What Music are You Working on?

[Deleted]

I'm basically in the mode of making sure I don't forget my old stuff, with doing an occasional new arrangement as the muse strikes me.

It's nice to re-discover old stuff--and realize that just maybe something in the past was actually good. I just re-discovered my arrangement of the great pipe tune by the late, great Scottish piper Angus McDonald, called "Turf Lodge".

Others?

El
www.elmcmeen.com

[billhammond]

Yeh, I have about a dozen high-maintenance pieces that I try to run through at least once a week, although gigs usually take care of that.

As for new stuff, I am still trying to arrange a Kinks tune or too, and Barb and I have a list of about half a dozen tunes to add to our song list, including some that make me want to ask Russ Letson if he'd give me some jazz-chord lessons...

Good thread idea, El, and top of the morning to ye!

[Deleted]

Hi El ,

Nice to have you here with us. I too am doing a lot of maintenance work on pieces but I recently brought out, "Christmas Time is Here" and got that one ready for the holidays.
I am also working in Steve Baughman's Frailing the Guitar book, it's a lot of fun and challenging too.

[t-bob]

For me, it's been mostly piano pieces. The guitars are gathering dust. My new Yahama YDP-223 is a pretty cool instrument, really does play like a "real" piano, and has the versatility of a digital, with features like recording multi-tracks, different practice modes, transposition, and 14 different voices. And plenty more I haven't figured out yet.
So it's Chopin Preludes and Nocturnes, a couple of Beethoven Sonatas, Bach's Toccata in Dm, Schumann's Traumerei, Maple Leaf Rag, and an (my) arrangement of Danny Boy.

[secondroy]

I'm afraid I'm going to take this discussion down a rung or two but right now I've started working on my flatpicking in order to prepare for an event next month. Speed is what I'm looking for.

[kenlarsson]

I've been working on some stuff in open G tuning.

Clifford Gibsons "Tired of Being Mistreated"
A combination of Steve James and Elizabeth Cottens versions of "Spanish Fandango"
And a slack key version of "La Paloma"

I've also been working on the set list for some gigs with the Acoustic Guitar Club in late October.

A medley of Spencer Bohrens "Wings of an Angel" and the spiritual "Wade in the Water"
"St. James Infirmary"
Roy Bookbinders "Preacher Played the Blues"
A medley of "Ol' Folks at Home" and "When the Saints Come Marching In"

And some other stuff.

[Deleted]

I am working on my CD, when the PC allows it. Actually it's two CDs, one for the younger and one for the older crowd. I was going to do a double CD, but the hardware for it proved expensive for a CD you give away (especially, if you have no job).
I have written some stuff, and plan some pretty complicated covers of some "Caedmon's Call" and "Casting Crowns" material. I plan some older Keith Green covers that still prove timeless. I am also trying to conquer playing slow, and not varying speed during a song.
That's about it, Dan

[j]

With my recital rapidly approaching, the focus is on Bach's Prelude from BWV998, Ponce's Sonatina Meridional, polishing up the LArgo from the Aranjuez with my accompanist, and working on visualization/mental practice stuff with the rest of my program.

[Doug]

Strange combs

Swing in on a Star - closer to the Dave Van Rorake version than Bing or Frank

Georgia on my mind

strange version of Summertime

Stormy Monday

and to make all of that strange, Add in

It's Hard to be Humble - Mac Davis

May the Bird of Paridise - Little Jimmy Dickens

She's a Hum Dum Dinger - another Jimmy Davis song

[iamjohnne]

I have been working on Misty. But trying a different approach. I am not doing chords, but notes, and I am determined to make it sound nice and so that people will know what I am playing. This isn't too much of a challenge when the only folks that ever listen have never heard Misty to start with. They don't want to hear me play anything anyway.

[millring]

I finally settled on how I want "Moon River" to work and got pretty smooth with that.

What started out as a sort of throw-away rewrite of "Michael Row..." I ended up really kinda liking. So, as much as I disliked the insipid li'l tune, I've been working on coming up with an interesting way to play it. So far I've had a few inspiring passages, one of which moves...

X5420X X5320X X0222(0)

[Cornflake]

O'Carolan's "Hewlett" on hammered dulcimer. I almost own that one now. Also Don Peters' "White People," which I'm revising and rearranging.

I like the comment about "high-maintenance pieces." For me, it's almost exclusively on hammered dulcimer, but there are some pieces that I have to play with some frequency or I lose them.

[sidhemichaelwhatever]

We just finished a cover of a neo-classical piece for voice and piano by a pianist who died suddenly at age 31 or 32... anyways, he had most of an album in the can and his folks went to some musicians who knew him and asked for help doing a CD release. Not easy, but I got it to sit on guitar quite successfully, if I may say so.

Still working on a tune written for us by an old jesuit (who also has written for orchestras, the Kronos quartet and others) Same deal... really hard.

Just about have Dusan's "mysterious habitats" up to recording snuff... now mulling over Morel's "romance criollo" for myself and Nick Drake's 'cello song" for K and I (and, of course, a friend who plays cello).

Tonight we have both the honor and the sorrow of playing the final live music show at "the shop". The shop has been the premier live touring acoustic and alternative venue here for 7 or 8 years. They have seen about 1/2 of the winfield winners come through, lennin and USA winning songwriters, rock shows from most of the countries in the EU and more local stuff than all the other venues in town combined (save for the Met, the main 750 seat theatre in town). They have over 300 recordings to their credit, and I am proud to say that K and I's 1999 effort "live at the shop" was the first (album recorded, that is). So, tonight, they end music as they began. Bittersweet.

Oh, and yesterday afternoon I bought a baritone guitar that just sings in AEADEA (DADGAD). That may horn in a bit on "romance criollo" time...

[j]

hey sidhe
good to see you! register and stick around.

[Cosmic Wonder]

j said:

With my recital rapidly approaching, the focus is on Bach's Prelude from BWV998, Ponce's Sonatina Meridional, polishing up the LArgo from the Aranjuez with my accompanist, and working on visualization/mental practice stuff with the rest of my program.

J, if you really want them to sit up and take notice, may I suggest you close with, "Smoke On the Water"?

No need to thank me. ;D
Mike

PS I'm working on tuning my guitar. It was in tune when I bought it.

[millring]

PS I'm working on tuning my guitar. It was in tune when I bought it.

I'm assuming, then, that you didn't get a tuning warranty? Well, just maybe you shouldn't go shopping for guitars by your self in the future.

Then again -- I suppose no harm done. If you touch those silver things that protrude from the headstock, apparently it voids the tuning warranty anyway.

[Cornflake]

I'm reminded of the time I was in a local guitar repair shop and the person in front of me at the counter was there to get the strings changed on a guitar. No joke.

[Deleted]

BTW, I forgot to mention that I am finally going to record my solo acoustic version of a Keith Green tune called "The Prodigal Son Suite." The original is a very elaborate, mini-opera type arrangement done on piano and the London Phi harmonic Orchestra. I have been doing this tune for about 20 years and so far haven't changed much in the way I do it. This is like a 13-14 min. thing and I am trying to learn to play it, and keep my place and proper speed, without singing. I am trying to do it without looping, but may have to resort to repetition. It's a great tune, and my arrangement works well for such a complicated cover. There are so many timing, key and style and style changes in this one tune that it is amazing. It changes keys about 5 times in the final 90 seconds of this thing and starts in Am, changes to F# major, then to E major and back and forth between Am, F# and E major. The final bit goes from A major, to F#, to Eb, to C, then ends on A major.

I really relate to this tune and it is the best telling of the "parable of the lost son" that exists, especially in song. I actually learned it relatively easily 2 decades ago, and haven't changed my arrangement in all that time. I can't even remember why I would ever would think I could do this solo on guitar, but it really works, somehow.
Oh so blessed, Dan

[iamjohnne]

millring said:

PS I'm working on tuning my guitar. It was in tune when I bought it.

I'm assuming, then, that you didn't get a tuning warranty? Well, just maybe you shouldn't go shopping for guitars by your self in the future.

Then again -- I suppose no harm done. If you touch those silver things that protrude from the headstock, apparently it voids the tuning warranty anyway.

John,
You bring a smile to my heart each day.

[iamjohnne]

Still working on Misty, but with great help from a site that JazzAlta mentioned in the chord melody post. Maybe I will learn how to play this funky box with strings on it yet.