Double Digits

Yesterday marked 100 days until college. Today marks the start of double digits. 99 days and counting. This all assuming that I get work assistance. I find that out in a little over a week. I need prayer for that. Without work assistance college will be very tough and I doubt that my parents can even pay for it. :’(

Learning Chord Substitution

I was introduced to chord substition a little while ago. I absolutely love it! I find it hard to use sometimes in my playing because I haven’t really been “taught”. I hope that I get to learn this at college. Speaking of which, college is only 100 days away! AHHHHHH! AHHHHHH! AHHHHHHH!

Hymn Playing Advice

I have decided to get back to the original theme of my blog and give some advice about how to play piano for church. This blog post I want to cover congregational playing.

Here’s what I do:

Right hand: Octaves

Left hand: Pattern:: Octave chord

Let me break this down a little. My piano teacher taught me that to have a generally fuller sound in your playing play the lead note in octaves. Just doing this changed the sound of my playing for the better. Eventually I was able to add in fill in notes. It really changes the sound for the better and it does really sound good.

Left hand. To play the general patter octave chord you must have a knowledge of chords. If you say I kind of know them well then practice finding them. I took my hymnal and wrote in the chords so I could practice identifying them. I don’t want to brag but I can identify them more proficiently…not to the point where I can do it while I’m playing but if I had a couple more seconds I could. Let me add this, I can identify some, like the I, IV, V some of the minor ones are harder but I’m getting better. It’s really just practice. 

After a while I found that the octave chord got boring so sometimes you can play octave chord but instead of making the chord just a block chord you could make it a dotted eighth note followed by a sixteenth note. I’m sorry I forgot to say that the octave chord is the octave = a quarter note, chord = a quarter note. This doesn’t work for 3/4 time, then you have to play octave, chord, chord. If it’s 6/8 time or anything like that you then can’t play quarter notes…obviously, well you can but it doesn’t work out well. Use a little bit of common sense or this blog post will be forever long.

I hope this helps. This will hopefully change your playing for the better and please remember to take it slow. I don’t want to give the idea that I got this over night. It took me a couple weeks to really get it and more weeks to incorporate it into my playing.

Heartland Cds!

Yes! I got them! The cds. They are awesome sounding. I wish I could play for one of them…I wonder if I could be good enough. I even got my family to chip in and help pay for them. If you want to find out more here’s the link.

Nights in Rodanthe

Sigh. I read the book. Don’t judge! I read it because I had read another book by the auther and I actually enjoyed it. The movie was amazing! It was so accurate. When the book is just amazing the movie must follow in it’s footsteps and it has. The book emotionally connected you to the characters…even if you had nothing in common with them, the book made you love the characters…even if you didn’t want to. The movie made that same connection that the author made. Over all 4 1/2 stars!

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College Audition Choices

I think have chosen my pieces. Going to Pensacola Christian College has given me great concern about what to play. I am so nervous about it.

Debussy’s Reverie – No matter how simplistic this piece is I think that I can bring a new life to it and my own unique interpretation. 

How Great Thou Art/Beethoven’s 5th Symphony – This amazing piece is arranged by Rob Deas is what I’m going to use for the hymn arrangement. 

Hopefully these piece will get me an appropriate teacher. I want to portray an attitude that I’m willing to learn but also that I can play piano and I’m not just some kid that can barely play.

Yes!

I’m so happy with the American Idol finale…I thought for sure that Adam would win. He had the biggest duet and seemed to be the favorite through the whole competition. But Kris ending up winning! I loved his version of No Boundaries. The song was kind of tacky but he made it somewhat descent. I’m excited to see what he records for his first album.

American Idol Finale Week

I’m so excited. Although Danny Gokey didn’t make it, I forgive everyone for not voting for him. Joking. It’s now between Kris Allen and Adam Lambert. I haven’t seen tonight’s episode yet but I think Kris might win. I think Adam’s popular but Kris is better. I hope he’ll win. I think he deserves it, I think if Adam Lambert because the American Idol he would end up being a disappointment.

Working

Working has been pretty intesnse. After a nice weekend off hopefully I can remember how to do my job. I hope I survive.

The Heartland Cd Designs and Designer

Here’s a link to the site owned by the guy who designed the Witness, Glorybound, and Assurance cds. I’m so excited. I need to order them. They look really good. My friend is the Witness pianist. She’s SO good at piano, it makes me so jealous.  I’m really excited ordering them and listening to them. Unfortunately they’re not up on the webiste yet but I’m going to call tomorrow and try to talk to someone about it.