the right hand fine; i should point out that this was when i was ten so i was using books that printed the letters of the notes on them and weren't too complicated. Songs like Wooden Heart, Jingle Bells, easy versions of classic compositions. I liked the fact that my organ had a program where you could hit one chord note and it actually played the three at once so it sounded a lot more professional. So i have been reacquainting myself with my old books. Its pretty much all coming back to me. I was trying to remember why i gave it up; I think it must have been because i was getting older and i couldn't be bothered taking the next step to learn how to read music and thus practice more difficult songs. And judging by how quickly the songs came back to me and how quickly I got a bit bored, I think the same song selection would have bored me.

But boy haven't things changed in the 15 or 20 years. Whereas I used to have to go out and hunt for sheet music today, thanks to our old friend the internet, you can print them out yourselves. A lot of the sites you have to pay for the sheet music but there are a few sites that have free sheet music, usually public domain or classic songs. The problem that I find is that I have not heard the tune being played so therefore I have no idea how it goes and am just kind of plucking at keys. I have aldo decided to start learning the proper three chords, slowly, i seem to have got my head around the basic white keys ones, its when they throw in a sharp or a flat that i have to contort my hand to hit them. Plus I am playing everything s-l-o-w-l-y as i am learning it. I downloaded Pachelbels Canon for piano (a pretty basic version) and spent today practicing it. I started about 2 o clock or so and by dinner time I had both hands down pat and could play four lines together and it actually sounded like it meant to. Its just a matter of practicing it to committ it to memory. Its hard not to get flustered and hit the wrong key; i actually notice that my mind wanders and i am not concentrating, even just slightly like i take my eyes off the keyboard or sheet music or look down at the floor and interrupt my train of thought and I am like, wait where am i up to.

Anyways I have tentatively downloaded a basic version of the entertainer to try tomorrow. But i may have bitten off more than I can chew as its timing between the left and right hand is so different that you literally are playing two tunes at once and i can't seem to not focus on one and not neglect the other. But i shall think of it as a challenge. Plus its keeping my occupied. Time really flew today, instead of clockwatching. Its nice for a change.

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