piano-diary

2013-09-09

We just ordered a Yamaha upright piano. It feels like kind of a crazy indulgence, but they do play a lot nicer than the 15-year-old synth that I have now.

I really wish I understood what make some pianos feel so much better than others. They also had a couple of used Steinways that were really nice to play but either cost a fortune or had a messed up finish. The Baldwin felt all mushy and wrong.

I suck at reading music so most of my repertoire is "fake book" versions of Beatles classics and that kind of thing.

2013-10-16

Trying to play the piano from real sheet music after years in the "fake book" world. I am really slow.

Sunday, I believe, was the first time in years (decades?) I have played a song from sheet music actually as written instead of doing it fake book style.

The Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood theme song, since it seemed like it might be easy, and Without Us from Family Ties, since it was next in the book.

I am bad at reading sheet music.

Just fumbled through the Andy Griffith Show

And Meet the Flintstones

And the Muppet Show

And Cheers and Woody Woodpecker

2013-11-10

Library books due:

• The Biggest hits of 1987-88, voice, piano, guitar
• Television showstoppers
• The history of rock. The early 80s : piano, vocal, guitar
• The history of rock. The late 80s : piano, vocal, guitar
• Number ones : piano, vocal, guitar

2013-11-08

Downloaded sheet music for Mozart's Sonata K545

2013-12-01

Library books due:

• Big book of TV theme songs
• The real rock book. Volume 1, C instruments

2013-12-05

Library books due:

• Great superstars of today : piano/vocal
• 1001 jumbo : [the world's most popular song book] : words and music, with
• 101 most popular songs of the rock era
• 70's & 80's showstoppers : piano/vocal/chords
• Professional singer's pop rock fake book : men's edition

2014-01-05

Library books due:

• We love ... Christmas songs : voice/piano/guitar
• Academy Award songs : winners & nominees
• More songs of the 60's : piano, vocal, guitar
• Selections from 100 greatest songs of rock & roll : easy piano

2014-01-11

Library books due:

• The great composers fakebook

2014-01-26

My new year's resolution should have been to play B chords over and over until I finally learn to hit the F# with my left hand instead of F.

2014-02-16

Library books due:

• Easy piano white pages

2014-03-14

Library books due:

• One hundred and one most popular songs for easy piano
• Teach yourself to play piano
• One hundred and one popular songs for vocal, guitar, piano
• Adult piano method : lessons, solos, technique & theory : book 1
• Bastien piano for adults : a beginning course : lessons, theory, technic

2014-03-31

Library books due:

• Great music's greatest hits : 97 unforgettable classics for piano and organ

2014-04-09

Library books due:

• Girl groups
• The pop/rock era : the '80s : piano/vocal/guitar
• Gold : greatest hits
• 54 songs, 1960-1979
• 75 songs, 1890-1920

2014-06-04

Library books due:

• The John Williams songbook
• The golden years of Irving Berlin
• Vocal selections from That's entertainment : voice, guitar, piano
• Vocal selections from The music man
• Broadway gold : 100 of Broadway's best
• Little shop of horrors : original motion picture soundtrack
• The Wizard of Oz : vocal selections

2014-06-21

It feels like discovering a secret every time I play one of these pre-1960 pop songs that have an intro verse that no one ever performs

Perhaps the weirdest rarely-performed intro verse is to "I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover," like some unrelated song tacked on.

Bought Christmas Songs the World Over from Urban Ore, according to receipt within.

2014-06-26

I am trying to play songs as written instead of fake-book style from chords to see if I get any good at it.

Hooray for Captain Spaulding is still beyond me.

I am very slow and error-prone, but capable, at either standard (The Sound of Music, The Trolley Song, How High the Moon) and easy (Flintstones, Muppet Show, Woody Woodpecker) arrangements.

I know I am still not paying any real attention to key signatures, which will bite me. The Sound of Music stretches my left hand for the broken chords

But maybe it will work...

2014-06-27

Officially creeped out that Facebook knows what sheet music I was looking at on eBay the other day.

2014-06-28

At least made it all the way through Mozart's Sonata in C, although not with a lot of skill. But that's a milestone, right?

I am still so very slow, but the Trolley Song almost sounds like a song now

2014-06-29

oklahoma and oh what a beautiful morning work pretty well. bye bye birdie rhythm is impossibly hard

2014-07-02

I am trying to get decent at reading music, but mostly I play from the chord names and how I know the melody should sound

An hour and a half at the library counting songs with chord names and/or symbols to get a sense of the evolution of "fake book" notation

2014-07-17

Library books due:

• Vocal selections from Oliver!
• Vocal selections from Peter Pan : Broadway's musical hit!
• Purlie.
• Vocal selections from Fiddler on the roof
• Anything goes : vocal selections : revival ed.
• 50 most popular motion picture hits : for easy piano with guitar chords.
• Oklahoma! : vocal selection
• Bye bye Birdie
• Jesus Christ superstar : a rock opera
• Vocal selections from Annie
• The Themes of 007 : James Bond's greatest hits [piano, vocal, chords.]

2014-07-27

Musical revelation: Rubber Duckie from Sesame Street is almost the same song as Everyone Says I Love You from the Marx Bros' Horse Feathers!

2014-08-05

Today I bought a thrift store fake book and played through the whole first half of it, even songs I had never even heard before. And mostly it worked.

2014-08-09

Surprise twist to "fake book" history: UK sheet music of the 40s has chord names below, ukulele symbols above, and also solfege note names

2014-08-15

Day before yesterday? Bought that Nat King Cole book at Thrift Town, and have played through nearly the whole thing, almost all songs I had never heard before.

2014-09-03

Library books due:

• 100 best songs of the 20's and 30's
• Now & forever : complete original sheet music editions : any "out-of-print
• Motown anthology : piano, vocal, guitar
• '60s pop, rock : piano, vocal, guitar

2014-09-14

Library books due:

• The Rodgers and Hammerstein song book

2014-09-15

And I ordered the Rodgers & Hart and 100 Best Songs books Sep 15, 2014, so I probably had them from the library at the start of September.

2014-09-27

Fort Mason book sale where I got the Army-Navy Hit Kits was September 24-28, 2014. Looks like I was there 2014-09-27 14:46:55

2014-10-04

Moving on now from 60-year-old pop songs on the piano to 40-year-old material from King Crimson at the Warfield

2014-11-08

Today's fake book discovery: British music publishers had a notation for chord+bass decades before US. "Adim on B" in Alice Blue Gown (1920)

2014-11-10

Free long-tail business idea: sell me cheap bulk facsimiles of obscure 1920s-50s pop song sheet music

2014-11-13

eBay: 1920s Sheet Music Lot of 150+ Retro Great Art

2014-11-21

All these San Francisco addresses in this eBay sheet music from South Carolina. Wonder what instrument Frank L. Taylor of 6410 Geary played.

2014-11-24:

My indulgence lately has been bulk piano-vocal pop sheet music from the 1920s through the 1950s on eBay. Bulk because I'm trying to get good at sight-reading melodies I've never even heard before, and you can only do that with a steady supply of new songs. Originals instead of reprints, because reprints are relentlessly focused on the few songs that were popular at the time and are still remembered today, instead of the mass of relative failures, and even on just the good parts of those songs instead of the whole things. That time range, because I'm still terrible at reading full piano arrangements, and it's the transitional period between 1923, when the ukulele craze and May Singhi Breen got publishers to start including chord names on their music, and the Beatles, when pop songwriting shifted from songs that work well on piano to ones that work well on guitar. It's all kind of ridiculous, but it's still cheaper and smaller and more educational than a lot of things I've spent money and space and time on.

2014-11-26

Library books due:

• Tin pan alley : a pictorial history (1919-1939) with complete words and mu
• The All-American song book : the big hits of the 20's, 30's 40's, 50's & 60s, Volumes 1-3

2014-12-17

"Mister Gallagher and Mister Shean" has no fake book chords, so I played it all as written, at about half tempo. Not great, but not completely terrible either.

Library books due:

• Songs Judy Garland sings.

2015-01-01

Retroactive estimate (2015-05-07) of 1900 songs played in 2014 (sight-reading melodies and fake book chords): 1000 in the Armed Forces Song Folio and 900 in loose sheets.

2015-01-08

British pop sheet music still retained its distinctive notation, with solfege above and chords below, as late as 1952

2015-01-27

Tonight has been kind of a breakthrough in music reading for me. I am still terrible at it, but I am getting whole chains of chords in sequence with few mistakes, and repositioning relative to the previous notes instead of doing everything in absolute terms. Clearly there is something to the claims that it is important not to have to look at your hands, because I am doing a lot less looking at my hands, but that doesn't explain what's changed since last night, when I was struggling through the various arrangements of Alexander's Ragtime Band.

Played several songs from "Your favorite songs Complete! With Words and Music" beginning with Red Roses for a Blue Lady. I can't give you anything but love, For me and my gal, Ghost of a Chance, How Ya Gonna Keep Em Down on the Farm, Let a Smile be your umbrella, That's my desire, Stars Fell on Alabama, sweet Lorraine, Take me in your arms. Ain't Misbehaving is still far too hard to even get part of the way through though.

2015-01-29

Library books due:

• All the years of American popular music
• Mastering the piano; a guide for the amateur.
• Ways of the hand : the organization of improvised conduct

2015-02-01

Library books due:

• The story of fake books : bootlegging songs to musicians
• Hearing in time : psychological aspects of musical meter

2015-02-03

(Can I talk to you some time about how you learned to read piano chords at speed? I can read music but am slow and clunky)

2015-02-06

Made a couple of decent runs through "All of Me." There is hope that I can do this. Still haven't dared to try to do anything with 3 flats or 2 sharps yet though.

2015-02-07

Convention:

the Bb/C# combo. The b and # are written next to each other, but there's only one plausible interpretation, so that's what it is.

This is definitely a milestone: made it through the whole "Hello I Must Be Going/Hooray for Captain Spaulding" suite, even the part in Ab when I haven't even been daring to play anything with 3 flats let alone 4. I am clumsy and slow and terrible, but I am literate!

2015-02-11

Very inconvenient for online research that copyright kicks in exactly at the moment in music notation history that I am eager to understand

2015-02-15

Rastall's "Notation of Western Music" at least mentions "fake book" chords.

2015-02-23

I can play "Mister Sandman," with its oom-pah harmony, pretty much as written. Not well, not with grace, but without a lot of hesitation either.

Yesterday I did kind of decently with "Get out and get under the moon" too. Steph asked me afterward if I could please play some songs she knew instead of 1930s pop that she's never heard of. My plan is to play as many songs as possible until I get good at it.

2015-02-28

So mystifying that the late 60s-early 70s piano-buying boom came at the same time as the sheet music publishing industry was collapsing

It's been a good couple of days. I am still pretty terrible, but I think I am on the edge of decent.

Two days ago I ran through a bunch of familiar pop—Pennies from Heaven, Lullaby of Broadway, Unforgettable, The Coffee Song, Swinging on a Star, How Much is that Doggie in the Window, Heart and Soul, Red Sails in the Sunset, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, You Are My Sunshine, Treasure of Sierra Madre, Singing in the Rain, Peter Cottontail, Witch Doctor, Music Music Music, the Trolley Song—and I'm not great, but I can do it.

Other stuff is still beyond me, though. Nights on Broadway, Making Our Dreams Come True, The Girl from Ipanema, The Glow Worm, attempts at Tori Amos or Beatles stuff: essentially anything where the rhythm is complicated or sparse. And a sharp or one or two flats is still all I can really manage.

(I couldn't have even told you until yesterday that the third sharp is G. I never even learned that.)

Yesterday: sticking a foot into classical. Ran through Fur Elise several times. I never really got the rhythm before, that it starts with a pick-up. Now I get it.

Random Mozart stuff from that compilation. Surprisingly a lot of his stuff is easier than pop, since I guess I am better at reading broken chords than full chords. I still fall apart at the harder keys though. His stuff is all so far up the keyboard that I am better at treble leger lines now.

2015-03-01

Doing pretty well with Al Jolson's "Little Pal."

2015-03-18

Library books due:

• Sousa's great marches in piano transcription : original sheet music of 23
• The art of the fugue
• Billy Joel complete : piano, vocal, guitar.
• Hair : the American tribal love-rock musical
• Symphonies
• Various piano works : including bagatelles complete, rondo a cappriccio, v

2015-03-20

Things I am bad at:

• Complicated rhythms, especially when in 3 instead of 4

• Especially whatever it's called where things hit just before the start of the measure instead of on the beat

• Big block chords

• Leger lines beyond the first few

• Key signatures with more than 2 flats or 1 sharp

• Arpeggios

2015-03-29

Still very rhythmically clunky, but getting better. Finally started giving pieces in Eb an honest chance instead of immediately deferring them. More than one sharp is still scary.

(See 2017-12-24 below for songs I timed on 2015-03-30.)

2015-04-25

Avoiding the temptation to scrap all these slides and write a new talk about the evolution of the written form of 20th century pop music

2015-04-26

Eb is great now. I've been playing all kinds of Eb.

Three sharps is still impossible to do well.

I just felt downright competent at Rambling Rose, After Graduation Day, and Did You Ever Get that Feeling in the Moonlight. Lots of errors, but fluid, somehow.

2015-04-29

Tried to play some of the Burt Bacharach anthology and it was a disaster. Always Something There to Remind Me (either arrangment), The Look of Love, just terrible. But That's What Friends Are For was less bad, especially if I stopped trying to make sense of the rhythm and just played the notes, and Close To You was actually pretty decent. It's the rhythm that always kills me.

Returned to the sheet music and That's When I Learned To Love You went very smoothly, although still with plenty of mistakes of course. I apparently know the tropes of late 20s music, and it doesn't try to do anything rhythmic. Also Don't Cry Little Girl was OK, because apparently I know the tropes of 1950s music too.

The 60s and beyond are a different beast.

2015-04-30

Sight-reading through "A Gal in Calico" just now really makes me think, I can do this. No, it's not all right, and I know there are plenty of things I can't do at at all still. But there are songs, and this is one of them, where it really does pretty much work.

2015-05-07

This would have been an insanely expensive way to learn before the current era of cheap bulk used eBay sheet music.

It looks like I had to sight-read about 1900 melodies to get from being a by-ear-plus-chords pianist to being a decent fake-book pianist… and about another 900 songs to get to my current shaky adequacy at reading full pop piano arrangements.

2015-05-17

Library books due:

• The Bacharach and David song book
• Anthology

2015-05-18

Wanted: music theory that explains why that chord seems so surprising for 1948, and why they hear Gm7 instead of Bb/C

2015-05-21

Library books due:

• Sweet songs for gentle Americans : the parlor song in America, 1790-1860
• The Cambridge history of American music
• Great men of American popular song; the history of the American popular song

2015-05-28

Library books due:

• 40 golden songs of Bacharach & David

2015-06-09

Piano hacks: "bell," "toy piano," arpeggio to fake chords bigger than your hand, chromatic chord shifts independent of key. Any others?

2015-06-20

Milestone: got distracted while playing "(Most of all) I want your love" and was thinking about something else (the Hammond organ in Vincennes) while continuing to play. Multitasking!

"And it still goes" has a really smooth arrangement, even if I still make a ton of errors

2015-06-23

Just pulled out "Everyone says I love you." I remember being completely flummoxed by this a few months ago. Now I am still stumbling as far as keeping in time goes, but the music is just fine.

I can't tell if the arrangements in the Gem Dance Folio of 1926 No. 2 are really as repetitive as they seem or whether I just know the tropes by now.

2015-06-30

"You walk by" is the kind of song that makes me think I really can do it. It's in C, and it doesn't do anything complicated with rhythm, so it pretty much works.

2015-07-01

Fats Waller's "My fate is in your hands" feels good too. I'm sloppy but close.

2015-07-03

The sheet music to "Ain't Misbehavin'," repeatedly, hopefully getting a little better each time

2015-07-05

I've spent almost the whole three-day weekend running through the standards of The Definitive Jazz Collection. (Up through Nice Work If You Can Get It so far, which I remember bailing out of before.)

I tried a zillion times to play Ain't Misbehaving correctly, but correct performance still eludes me. Over the Rainbow and The South of Music weren't much better, so it's not just because it's particularly hard.

But the reading seems to be going great even if the performance isn't. The only things I've skipped over are the Jobim ones and a couple of others that are clearly meant for guitar, because I can't get the rhythm right and they are all about rhythm.

There was one thing in there that got up to 6 flats, which is kind of insane. It was half accidentals in that section anyway so it was a mess however you notate it.

2015-07-13

A few days ago I was feeling terrible. Tons and tons of mistakes on things I ought to be able to do better. My best theory: switching glasses after breaking my regular ones must have shifted my visual perception slightly, just enough to make it hard.

But yesterday evening I was feeling really good about myself. My tempos are still uneven and I am still terrible at:

• Big block chords
• Hard keys (>3 flats, >2 sharps)
• Lots of accidentals
• Left hand in the treble clef
• Bouncing bass
• Rolled bass chords
• Deep ledger lines

but there was a lot of stuff that I just knew without having to think about it. Fluency.

This is with about 5" of additional songs played (plus folios, duplicates etc.), which means 333 or so on top of the previously accounted "shaky adequacy" playing:

• 13" of fake book reading (~867) + army navy hit hit (~1000)
• 14" of full arrangements (~933)

"Second Fiddle" is the smoothest-playing country thing ever. "Rags to Riches" has a really weird bridge that feels like an unrelated song.

2015-07-26

Library books due:

• The Frank Sinatra anthology

2015-08-10

Sparse rhythms are still hard. Saturday night I played a couple of songs from the modern Sesame Street Songbook and then the 1971 versions, and the 1971 is easier because it is fuller, even though the new one is trying to be easier by being sparse.

The modulation in the Sesame Street theme is still very hard, from F to A with three sharps.

Ab is still hard with the four flats, but I can mostly do it. A is just awful.

I am doing a lot better with chromatic slides.

I tried playing Tuxedo Junction with its bouncing bass a few times. I am still bad at bouncing my left hand around but not as terrible as before.

"Little Boy Blue" in 1934 Berlin Dance Folio I was playing almost all the bass chords without thinking about it, even ones I would have previously been skipping the bottom or top note in.

2015-08-13

Library books due:

• Ain't misbehavin' : the new Fats Waller musical show.
• The Cambridge history of American music

2015-08-19

I'm playing through Volume 5 of the Armed Forces Song Folio, and I'm really hitting it. Just did "Ruby Gentry" with all those chromatics and triplets and it just worked. Barely even looking at my hands.

Of course whatever the next one in the book was was a disaster. But still!

2015-08-23

Now doing vol 1 (i.e., 2) of Army Navy Hit Kit again. In "Give me the simple life" finally sort of got the feel for swinging the melody into the previous measure.

2015-08-24

And then I get to "My Heart Stood Still" and I am basically playing it at half tempo. All those big magestic chords and I can play them but I can't play them fast.

2015-08-25

Zip-a-dee doo-dah is still a giant pain. I really want to have the left hand hit on 1 even if the melody is pushing forward. A void in the rhythm is terrible.

2015-08-26

I have crossed over some threshold of competence lately. No, I am not good. No, I can't even play any single song through without fumbling something. No, I still can't play with more than two sharps. But my sight reading is downright adequate.

And oh yeah, bolero rhythms are working great now. Beguine I guess too, as in "begin the."

2015-08-30

"Kokomo, Indiana" is another one that I can basically play but only at half tempo.

2015-09-02

Library books due:

• Stardust melody : the life and music of Hoagy Carmichael
• Stephen Foster and the rise of American popular culture

2015-10-14

I'm doing so much better in the past few days. In particular "I'd be lost without you" where I worked through it on Monday enough times that I was really feeling good. Steph took notice and started watching me and of course the attention meant I fluffed it. But so much more smooth than before on that and so many other songs.

Not everything: I barely made it through "Broadway Rhythm" last night and "I wished on the moon" tonight. But competence is in sight.

2015-10-18

A weird Taylorist efficiency to these 1950s piano arrangements I like so much. No unnecessary motions. Maximum musicality per note played.

2015-10-27

Maybe this should be the day that I declare competence. Not perfect by any means, but I am really hitting it.

There are 7 shelf-inches of music sitting on top of the piano, so to add to the numbers from July 13, that's like a total of 3600 songs played.

I am still terrible at more than two sharps, rolled bass chords, keeping in rhythm, and at playing absolutely anything newer than 1970, but I feel basically fluent now.

2015-10-31

Those 7 shelf-inches of music are exactly 430 songs.

To reiterate: there were previously 28 shelf-inches plus 6 inches. So that's 2519 songs in loose sheets, plus the folios and stuff.

(There are another 5 inches of reserves on the piano, and 17 inches in the back room.)

Adding the thousand or so Hit Kit songs, if these are all actually 2-minute pop songs, that's 117 hours, which is way too low for a year and a half of doing this for an hour or two almost every night.

2015-11-01

Actually did a half-decent job on a song with a backbeat ("The Candy Man"). Maybe 1960s pop will not elude me forever.

Weird how little music publishers care whether they print the canonical version of a song or some other arrangement

2015-11-09

Wow, I am really hitting it tonight. The Jul 1951 and Jan 1951 Armed Forces Song Folios, preceded by some out of order from the bound volume that includes What A Difference A Day Made, although I didn't hit my stride until I had moved over to the loose issues.

I'm not necessarily actually playing better, but something happened to my confidence, where I'm just doing it, not really thinking about it, hardly looking at the keys, and it is smooth and just works. A really good feeling.

Can I keep it up, or will I be back to fumbling tomorrow?

2015-11-10

Yeah, something has really stuck from yesterday. I am probably really not playing any better, but I have so much more confidence about it.

2015-11-21

The confidence still comes and goes.

Instead of sight reading, in the past four evenings I've played "How High The Moon" 115 times, mostly with metronome at 71 or 75 bpm, and finally have a demonstration that I can play a whole song through basically in correct rhythm without blatant mistakes.

The embarrassing part was that for the first 100 times, I was playing the first two measures wrong (starting on D instead of B) without noticing.

2015-12-03

Tonight I notice myself getting F-C-F splits right in the bass instead of cheating and just playing two notes of it as a single interval.

2015-12-08

Definitely getting better at bass chords. "Have yourself a merry little Christmas" just now, and I think I hit them all, if awkwardly.

2015-12-10

Library books due:

• The new Sammy Cahn songbook
• The great songs of Harry Warren : from 42nd Street to Hollywood

2015-12-18

Made it through "Stormy Weather:" not great, but it's in Ab and I remember giving up on it before

2015-12-23

Put away another 254 songs (4 inches).

So that makes (5 + 14 + 7 + 5) * 63 = 1953 songs played this year, plus folios and stuff?

There are about 6 inches of folios on the stack, so that's another 375+ songs (probably more, since they are denser than loose sheets), plus whatever ones I got from the library.

Harry Warren, Sammy Cahn collections from the library recently. What else?

2015-12-31

Library books due:

• Cole Porter, a musical anthology
• The great songs of George Gershwin

2016-01-01

Retroactively: I don't know where I got 1953 songs in 2015 above, because it seems like it ought to be:

• 933 through may, as cited 2015-07-13
• 333 (5") through jul 13
• 289 hit kit 5 (136) , 2 (153)
• 430 songs (7"), 10-27
• 16 Jul 51, Jan 51 hit kit
• 115x how high the moon
• 254 songs (4")
• 375 in folios

for a total of 2745, plus at least a hundred or two unrecorded in folios. It still seems low compared to the 5818 in 2016. At least I kept better track after this point.

2016-01-03

The new year has brought some new confidence and skill. I've really been hitting it solidly last night and today. My tempos are still uneven but there's all kinds of things that I can just do, like running through the Oklahoma folio. Starting to feel more comfortable with four flats and two sharps, although still clunky with that. 60s song rhythms still difficult.

2016-01-19

So far this year: 184 songs in loose sheets, plus

• 7 Oklahoma

• 43 "Robbins 50 favorites" (wrong cover)

• 16 Hill and Range #2

• 15 Hill and Range #4

• 12 How the west was won

• 16 Hill and Range #3

• 12 Paramount #8

• 15 Robbins Hollywood #5

• 11 Robbins Hollywood #4

• 13 (first 13) Memory Song Chest

• 34 Nat King Cole

• 25 in the "keep" stack

so that's 403 songs in 18 days. Whew!

And some more:

• 6 The Sound of Music
• 10 The Wizard of Oz

Do-Re-Mi in particular makes me feel strangely literate, because even though I'm bumbling through all the chords, I totally get what it's doing. I've got the abstraction even if not the execution.

"The Night is Young" is the one a couple of days ago that I was bumbling but even the fact that I could bumble means I am almost there.

I am still bad at more than one sharp, but bumbled through Cosi Cosa a little better than previously.

Still terrible at rock rhythms.

2016-02-02

Additional in January:

• 162 songs from the Donald E Vaughan promotional copy set

Take away those 25 in the keep stack above.

• 63 keep stack
• 9 Army-Navy Hit Kit Issue "T"

All of this still on the piano so don't double count it.

I think that is 628 songs in the month, plus whatever misc I forgot about.

It is terrible to be so close to being good and yet to still be so bad.

2016-02-08

Friday night tried to play the Harold Arlen folio from SF Public Library and was just terrible.

But was cranking all day Saturday and Sunday, and together with tonight replayed all of volume 7 of the Armed Forces Song Folio:

• 136 Armed Forces Song Folio Vol 7

2016-02-15

And this weekend:

• 136 Armed Forces Song Folio Vol 5

2016-02-21

I am getting to be half decent at Ab. "Baubles, Bangles, and Bows" just now.

And Cole Porter's "So In Love," so maybe Ab really does work.

2016-02-25

I am doing pretty well in general, but "Talk to Me" (from Armed Forces Song Folio) is interestingly tricky. It is full of triplets, so the parts that aren't triplets I keep wanting to swing like crazy, like it's a 12/8 march or something.

2016-02-27

"A lot of livin' to do:" I can play the notes, but the bass rhythm is impossible, even in isolation.

• ONE two three four FIVE six SEVEN eight
• one TWO three four FIVE six SEVEN eight

The transgression that rock committed was telling the world that they could rest on one.

• 134? Armed Forces Song Folio #8

minus the Peter Gunn instrumental and some blues with a zillion accidentals that were just beyond me to make it through

Took a week instead of a weekend this time since I got sick

2016-02-27

• 9 On A Clear Day You Can See Forever folio

2016-02-29

• 80? The Definitive Jazz Collection (88 minus the Jobim ones and maybe another one or two)
• 92 Keep stack
• 6 more Donald Vaughan
• 8 Beatlemania #1

So that's 601 songs played in February. All put away now to try to keep the months better separated.

2016-03-03

For song-to-time scaling, last night timed how long it took to play some songs:

• 5 24:43
• 1 05:40
• 4 18:09

So that's 291 seconds per song, 4:51

2016-03-12

Slow start this month!

• 136 Armed Forces Song Folio #9

2016-03-13

Banged my way through Beethoven's 5th Symphony twice tonight. It was terrible, but I could make it through, unlike when I downloaded it Feb 2nd.

Getting reasonably comfortable with 4 flats. Better with 2 sharps than before but still screw it up all the time.

2016-03-16

• 29 Gem Dance Folio for 1941

(Except Lovely Lagoon, which is too hard)

2016-03-20

Feeling pretty good about myself! After

• 35 Summer of '42
• 56 Armed Forces Song Folio Mar 1962 - Aug 1962, Dec 1962
• 91 loose sheets (still on piano, sideways)

2016-03-21

I finally made it through "I Left My Heart in San Francisco!" A disaster, but I didn't get scared off.

2016-03-26

Baby Doll by Kenyon Hopkins (Song Folio Jan 1957) has an interestingly difficult ostinato an octave up. Getting better at it but still clunky.

2016-03-27

• 160 Armed Forces Song Folio

(T, Jan-Mar-Jul 51, Jan-Feb-Mar-Apr-Jun-Sep-Oct-Dec 56, Jan-Apr-May-Jun 57, Jan-Feb-Mar-May 63)

2016-03-31

• 47 loose sheets
• 19 Mister Rogers' Songbook (but short, so call it 10?)

Which makes 564 songs played in March

2016-04-03

April! and back from the library with a bunch of musicals

• 15 Songs from Walt Disney's Mary Poppins
• 8 "110 in the Shade" Vocal Selection
• 7 Les Misérables piano/vocal (because the rest are too hard)
• 7 The Boy Friend Song Album
• 10 Carnival! vocal selections

2016-04-11

• 136 Armed Forces Song Folio #2
• 32 Dec '57, Oct '57, Sep '57, Jul '57
• 7 The Fantasticks
• 8 Peter Pan
• 12 Songs of Burke and Van Heusen
• 9 Walking Happy

2016-04-21

Library books due:

• Carnival! : vocal selection
• 110 in the shade. vocal selection
• Vocal selections from The unsinkable Molly Brown
• The boy friend : song album
• Vocal selections from Kismet
• Songs of Burke and Van Heusen
• Vocal selections from Walking happy
• Les miserables : the musical sensation
• Vocal selections from Annie
• Songs from Walt Disney's Mary Poppins
• Willy Wonka & the chocolate factory : piano, vocal, guitar
• Vocal selections from Peter Pan : Broadway's musical hit!
• Vocal selections from Oliver!
• The fantasticks : vocal selection

2016-04-25

• 25 Shapiro and Bernstein one-a-year folio that starts with half a page of The Gaby Glide
• 46 loose sheets (still on the piano, sideways)
• 120 "keep" loose sheets

I was feeling pretty good about myself, but this weekend I've been clumsy again.

2016-05-01

• 84 Armed Forces Song Folio #3 (2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 1950: 12 each)
• 11 loose sheets

So that's 527 songs in April

2016-05-08

May so far:

• 106 loose sheets
• 15 Round Up Memories folio

2016-05-22

• 19 Feist 1943 Song Folio
• 11 Robbins Hollywood Song Folio #4
• 12 Paramount Song Folio #8
• 25 Crawford Song Album #2
• 30 Gem Dance Folio for 1941
• 26 Gem Dance Folio for 1936
• 30 Gem Dance Folio for 1945
• 30 Gem Dance Folio for 1942
• 30 Gem Dance Folio for 1943
• 26 Gem Dance Folio for 1937
• 15 loose sheets

2016-05-27

• 10 Bing Crosby Song Folio
• 12 Paramount Song Folio #9
• 10 Morris-Mayfair Song Folio #2
• 12 BVC Song Folio #6
• 25 Album of New Radio Favorites #15

Oh and

• 18 the start of Feist Dance Folio #4

2016-05-31

• 45 loose sheets
• 15 Design for Music
• 33 Judy Canova's Popular Mountain Songs

So that's 555 songs in May.

I was good yesterday morning, and then I was bad again by last night, and I'm sort of OK now. I wish I understood what makes me so uneven. Sometimes I feel like I've really got it, but it doesn't last.

2016-06-05

June!

• 22 Lennon and McCartney: A Retrospective
• 4 loose sheets
• 29 Gem Dance Folio for 1924
• 5 Armed Forces Song Folio Dec 1963
• 6 Armed Forces Song Folio Aug 1964
• 2 Captain Spaulding/Hello I must be going
• 15 Hollywood Song Folio #5
• 10 Robbins All Time Hit Parade
• 20 Hollywood Song Folio #3
• 10+ runs through Ev'ryone Says I Love You

2016-06-07

And let this be remembered as the weekend when I found out that I really could play Mozart and the Beatles, at least if they didn't use too many sharps.

(16th notes are still awkward, though, and the backbeat still doesn't come naturally to me, especially under triplets.)

2016-06-09

The early-baroque stuff makes me feel amazingly competent because harmonic and rhythmic and melodic structure hadn't been invented yet. Two basically-unrelated noodly melody lines going at the same time in even rhythms? Sure, I can read that!

• 66 The Complete Beatles Volume 1 (skipping over the other songs with more than 3 sharps)

2016-06-19

Quanno Staje Cu Mme' (in 45 Hits Of Our Times from Italy) was kind of a remarkable feeling: I was just plowing through the chorus, triplets and 16th notes and all, as if it was completely natural. It's kind of the same song as What A Difference A Day Made so maybe it helps to start with a sense of what it's going to do.

2016-06-21

Type all day, piano all night, ache all morning

2016-06-23

Library books due:

• An anthology of piano music
• Gymnopedies, Gnossiennes, and other works for piano
• Forty French hits of our times.
• Opera at the piano : 74 selections from 44 operas, transcribed for interme

2016-07-01

• 9 loose sheets
• 156 loose sheets
• 1 Beethoven's 5th symphony
• 19 Sesame Street Songbook #1
• 45 45 Hits of Our Time from Italy
• 24 Leeds Juke Box Parade
• 22 loose sheets
• 8 Guys and Dolls Vocal Selections
• 40 40 French Hits Of Our Time
• 34 34 Hit Parade Extras: Broadway Shows
• 61 100 Greatest Hits of the 60s and 70s (through p.195)
• 10 Mozart: his greatest piano solos (p.57)
• 40 The Baroque Period (p.78)

So 658 songs played in June!

Oh, plus a few runs through whatever in Hamilton is somewhat playable. Mostly You'll Be Back.

2016-07-06

Library books due:

• Les grands succes d'Edith Piaf.
• World Charts presents The French songbook ; songs the French people love
• Edith Piaf memorial album : twenty-two internationally famous selections

2016-07-10

Why do synth keyboards tend to run from C to C, anyway? G to G seems like it would give better coverage of what keyboard music usually needs

July!

• 20 World Charts Presents the French Songbook
• 50 Lullaby of Broadway and 49 Harry Warren Movie Showstoppers
• 75 loose sheets

Still alternating between feeling good and feeling clumsy. Still terrible at more than 3 flats and more than 2 sharps.

2016-07-15

• 34 loose sheets

2016-07-26

• 33 mostly from Great Songs of Broadway

in the lobby of the Bonneville Hot Springs hotel the other day, my first reasonable access to a piano in a week. I am not great, but I was reading pretty fluently, and nobody tried to chase me out of the lobby.

I had tried to play a few things on a street piano in Portland, but it was in such bad shape it hardly counts

2016-07-27

• 19 Keith Prowse' 7th Song and Dance Album
• 12 Fifth Paramount Song Folio
• 12 25 Hits Through the Years

on the out-of-tune lobby piano of the Crystal Crane Hot Springs

2016-08-01

• 34 loose sheets
• 28 Famous Song Hits

So 317 songs in July. Not terrible considering we were traveling for half the month.

2016-08-03

I have to say, the fact that I could play songs, in public, without rehearsal, for 2+ hours at a time, twice in a week, with a stopped-up ear, on poorly-maintained pianos, must mean that I have passed the "I can do it" milestone. I am not great, but I can do it.

That's after a little over two years of solid work: fake-book sight reading from June 2014 through Jan 2015, and then full arrangements since then.

(June 2014 per overdue notice from Oakland Library for Irving Berlin, Broadway, and movie musical songs that I wouldn't have previously known. In April 2014 I was checking out rock stuff that I would have known the melodies to already.)

So why I am I still so clumsy sometimes, when I am conscious of what I am doing instead of being able to just do it?

2016-08-31

• 39 loose sheets
• 30 "30 years, 30 hits"
• 21 The Passing Parade
• 100 20s 30s & 40s Showstoppers
• 32 Armed Forces Song Folio: Sep 56, Aug 56, Feb 55, Mar 55
• 47 Rodgers and Hart Song Book

So 269 songs in August. Slowest month this year, but no surprise given all the time with Dot in the hospital.

2016-09-05

• 16 from World's Greatest Hits of the Forties

In Murrieta

2016-09-18

Last night I found myself trying to play some grace notes in Bluebirds in the Moonlight (5th Paramount Song Folio). Not very good at it though.

I am still really bad at giant treble chords where both hands are playing part of some mass of notes at the top of the treble clef and beyond.

Getting better at key of Ab and a little better at D, but still not good.

2016-09-25

Getting more comfortable with complicated rhythms. In particular, made it through The Impossible Dream.

2016-10-01

• 11 loose sheets
• 33 Song Hits of the Fabulous 50s (Tea For Two Cha Cha is too hard)
• 74 Great Songs of Broadway
• 24 Armed Forces Song Folio (Mar 62, Oct 63, Jun 56)
• 19 Keith Prowse' 7th Song and Dance Album
• 12 Paramount Song Folio #5
• 25 25 Hits Through the Years
• 33 Nat King Cole Unforgettable
• 44 loose sheets
• 31 Irving Berlin Universal Dance Folio #28
• 12 Paramount Song Folio #9
• 12 Paramount Song Folio #2
• 12 Paramount Song Folio #6
• 15 Robbins Hollywood Dance Folio #7
• 33 loose sheets
• 49 Beatles Complete I-Z (through Savoy Truffle)

So that's 455 songs played in September

I am actually pretty decent now, although still with several gaping holes in my skills

2016-10-08

• 27 loose sheets ("keep")
• 42 loose sheets

2016-10-11

If there's anything I've learned from YouTube piano videos, it's that no one ever plays the original, published arrangement of anything

2016-10-16

• 128 Armed Forces Song Folio #4
• 11 "keep"

and several more runs through Pennies from Heaven, Rock around the Clock, How High the Moon, and Baby Doll, but I don't know how to count that

2016-10-18

Library books due:

• The sound of Broadway music : a book of orchestrators and orchestrations

2016-10-31

• 10 The Best 4 TV Songs
• 12 34 Hit Parade Extras Broadway
• 56 Armed Forces Song Folio (Mar 62, Jul 51, Mar 51, T, Jan 51, Feb 56, Jun 62)
• 96 loose sheets

So 382 songs played in October, plus whatever dupes I missed

2016-11-07

Getting better at using my right hand to play the top of a too-big left-hand chord when needed, sometimes without thinking about it too much.

I spent an hour and a half last night filming myself trying to get through Stars Fell On Alabama once without making any big mistakes. I tend to get something wrong in the bridge every time. (Chosen because it doesn't have any page turns, it's in C, it doesn't do anything crazy. Still not quite enough.)

2016-11-19

• 54 loose sheets
• 40 Armed Forces Song Folio (Jul 62, Oct 54, Jan 55, Apr 62, May 62)
• 10 Irving Berlin Song Folio #1
• 12 BVC Song Folio #6
• 15 Design for Music
• 11 So This Is Eden
• 24 BVC Star Spangled #5
• 12 Robbins Hit Parade
• 22 34 Hit Parade Extras Broadway

2016-11-30

• 67 Sinatra: the best of the Capitol years
• 7 loose sheets
• 23 Frank Sinatra Anthology Vol 2
• 19 loose sheets
• 35 Rodgers and Hammerstein Song Book

So that's 351 songs in November, plus whatever dupes I missed

2016-12-08

Library books due:

• The best of the Capitol years

2016-12-10

Library books due:

• Frank Sinatra anthology. Volume 2

2016-12-18

• If I cheat now and play music that is written in the key of E as if it were written in E♭, will I ever learn to play in E? #pianocapo

2016-12-22

• 14 The King and I vocal score
• 3 Knuth's Fantasia Apocalyptica

I'm finally starting to actually pay some attention to notated swing instead of just ignoring it and treating it as if it was all marked as straight eighth notes

I can basically deal with four flats or two sharps now without thinking about it too much. But the three-sharp version of Getting To Know You is still too much.

"The Roar of the Greasepaint" is probably the first stuff in 6/8 that I've ever felt fairly comfortable with instead of stumbling. (Dec 13). But (Dec 17) it gets trickier later in the book.

• 18 Christmas Songs You Love to Sing

Apparently I am basically OK (although certainly not smooth) with 1960s and 1970s stuff for the most part. Haven't tried to work into the 1980s or 1990s yet. Rhythms still too hard for me to read: Joy to the world (Jeremiah was a bullfrog), The continental walk, Monday Monday.

Peter Gunn's ostinato is really hard for me to deal with, especially with the right hand in the bass clef, and triplets over the uneven left hand rhythm.

• 35 100 Greatest Hits of the 60s and 70s (last 35)
• 13 loose sheets (1960s)
• 18 Roar of the Greasepaint
• 30 Gem Dance Folio for 1941 (and I can do Lovely Lagoon now, although clumsily)
• 77 The Joy of Christmas (but they're short)
• 26 Carols and Songs of Christmas (also short)
• 21 loose sheets (Christmas)
• 23 Star Dance Folio #34
• 12 Rainbow Album #4
• 27 Manhattan Dance Folio #3
• 31 loose sheets
• 30 Sammy Kaye #1

I can play stuff from the 80s too! Especially if I cheat and play key of E stuff in Eb. Hard key signatures are still hard. (Dec 19)

• 28 The Best 4 TV Themes

Dec 20: I feel right now about 80s+ music about the way I did about "Do Re Me" on Jan 19: I am not getting it right, but the failures are mere mistakes, not an inability to even contemplate it.

The thing that is still basically impossible is sparse rhythms. "The Schuyler Sisters" from Hamilton has some places that I can't count because there's not enough context around it. I need to try "A lot of livin' to do" again.

(Which is still the weird thing about "easy piano" arrangements: they are all about being as sparse as possible, which makes me wonder why rests come so much more easily to everyone else. Also weird that easy piano stuff prefers close note clusters in the bass to wider intervals. I am bad at left-hand clusters.)

Cheating and playing B in Bb opens the door to even more things.

• 6 loose sheets (1980s)
• 22 The best of what's popular now!

1980s arrangements are all boring and terrible. A lot of work to play with very little payoff in harmony or interest. They are dedicated to reproducing the recorded rhythm section.

• 12 Hamilton (through The Room Where It Happens)

A lot of it still very awkward through sparseness or weird harmony or complicated rhythm or things that are just hard to reach.

• 4 Billy Joel Piano Solos (through Baby Grand)

Arranged in an annoying style where the left hand is clustery and keeps moving at the same time as the right.

• 4 Top Hits of 1989 (through Shake for the Skeik)

The Love In Your Eyes is the stupidest 80s arrangement yet.

• 2 loose sheets many times (The Peanut Vendor, Baby It's Cold Outside)

Baby is easy because it's just vamping, no melody, so the repetition is to try to figure out how to get some melody in. I have spent enough time playing stupid 80s rhythm now that I can do The Peanut Vendor from 1930 basically fine now, even though it was hard a couple of weeks ago, so that's progress.

2016-12-29

Continuing the vacation habit of giving neglected hotel lobby pianos some attention

2017-01-07

The 1982 arrangement of Allentown in 50 Popular Giants #1 may not actually be easier to play than the 2001 arrangement, but it's a lot more natural

• 3 Allentown, Cornflake Girl, You Were Always On My Mind

On the sadly deteriorated piano at the Kauai Beach Resort (4331 Kauai Beach Dr, Lihue, Hawaii):

• 38 Song Hits of the Fabulous 50s
• 6 Song Hits of the Fabulous 50s (starting again)
• 8 The King and I Vocal Score (p108-131)

So that's 511 songs in December, for 5818 songs in 2016!

2017-01-08

The "more to call your name" measure of Baby Won't You Please Come Home (in the Sinatra 100 compilation) is the first time I think I have ever played something that anticipated the downbeat with both hands and just got it right the first time. Lots of other weird stuff going on with harmony in that song though. (Jan 7)

Also in "A Foggy Day in London Town" (Jan 8). In other cases I still really want the left hand to hit on 1 though.

"For once in my life", in 12/8 with a backbeat, is really hard for me to feel correctly.

• 21 Burt Bacharach Anthology (through On My Own)

2017-01-09

Library books due:

• One night only : the greatest hits
• The best of Billy Joel
• Anthology

2017-01-11

• 14 50 Popular Hits #1 (thru Piano Man; recording now since the bookmark is falling out)

"Faithfully" is too hard in key and rhythm—skipped. Also Rhythm in the Sky "Tell her about it" rhythm is hard but I fumbled through it

2017-01-15

• 28 loose sheets
• 100 20s 30s and 40s Showstoppers
• 100 Frank Sinatra Centennial Songbook

2017-01-21

• 9 Cabaret Vocal Selections
• 136 Armed Forces Song Folio #7
• 18 Marx Bros songs from http://www.marx-brothers.org/music/sheetmusic.htm (Animal Crackers through Love Happy and a couple others)
• 4 loose sheets
• 12 Beatlemania #1 (through Girl)

Hard keys and rhythms in Cabaret, but I can stumble through it. They like modulating between C and Db.

I guess it's been a little over a year since the previous run through Song Folio #7. I feel like there were some I still couldn't do last time but didn't say anything about it then. All good this time other than a little rhythmic bumbling with 6/8 and rock.

The Beatles stuff is still weird, I think because my knowledge of the songs is fighting with what the arrangers thought was important to incorporate (all the bass rhythms).

I am still pretty much slopping over swung 8ths in older material because I can get away with it. Stuff from the 70s you've really got to read the 16th notes. Also continuing to ignore grace notes, but doing pretty much all optional melodic ornaments.

Finally dawned on me how circle of fifths relates to modulation. Going up a full step costs you 2 sharps. Going up a half step costs you 7 sharps or 5 flats, so you are really restricted if you want to have a reasonable key on both sides of the modulation.

2017-01-29

• 24 Too many songs by Tom Lehrer
• 10 Old MacDonald Had A Farm
• 45 Great Songs of the Year 1973
• 100 100 Giant Hits of the 60s and 70s

Too hard: The World is a Ghetto, Bang A Gong

that's 621 so far

2017-01-31

• 14 Simon and Garfunkel's greatest hits
• 15 Country The 1st Top 25 of 1982

"Shine" is too hard in E

So that's 650 songs in January!

2017-02-12

• 13 loose sheets
• 6 Lennon & McCartney Retrospective (through Oh My Love)
• 11 Hamilton (through The Room Where It Happened)

"What'd I Miss" is impossible to play reasonably. The rest is just hard.

• 5 The Heights (through No Me Diga)
• 4 Pink Floyd The Wall

Reasonably playable but tons of rhythmic variation and sparseness

• 44 Armed Forces Song Folio #8 (through They Can't Take That Away From Me)

"Peter Gunn" rhythm is too hard to play right.

• 9 Country the 1st Top 25 of 1982 (the rest)
• 13 What's Popular Now! Level 3 #5
• 26 The Rose and From The Empire Strikes Back The Imperial March Plus 24

2017-02-14

If nothing else, I am sure a lot better at left hand arpeggios than I was before.

2017-02-20

I can basically play three sharps now, although still not with a lot of confidence.

2017-02-23

• 25 Queen Deluxe Anthology

(minus I want to break free, tear it up, need your loving tonight, tie your mother down, Brighton Rock)

• 73 The Beach Boys Complete
• 22 Say Say Say Read Em And Weep
• 14 Dames at Sea vocal selections
• 10 The Yearling vocal selections
• 8 The Most Happy Fella vocal selections
• 9 Purlie Vocal Selections
• 2 Goldfinger a couple of times
• 1 All My Love plus several failed attempts at other Led Zeppelin
• 5 Top Hits of 1984 (Girls just want to have fun, Here comes the rain, Karma Chameleon, Radio Gaga, Jump)
• 15 Pink Floyd The Wall (through Is there anybody out there?)

I think the rest of the Wall would probably be OK but it's actually pretty tedious to play

2017-02-24

• 7 The Boy Friend song album
• 6 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

2017-02-27

Library books due:

• Damn Yankees : a musical comedy
• The pajama game : a musical comedy
• In the Heights

2017-03-01

• 15 Promises, Promises vocal selections
• 49 BMI 50th Anniversary Songbook (Both Sides Now is too hard)
• 14 Annie vocal selections
• 3 Peter Pan vocal selections (through Never Never Land)
• 6 Little Me vocal selections (through Deep Down Inside)
• 6 Raisin vocal selections (through You Done Right)
• 7 Tori Amos Anthology

skipped Floating City, Silent all these years, Winter, Mother. Hard keys, hard rhythms.

• 21 50 Supersongs of 1979

Too hard: Don't you right her off, What you won't do for love, Hot number, Saturday night sunday morning, Love takes time, Precious love

• 14 Damn Yankees vocal score (through Whatever Lola Wants)

It is technically hard music, with lots of hand crossing and stuff.

• 35 All Easy Classics to Moderns (through p47)

So that's 498 songs in February.

2017-03-09

Library books due:

• Rent : vocal selections
• Willy Wonka & the chocolate factory : piano, vocal, guitar
• Vocal selections from Peter Pan : Broadway's musical hit!
• The boy friend : song album
• Vocal selections from the most happy fella
• Purlie
• Vocal selections from Promises, promises
• Vocal selections from Annie
• Vocal selections from The yearling

2017-03-12

Library books due:

• Grand Hotel : the musical
• Vocal selections from Here's love
• On becoming a rock musician
• The Wrecking Crew : the inside story of rock and roll's best kept secret
• Let's talk about love : why other people have such bad taste
• Dames at sea : vocal selections
• Raisin

2017-03-18

Library books due:

• Vocal selections from The apple tree
• Vocal selections from the Broadway musical How now, Dow Jones
• Vocal selections from "Little me"
• Sweet Charity : the musical comedy
• Vocal selections from Tenderloin
• Oscar Brown Jr.'s Joy : a musical come-together

2017-03-20

Library books due:

• Damn Yankees : a musical comedy
• The pajama game : a musical comedy
• In the Heights

2017-04-01

4 Song Hits of the Fabulous 50s 13 loose sheets (keep)

Joco:

• 1 Take me out to the ballgame 1

• 1 Take me out to the ballgame 2

• 1 Goldfinger

• 1 Baby elephant walk

• 1 Rock around the clock 2

• 1 The nearness of you

• 1 Say it

• 1 Says my heart

• 1 Thanks for the memory

• 1 You leave me breathless

• 1 Lovelight in the starlight

• 1 How'd ya like to love me

• 1 Moments like this

• 1 Mister Gallagher and Mister Shean

In Murrieta:

• 13 Les Mis vocal selections (minus Stars because four sharps)

Back in Oakland:

• 7 Tenderloin vocal selections

• 24 Juke Box Parade

• 42 Forty Two Fabulous Favorites

• 21 Happy Chappies Greatest Collection of Outdoor Songs

• 14 Les Mis vocal selections

• 30 Songs for Guys and Gals

• 3 loose sheets (Chicago, Rock around the Clock, Everyone says I Love You)

• 18 Song Gems of Yesteryear

• 8 The Apple Tree vocal selections

• 15 Joy vocal selections

• 15 How Now Dow Jones vocal selections

• 40 40 Hits of our times #1

• 12 Paramount Song Folio #6

• 17 Nat King Cole Unforgettable (Nature Boy is still too hard)

So that's 310 songs in March

2017-04-??

• 40 40 Hits of our times #2

• 20 Platter Parade

• 50 50 Best of All time Hits Warock/Cherio/Rytvoc

• 2 Hamilton (Non-Stop, Right Hand Man)

2017-04-25

• 14 Beethoven Favorite and Easy Compositions
• 75 Essential Keyboard Repertoire #2
• 42 Golden Songs of Bacharach and David
• 88 Definitive Jazz Collection

2017-04-26

Capriccio Catalan is pretty rocking. I think this is the first classical thing I've ever really enjoyed playing, even though I was pretty messy at it.

• 12 De Sylva Brown and Henderson Song Album
• 15 Robbins Hollywood Dance Folio #8
• 7 loose sheets

2017-04-30

• 10 You're a good man Charlie Brown vocal selections
• 15 Superman vocal selections
• 12 Chicago vocal selections
• 12 Mame vocal selections
• 5 Lil Abner vocal selections
• 8 The Music Man vocal selections
• 6 The Sound of Music vocal selections
• 7 loose sheets
• 5 Everybody's favorite selected songs
• 5 56 songs you love to sing
• 57 Beatles I-Z (through Slow Down)
• 12 The joy of romantic piano
• 62 Essential keyboard repertoire #6 (through p120)
• 1 Shiny

So that's 633 songs in April

I am feeling very solid some times, and then I get clumsy again. My big failing is hard keys: four or more sharps or flats. Better at them than I used to be at least!

I should probably try more classical: hard keys but no hard rhythms, so I only get one kind of hard at once.

"Shiny" is probably the first thing where I was reading pop 16th notes with no difficulties. No triplets so maybe that's why it works.

Now I know "The Man In The Moon Is A Lady" is from Mame.

Got the piano tuned Tuesday. The high and low notes are better but the G above middle C doesn't seem quite right.

I have started counting rests by wiggling my leg, without meaning to. I guess that makes me better at sparseness.

Got the piano tuning touched up!

2017-05-06:

• 2 loose sheets
• 27 Gem Dance Folio for 1937 #2

2017-05-07:

• 29 Gem Dance Folio for 1928
• 8 Fanny vocal selections
• 8 No Strings vocal selections
• 8 110 In The Shade vocal selections
• 9 Unsinkable Molly Brown vocal selections
• 20 Top Teen Tunes

And I seem to be able to play quarter note triplets over an eighth note double backbeat now, as in Goldfinger.

• 26 Gem Dance Folio for 1937

which seems to have no overlap with 1937 #2

2017-05-09

• 30 Gem Dance Folio for 1942

The White Cliffs of Dover is especially good

2017-05-11

I think I can safely say that I am at the skill level that the Dance Folios targeted. Buy the dance folio, have a party, sight-read through it so your friends can hang out to some recent pop hits.

The Mozart variations are harder than some of his other stuff. He doesn't use hard keys or rhythms or hand stretches, but the two lines going at the same time are tricky enough that I still mess them up.

I am getting a lot more places where you're supposed to play the top note of the bass with your right thumb, and being fairly automatic about it.

Things I still really need to get good at:

• rolled chords (what are you really supposed to do with the Bb-Eb-G?)
• keys with many sharps, especially E and B
• grace notes, which I am generally ignoring
• swung 8ths, which I am generally ignoring
• dynamics, which I am completely ignoring

2017-05-12

• 30 Gem Dance Folio for 1943

"A Guy 24 and A B-29" makes me feel really competent. It is 1945 "rock" and ultimately it isn't much more substantial than most of the Dance Folio stuff, but in the same way as Do A Deer, it uses a lot of chords, and I basically can hit them all without really trying.

2017-05-13

• 10 Werewolves of London, On Broadway, Dukes of Hazzard, YMCA, Jump, Karma Chameleon, Billie Jean, Girls Just Want To Have Fun, Say Say Say, Sweet Dreams
• 5 Baker Street vocal selections
• 7 Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope vocal selections
• 8 Leave It To Jane vocal selections
• 10 Carnival vocal selections

2017-05-14

• 30 Gem Dance Folio for 1945
• 31 All New Santly Joy Dance Folio #2
• 13 Big Book of Movie and TV Themes: Chim Chimney, Flintstones, I Love Lucy, Little House, Leave it to Beaver, Major Dad, Masterpiece, Muppet Show, Murder She Wrote, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Rainbow Connection, Secret Agent Man, Under the Sea

2017-05-17

Library books due:

• Vocal selections from The unsinkable Molly Brown
• Vocal selections from It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Superman
• 110 in the shade. vocal selection
• Vocal selections from Hot spot
• No strings : vocal selection
• Vocal selections from Mame.
• Fanny : vocal selection
• Vocal selections from Li'l Abner
• You're a good man, Charlie Brown
• Chicago : the musical : vocal selections

2017-05-18

• 19 Warner Bros Song Folio #2
• 14 Doctor Dolittle vocal selections
• 19 Buffy Once More With Feeling vocal score

2017-05-20

8 loose sheets

2017-05-21

• 4 Tubular bells, We built this city, Spinning wheel, I got love
• 26 Gem dance folio for 1936
• 42 loose sheets (Donald Vaughan)

2017-05-24

• 30 Queen Deluxe Anthology!

Which demonstrates that I don't have to be scared of a bunch of sharps! Not all great, but I made it through.

2017-05-28

• 3 Sesame Street, Mr Rogers theme, A Day in the Life
• 4 loose sheets
• 25 Bing Crosby's Favorite Songs
• 13 from Pink Floyd Anthology
• 5 Big Hit Songwriters (The Who)

2017-05-30

• 34 Lennon & McCartney: A Retrospective

I am sort of coping with keys with lots of sharps, but I am slow and uncertain. I can get why people practice scales instead of just songs. There is probably some set of exercises that would establish the fingerings in my mind.

Pulled out A Lot of Livin' To Do, which I couldn't play on 2/27/16, and now I can. Not exactly smooth, but no fundamental problems.

So 557 songs in May

2017-05-31

Library books due:

• Carnival!
• Vocal selections from High spirits
• Vocal selections from 1776
• Vocal selections from Brigadoon
• Don't bother me, I can't cope
• Baker Street : a musical adventure of Sherlock Holmes
• Leave it to Jane : vocal selection

2017-06-01

Now I know what slashes through a note stem mean: http://jennifercluff.blogspot.com/2009/05/slashes-through-note-stems.html

Hamilton vocal score uses this for 32nd notes in Ten Duel Commandments

• 10 Hamilton vocal score: Hurricane, Aaron Burr Sir, Farmer Refuted You'll Be Back, Aaron Burr Sir, My Shot, Schuyler Sisters, Farmer Refuted, You'll be back, Right hand man

I skipped the story of tonight because the key of B still scares me

2017-06-02

• 14 A winter's ball, helpless, satisfied, story of tonight reprise, wait for it, redcoat transition, stay alive, ten duel commandments, meet me inside, that would be enough, guns and ships, history has its eyes on you, yorktown, what comes next

Oh I am not good, but I am slogging through

2017-06-03

• 12 Dear Theodosia, Tomorrow there'll be more of us, Non-Stop, What'd I Miss?, Cabinet Battle #1, Take a break, Say no to this, The room where it happens, Schuyler defeated, Washington on your side, One last time, I know him

(Skipped Cabinet Battle #2) What'd I Miss is still a complete mess.

• 8 The Adams administration, Hurricane, The Reynolds Pamphlet, Burn, Blow us all away, Stay Alive reprise, It's quiet uptown

Couldn't make it through We Know

• 34 34 Hit Parade Extras: Broadway Shows

2017-06-04

• 7 Election of 1800, Your obedient servant, Best of wives and best of women, The world was wide enough, Who lives who dies who tells your story, Exit music, Alexander Hamilton

After playing Hamilton, everything else seems downright reasonable.

• 11 Brigadoon vocal selections
• 7 High Spirits vocal selections

2017-06-06

"The last night of the world" ("Played on a solo saxophone") is in B, and I basically made it through! Fumbly but there is hope. The saxophone player must hate playing in B too.

I remember Luck Be A Lady being impossibly hard last time I tried it. It's got some awkward key changes, but is basically fine now.

2017-06-08

Library books due:

• More great super stars of today
• Pick of platinum rock gems.
• 101 most popular songs of the rock era
• The best of the seventies : complete words and music : 80 great songs of t
• Highlights of the 70's & 80's : complete original sheet music editions
• Highlights of the 60's & 70's : complete original sheet music editions
• Vocal selections from Li'l Abner
• Miami vice ; + Freedom : (plus other top recorded hits) ; piano, vocal, gu
• 70's & 80's showstoppers : piano/vocal/chords
• Best of the seventies : all no. 1 hits.
• New 80's gold update
• Greatest songs of our time : sixty-three golden hits.
• Great superstars of today : voice, piano, guitar.

2017-06-09

"A song" seems to be about 4 minutes currently, based on 8 songs in 33 minutes, so that means I'm spending 35-40 hours a month playing.

2017-06-18

• 60 loose sheets (Donald Vaughan)
• 1 Captain Spaulding
• 73 Best Broadway Songs Ever
• 40 40 French Hits Of Our Time
• 10 Schuyler sisters, You'll be back, Helpless, Satisfied, Wait for it, That would be enough, History has its eyes on you, Dear Theodosia, Washington on your side, Satisfied again

And fake-booked the Schuyler Sisters vocal lines

Two Lost Souls (1955) feels kind of like a proto-double backbeat. When did it really come into use?

2017-06-25

Hmm, I think Hamilton actually means oscillating between octaves by the slashes through note bars.

• 12 Hamilton (through History Has Its Eyes On You, and Burn and Quiet Uptown)
• 14 Donald Vaughan
• 8 Seven Bridges for Seven Brothers vocal selections
• 6 Umbrellas of Cherbourg vocal selections
• 16 Armed Forces Song Folio (Aug 1956, March 1962)
• 5 Universal Dance Folio for 1936 that I didn't count earlier
• 24 Columbia's Best of Schultz that I didn't count earlier

2017-06-30

• 96 Broadway Showstoppers (didn't get through the last few)
• 15 Abba Gold (through Does Your Mother Know)

Lots of hard keys in the Abba

• 5 Jamaica vocal selections (through Savannah)

• 22 Tommy (through Welcome)

• 7 Mondo Cane musical score

• 16 The Unpublished Cole Porter (in Murrieta)

So that's 562 songs in June

2017-07-10

• 14 Donald Vaughan
• 20 Album of New Radio Favorites #15
• 50 Songs Recorded by Elvis Presley #2
• 15 Robbins Hollywood Dance Folio #14
• 5 Hamilton: It's quiet uptown, Helpless, Satisfied, I'll be back, What'd I miss

What'd I miss is still complete garbage. On the others I can't keep the tempo but can basically do it otherwise. The I'll be back triplets are messy.

2017-07-12

Library books due:

• Pet Shop Boys discography : the words and music of the complete singles co
• The umbrellas of Cherbourg : vocal selections
• Tommy : rock opera
• Mondo cane : musical score
• The best of Blood, Sweat and Tears.
• Seven brides for seven brothers : musical selections : piano, vocal, chord
• Songs recorded by Elvis Presley
• Vocal selections from Jamaica
• Gold : greatest hits

2017-07-25

My finger joints seem stiff this week

From more scanning, less piano playing? Or a permanent shift?

Also gouty right big toe this morning

2017-07-31

• 6 The best of Blood Sweat and Tears. (hard arrangements)

A lot more scanning and a lot less piano this month!

• 68 Armed Forces Song Folio (2/63, 4/57, 5/57, 3/63, 4/56, 8/64,1/63, 1/56)
• 3 The Messiah (North Central excerpts)
• 85 loose sheets (promos)

So that's 261 songs in July

2017-09-01

• 8 The sound of music vocal score

• 2 Something rotten vocal score

• 197 loose sheets

• 5 Stage Door Canteen

• 4 Ev'ry month

• 24 Armed Forces Song Folio (Oct 1957, Jul 1957, Dec 1957)

I am feeling good about my playing now. Still not good enough for contemporary musicals, but getting more comfortable all the time.

• 11 Bing Crosby Dance Folio #2

A little harder than the usual 30s arrangements. All the copyrights are carefully masked out. Is it the source for a pirate edition?

• 7 loose sheets
• 40 Meet the Stars
• 8 Armed Forces Song Folio (Sep 1957)
• 31 Leslie Bricusse Songbook and Magazine

So that's 337 songs in August

2017-09-18

• 108 loose sheets

• 11 Hello Dolly vocal selections

• 8 Guys and Dolls vocal selections

• 34 Another 34 Hit Parade Extras

• 9 loose sheets

• 15 Armed Forces Song Folio (May 64, Jul 64)

• 23 Star Dance Folio #34

• 26 Gem Dance Folio for 1937

• 30 Gem Dance Folio for 1942

• 30 Gem Dance Folio for 1943

So that's 294 songs in September

2017-10-07

• 30 Gem Dance Folio for 1945
• 18 Keith Prowse Song And Dance Folio #7
• 10 Bing Crosby Song Folio
• 8 loose sheets
• 10 Wizard of Oz vocal selections

I guess it's been a year and a half since I played the Wizard of Oz, and I am a whole lot better now than I was then. I think I must not have even attempted them all then.

2017-10-13

• 33 Armed Forces Song Folio T, Jan 57, Mar 51, Oct 57
• 50 Broadway Musicals 1940-1949, which I started last month or before
• 31 Santly-Joy Dance Folio #2

2017-10-29

• 8 Armed Forces Song Folio Dec 1956
• 8 Armed Forces Song Folio Feb 1956
• 15 Robbins Hollywood #15
• 15 Robbins Hollywood #11
• 31 Universal Dance Folio #18
• 21 Robbins Hollywood #19
• 23 Robbins Hollywood #18

So that's 311 songs in October

2017-11-06

• 13 Chess vocal selections
• 8 Armed Forces Song Folio, Mar 1956
• 15 Hollywood Dance Folio #17

Last night made it through the Chess Vocal Selections. One song was too hard (The American and Florence: a zillion sharps and I couldn't even remember what it was supposed to sound like), but the rest is hard but playable.

I got the grace notes in The Story of Chess, which I remember failing to do before in the PDF score.

I've been trying to play the Milli Vanilli folio, and the bass rhythms are very hard for me.

Played a few times:

• 4 Chicago (1960), Karma Chameleon, Jump, Girls Just Want to Have Fun

2017-11-16

Mostly been playing fairly unchallenging loose sheets (following the Yeargdribble "Read stuff that is insultingly, embarrassingly easy" advice) and the Sinatra centennial anthology. Made a video of Whistle While You Work but I can't get through the whole thing without any errors.

Better at the "I'm broke" part of The Lady Is a Tramp than I used to be, but I can be accurate either at the notes or at the rhythm, but not both at once.

• 3 Mozart Rondo Alla Turca

I'm better at the parts with 3 sharps than I would have thought.

• 63 loose sheets

2011-11-18

Momentarily confused by how to play the 16th notes in the intro to More (in Sinatra centennial) but then thought to do them crossing my left hand over and that worked fine

2017-11-19

I'm surprised I didn't comment on anything in the Sinatra centennial anthology in January. Some of this stuff is still kind of hard.

2017-11-21

• 100 Sinatra centennial, which I guess I still didn't say anything specific about, but I'm surprised I could play it all in January.

2017-11-22

• 16 Robbins Hollywood Dance Folio #14

2017-11-23

• 15 Robbins Hollywood Dance Folio #16

2017-11-26

• 23 loose sheets
• 12 Frank Sinatra's Hits on Parade

2017-11-29

• 4 Hamilton vocal selections (Schuyler sisters, You'll be back, Helpless, Satisfied)

Gave another try to What'd I Miss, but it's such a mess

2017-11-30

• 21 loose sheets
• 15 Hill and Range #4
• 16 Hill and Range #2

So that's 328 songs in November

2017-12-01

Recounted the block of music that I sight-read in fake-book style in late 2014, since it still seemed to be together on the shelf. 12 inches, not 13 inches, is how I would measure it now, and I count it as 831 songs, pretty close to the 867 I estimated before.

But this can't be right since there are a lot of songs in here, scattered throughout, with only ukulele chords, no chord names, so if I played them, it was from full arrangements. So I am just confused now. The historical record is corrupt.

But my statements of the time are reasonably clear:

• 2014-11-24 I am sight-reading melodies,
• 2014-12-17 I try a full arrangement,
• 2015-01-27 I am doing OK at some full arrangements. But I don't know what songs they were.

2017-12-09

• 55 loose sheets, from what I had thought was the original batch but now doubt

After the BDE party, Steph requested some Christmas music, so:

• 3 Rudolph, Sleigh Ride, White Christmas

I am a lot better at the key changes in Sleigh Ride than I was last year, but am still clumsy and incapable of keeping up the tempo. I was making a lot of mistakes in White Christmas but I think it's just because it was already 1:00 in the morning and I was getting really tired.

I still fumble the fills in the Silver Bells chorus too

• 4 White Christmas, Silver Bells

2017-12-17

• 51 loose sheets

plus a bunch of runs through The Nearness of You

• 74 The Joy of Christmas (but they're short)
• 26 Carols and Songs of Christmas
• 9 Twinkle toes, Count your blessings, I'll be home for christmas, Here comes Santa Claus, Nuttin for Christmas, Frosty, Winter Wonderland, Santa Claus is coming to town, Have yourself a merry little xmas, Let it snow

2017-12-23

• 24 Mr Rogers Songbook
• 9 loose sheets
• 7 Let it snow, Comin to town, The xmas tree, Jingle Bells calumet, Jingle bells crosby, Do you hear, The xmas song

2017-12-24

A message from my past self:

On 2015-03-30 it took me 6:57 to play Strange Interlude.

Today (2017-12-24) it took 4:34 and then 4:17.

So at least I can read 1/3 faster now than then…

I'm still not great at playing it because it does some weird stuff.

This also demonstrates that the pile of music I recounted was from early 2015, not late 2014.

Paper Doll 2015-03-30 took me 7:04, now 3:18. I'm surprised I got more better at it than Strange Interlude, since it seems like it should have been easier then.

2017-12-25

There's Yes! Yes! In Your Eyes: 2015-03-30 was 7:17, now 4:27. I'm not sure what to make of all of this, except to confirm that I was in fact very slow in early 2015 as I imagined I was.

It's still taking me like 5 seconds per measure now, when I would think correct tempo would be typically be 4.

I guess I need to play something with an actual metronome marking and see how I compare.

In the Evening: 6:03 including repeat of last phrase after patter, vs old 8:01

Always You: 3:54 vs old 6:03

Me and the Boy Friend: 3:28 vs old 5:28

You're Like that Dreamy Moon: 2:21 vs old 3:58

It's still hard to read stuff that was typeset with that terrible 1800s-style engraving kit

Skyrocket: 4:24 vs 7:43

It's kind of fun with the tremolo part. I must have just glossed over it in 2015.

The Pal that I loved stole the Gal that I loved: 3:42 vs 6:52

Still some really weird chord progressions in there

Dancing with my shadow: 3:36 vs 7:53!

Love's old sweet song: 2:57 vs 5:15

You walk by: 2:54 vs 5:26

Originally timed it as 6:08 but I think that must have included the previous song too

2017-12-27

On the Old Spanish Trail: 7:58 on 2015-04-02, now 4:45 or 3:55

I am still not great at the ostinato

The house is haunted by the echo of your last goodbye: 9:16 vs 5:29

And there you are: 8:22 vs 4:47

• 15 timed songs as above
• 13 other loose sheets
• 1 Chestnuts roasting

2017-12-31

• 1 Shine on you crazy diamond

I'm pretty sure the transcription has Part III in the wrong key. Kind of a mess regardless.

Last night: a good feeling when I'm too tired to think coherently but can still basically read and play on autopilot.

2018-01-01

• 2 The Man With the Whiskers, That's What I want for Christmas
• 13 Sousa Album
• 30 loose sheets
• 9 International library of piano music 2 (through p 57)

So that's 346 songs in December, for a total of 5087 songs in 2017.

2018-01-07

• 61 loose sheets
• 32 more loose sheets today

2018-01-08

• 12 loose sheets

2018-01-15

Library books due:

• The international library of piano music

2018-01-17

• 4 Queen Night at the Opera (DOTL, Prophet, Love of My Life, Good Company)
• 56 Armed Forces Song Folio (5/55, 7/56, 5/56, 9/55, 8/55, 12/55, 10/55)
• 41 loose sheets
• 4 Beethoven (6 easy variations, Sonata 10/3, Fur Elise, Sonata 49/2)

2018-01-20

• 24 previously unrecorded some time last year in Sixty Swinging Sounds/All time hit paraders for '72, through p74
• 3 BS&T: Lisa Listen To Me, Spinning Wheel, Go Down Gambling
• 20 70s/80s pops: this is your life, king of the road, thunderball, taste of honey, karma chameleon, girls just want to have fun, jump, ymca, in the navy, respect yourself, ghost riders, (illegible), mash, sweet caroline, country roads, always how it should be, this is mny country, til love touches your life, until it's time for you to go

2018-01-21

• 7 Help Songs By Lennon & McCartney With One By George
• 13 In The Groove
• 22 22 Popular Vocal Solos
• 14 Movie Pops
• 40 The Book of Golden Rock 'N' Roll

2018-01-23

And I felt like I was playing quite well this weekend. Still fumbling on sharp keys, but basically getting the rock rhythms, even if I sometimes had to count them very explicitly. I still cheat on swung 8ths though

2018-01-28

• 26 loose sheets (keep)
• 67 Happiness is 67 Love Songs
• 29 Beatles A-I (29 of the first 39)

Still too hard: Boys, All I've Got to Do, Anna, Ask me Why, Because, Blue Jay Way, Chains, Day Tripper, Do you want to know a secret, Dizzy Miss Lizzy

What is still hard is mostly not rhythms (aside from the occasional 16th note triplet or something) but keys with many sharps. E is too hard unless the rhythm is very slow and simple.

• 8 loose sheets

2018-02-05

No opportunity to play any music in DC, so that's a total of

• 483 songs in January

2018-02-24

I've felt rusty ever since getting back from DC. Only just now feeling somewhat fluent again.

While the family was here, Dad asked me to play Girl from Ipanema, which was terrible because I can only just barely pull it off even without performance pressure. Also Alone, which is not as hard, but I still was not solid. Kevin urged me to practice with a metronome since my tempo adherence is so bad. Not sure if that can help until my reading is better unless I just totally skip things.

• 32 Donald Vaughan
• 19 Pre-war
• 14 Donald Vaughan
• 37 loose sheets
• 16 "keep"
• 12 Paramount #6
• 12 Army Hit Kit #8
• 30 Universal #34

2019-03-01

• 20 loose sheets
• 30 Gem 1942
• 10 Dr Doolittle
• 25 Gem 1943

So that's 257 songs in February, part of which I was out of town for

2018-03-10

• 10 Wizard of Oz
• 5 loose sheets
• 27 Rosalind Paige

2018-03-22

• 18 Joan Brooks Ballad-Time Favorites (Red Sails, Nightingale, White Cliffs of Dover all in this folio)
• 8 Bells are Ringing vocal selections
• 15 Barry Wood Hit Parade of Songs
• 40 40 French Hits of Our Times
• 10 Rosalind Paige artist copies
• 1 loose sheet

2018-04-01

• 30 artist copies from the latest batch
• 6 from Scrap SF
• 16 Queen Deluxe Anthology
• 3 Top Hits of 1984 (with several runs through Girls Just Want To Have Fun)
• 4 Today's Top Pops
• 23 Yip Harburg songbook
• 10 Armed Forces Song Folio #8
• 5 Robbins Hollywood #2

So that's 231 songs in March, for which I have no excuse

2018-04-09

• 22 loose sheets (which I called "latest batch" above, and which I for some reason labeled "3")

The even more recent set of 25 I labeled "2"

2018-04-10

• 12 artist copy #3 (Al Beilin)

2018-04-14

OK so that was 34 songs in April since I was gone for most of it

Tonight! Made it through a bunch of Hamilton, even What Did I Miss! Still a mess, but progress. That would be enough and History has its eyes were notably better than before.

• 6 Satisfied through What Did I Miss

Earlier in the month:

• 20? total runs through The Glory of Love, Red Sails in the Sunset, White Cliffs of Dover, and Berkeley Square
• 25 artist copies
• 29 German sheets
• 30 "keep" sheets
• 22 artist copies
• 9 Montana Könige des chansons
• 40 Schlager & Chansons 20s-40s

2018-05-22

• 8 The Glory of Love, Red Sails in the Sunset, White Cliffs of Dover, and Berkeley Square again (from Joan Brooks Ballad-Time Favorites)

• 13 loose sheets

• 1 Ev'ryone Says I Love You

• 100 Frank Sinatra centennial

Fly me to the moon ostinato, Last night when we were young hands crossing, The lady is a tramp "i'm broke", My kind of town, New york new york key changes, send in the clowns still notably hard

• 9 John Williams Anthology mostly still too hard

2018-05-26

I'm OK at this! Not perfect by any stretch, but I am downright OK. I know what I am doing.

2018-05-27

Which I say from the experience playing

• 52 The Rodgers and Hammerstein Song Book

minus Poor Jud, which I skipped because I still can't deal with 4 sharps, and A Real Nice Clambake, which I was making a mess of for some reason.

Other things that are hard:

• The intro to the Carousel Waltz
• The left hand chord clusters in Mister Snow
• Soliloquy, which I also made a mess of
• The fast runs in We Kiss in the Shadows

Also:

• 23 loose sheets
• 4 Joan Brooks again
• 3 Chicago, Besame Mucho, What a Diff'rence a Day Made

Ev'ryone Says I Love You used to be so hard for me to get the left hand right, but now it generally feels like a comfortable warmup

2018-05-27

How to practice sharp keys without other difficulties at the same time?

• 1 Getting to Know You (vocal score) because it's in A
• 2 Chicago (1922) in F but jumping left hand. A lot better than I used to do at it, at least

2018-05-27

• 1 Sixteen going on seventeen reprise: in E, but so many accidentals too

  • Take a break from Hamilton is in E
  • Hey there from the Pajama Game vocal score is in Gb
  • Hey there reprise is in B
  • Nothing Like a Dame in South Pacific vocal score is in A
  • Wash that Man in South Pacific vocal score is in E

• 1 The Rainbow Connection starts in A

  • Gary Indiana is in Ab
  • Rocky Horror (2000): Time Warp in A, Sweet Transvestite in E,

1 hour and 3 minutes of trying to play in E: All My Loving, And Your Bird Can Sing, and starting Ask Me Why. So that probably counts as

• 15? Beatles songs in E

2018-05-28

I had it in my mind that Nature Boy was hard, but it's not. Turns out it's because the version in the Nat King Cole Unforgettable folio has 3 sharps and lots of 16th note ornaments. The loose sheet pop version has 1 sharp and is fine.

2018-06-03

• 8 Joan Brooks
• 1 Beethoven #5
• 7 "keep"
• 3 loose sheets

So that's 433 songs in May

And I am feeling pretty good about myself, aside from known deficiencies:

• 3 and 4 sharps (or more)
• big left hand clusters
• what is the tempo supposed to be for a rolled chord, for a trill, for tremolo? A fraction of the note value? A fraction of the time signature? As fast as you can do it?
• grace notes, which I am still generally ignoring
• swung 8ths, which I am generally still playing straight

2018-06-05

• 31 Nat King Cole Unforgettable

Skipped Nature Boy and Lush Life because I still can't deal with the key signatures

2018-06-09

• 9 Bing Crosby Song Folio
• 1 Royals
• 11 Robbins Hollywood Song Folio #4
• 30 Irving Berlin Universal #16 (1929)
• 11 Hamilton (through What'd I Miss)

What'd I Miss is still a disaster. Other from Hamilton is slow and uneven but recognizable.

I had thought the Irving Berlin Universal folios were hard, but this one wasn't. 1937 seems to be harder arrangements, although it doesn't help that it's late and I'm tired.

2018-06-13

By George, I think I've got it!

• 71 71 Giant Hits (1969, not 1971)

Some of them are still hard—Take My Love, Man from Uncle, Turn Around Look At Me, Valley of the Dolls—but basically I can do it all.

• 9 Sesame Street (2007)
• 3 Sesame Street (1972)

I still like the 1972 arrangements better. Ordered a copy of the 1971 edition, which is apparently different from them both

• 3 Satie Gymnopedies

I still don't get why he notates the hand jumps and staff splits the way he does

• 31 Irving Berlin Universal #31 (mid-1937)

2018-06-17

And then I've been clumsy again the past few days. I think maybe just from being tired? I've been up early most of the past several days.

• 7 Joan Brooks
• 6 Ilse Werners Lieblingslieder
• 2 Captain Spaulding/Hello I Must Be Going
• 1 Ev'ry One Says I Love You
• 30 Irving Berlin Universal #30 (1936-37)
• 20 All Time Hit Parade Song Folio (through You Call it Madness)

The tiny print in All Time is a big pain. Maybe my eyes aren't as good as I think they are?

I also wonder if I am sitting too close to the piano. My right forearm is feeling cramped.

2018-06-20

• 20 Irving Berlin Universal #1 (through I'm Gonna Dance Wit…
• 39 Lasse Martenson (through Pogostan Balladi)

2018-06-15

I never tallied up June.

335 songs in June, the last week and a half of which I was in Alaska for, with no piano access.

• 1 Sesame Street (1971)
• 2 Route 66/Where can I go without you
• 2 Girls just want to have fun/Karma chameleon
• 1 Ev'ryone says I love you
• 24 loose sheets from Vancouver
• 12 DeSylva Brown and Henderson
• 12 Paramount Song Folio #5

1971 Sesame Street does a tiny one-note transition in the bass for the key change instead of just ratcheting over

• 5 And oh, right, the first five songs from the School of Rock vocal score

2018-06-24

• 4 Ev'ry one says I love you
• 31 Irving Berlin Universal #14
• 31 Irving Berlin Universal #15
• 8 Joan Brooks
• 4 Irving Berlin Universal #29 is too hard still
• 10 Warner Bros #2 and then got tired of it

2018-06-28

"Blue Skies" from Irving Berlin #14 stuck in my head

• 1 loose sheet
• 8 Armed Forces Song Folio Dec 64
• 15 Robbins Hollywood Dance Folio #1. A few hard ones toward the end
• 16 Hill and Range #3

2018-08-01

Including Aug 1 since I lost track of the date:

• 15 Robbins Hollywood #4
• 15 Robbins Hollywood #5
• 15 Robbins Hollywood #3
• 4 Joan Brooks

So that's 236 songs in July. Surely there should have been more?

2018-08-19

• 1 Ev'ryone says I love you
• 10 Old Mac Donald Had A Farm
• 29 Irving Berlin Universal #32

a lot of which is hard, but not, I think, as hard as some of the other years?

• 29 Irving Berlin Universal #21

which is not hard

• 11 So This Is Eden

These songs are an amateurish mess

• 15 Robbins Hollywood #7
• 15 Robbins Hollywood #6
• 10 Les Mis

The things in E are still terrible for me

• 5 Songs for guys and gals

• 17 Big Book of Movie and TV Themes (Flintstones, A Team, Lucy, Chim Chimney, Champagne Time, Endless Love, Father Knows Best, Flashdance, Greatest American Hero, Little House, Mickey Mouse Club, Mr Ed, Muppet Show, Pennies from Heaven, Rainbow Connection, Secret Agent Man, Under the Sea)

• 6 Irving Berlin #28

stopping because a lot of the arrangements are too hard for me

• 1 Girls just want to have fun
• 4 50 greats for the piano (1, 2, 5, 8)

Is this how Turkish March is normally notated, half in grace notes?

2018-08-19

• 22 Armed Forces Song Folio #8

Peter Gunn still stumps me

2018-09-06

• 8 Song Folio Aug 1959
• 32 loose sheets

So that's 215 songs in August, belatedly tallied

2018-09-29

• 1 Enigma Variations 9 (Nimrod)
• 48 loose sheets
• 50 Broadway Musicals Show By Show 1940-1949

2018-10-02

• 15 Barry Wood Hit Parade of Songs
• 14 Robbins Hollywood #6
• 3 Into the Woods (So discordant—am I playing it right?)
• 7 Moana (hard keys, tricky rhythm)
• 4 Purlie
• 5 Phantom of the Opera (hard keys)
• 4 Carpenters Anthology
• 4 Broadway Showstoppers
• 33 Lawrence Welk Singalong Book

So that's 188 songs in September. Really slowing down.

2018-10-31

• 3 loose sheets
• 15 Robbins Hollywood #3
• 15 Robbins Hollywood #5
• 15 Robbins Hollywood #7
• 14 Singin' in the Rain vocal selections
• 5 Waitress vocal selections
• 3 Rocky Horror (1974) vocal selections
• 47 Rodgers and Hart Song Book

So only 117 songs in October

2018-11-28

Rhythmic breakthrough: in Yolanda and then in Atchison, Topeka, Santa Fe, finally managed to play swung 8ths in the left against straight 8ths in the right!

• 15 Robbins Hollywood Song Folio #5
• 11 Robbins Hollywood Song Folio #4
• 12 Paramount Song Folio #6
• 34 Hit Parade Extras Broadway Shows
• 8 Bells are Ringing vocal sel
• 23 Remick Star Dance Folio #34
• 31 Santly-Joy Dance Folio #2
• 15 Robbins Hollywood Dance Folio #4

2018-12-02

So 149 songs in November.

2018-12-09

• 18 Christmas songs
• 19 Keith Prowse #7
• 15 Hollywood Dance Folio #14
• 19 Mister Rogers Song Book

Some of the Mr Rogers are still hard because of the weird jazz key changes and stuff

2018-12-21

• 26 Carols and Songs of Christmas
• 15 Robbins Hollywood Dance #16
• 25 Christmas sheets
• 10 Christmas Songs You Love To Sing
• 11 J Fischer and Bro

Things that are still hard:

• "Let it snow": Mozart-style 8va bass in intro
• "Comin to town": music box chorus
• "Silver bells": 8va descending intro. Chorus fills still messy too.
• "Sleigh ride": The key changes! But a lot better than I used to be
• "Winter wonderland": Still not great at the octave bounces, but better than I used to be
• "I'll be home": High descending intro; not good at making the fills quiet
• Bro: Meant for chorus, not piano, so some weird left hand stretches

2018-12-25

I should add that I've actually been playing the grace notes in Let It Snow! But still not swinging the 8ths right in basically anything

2019-01-02

• 4 loose sheets (Christmas)
• 12 Paramount #6
• 1 Rent vocal selections. Second song has 3 sharps and weird rhythm.
• 9 Feist dance folio 2A
• 11 Irving Berlin Universal #29. Hard in general. Hi Gaucho is still too hard

So that's 195 songs in December, and a total of 2873 songs in 2018.

2019-01-02

• 11 Frank Sinatra's hits on parade
• 6 Song of Norway vocal selection
• 9 loose sheets (Donald Vaughan)
• 11 Hamilton vocal selections
• 8 Armed Forces Song Folio Oct 1963
• 47 loose sheets (Donald Vaughan)
• 4 Joan Brooks
• 75 Good Old Timers
• 14 photocopy sheets

Song of Norway is tricky because it's classical adaptations so the harmonies and progressions are weird

What'd I Miss is still nigh-unplayable for me

So that's 185 songs in January

2019-02-28

• 7 Armed Forces Song Folio #8

• 13 World Charts presents the Italian Songbook Mattinata is too hard

• 8 Armed Forces Sep 1955

• 8 Feb 1955

• 8 Dec 1957

• 8 Jul 1951

• 12 Paramount #8

• 25 loose sheets

• 19 loose sheets

• 4 Joan Brooks

• 14 loose sheets

• 16 Fantasia

• 45 45 hits of our time from Italy

For a total of 187 songs in February

2019-03-05

• 22 loose sheets
• 8 Armed Forces Song Folio, Jan 1963

2019-03-27

• 4 Chicago, The Look of Love, Alexander's Clarinet, left my heart in SF

2019-03-31

• 15 Robbins Hollywood Dance #12
• 19 Warner Bros Song Folio 2nd Ed (depending on how you count the medleys)
• 16 Robbins Hollywood #14
• 12 Paramount #6
• 4 Joan Brooks
• 18 loose sheets
• 5? Hamilton
• 13 Gem 1942

For a total of 136 songs in March I'm really slipping, even though we were gone for a week and a half of it

2019-04-07

• 3 Gymnopedies
• 4 loose sheets
• 12 De Sylva Brown and Harrison

You're the cream in my coffee is still very hard, as is the intro to Varsity Drag

• 14 Robbins Hollywood #10
• 15 Robbins Hollywood #8
• 15 Robbins Hollywood #13

2019-04-08

• 4 great songs of the year 1973:

  • music music music
  • space oddity
  • whiter shade of pale
  • you've made me so very happy

• 3 supersongs of 79:

  • now that we found love
  • the gambler
  • california dreaming

2019-04-09

• 3 queen (bohemian rhapsody, save me, don't stop me now)
• 9 loose sheets

2019-04-30

• 14 Beatles M-Z: rain, rocky raccoon, revolution, run for your life, savoy truffle, sexy sadie, sgt pepper, she loves you, she's leaving home, she said, she's a woman, paperback writer, ps i love you, penny lane
• 4 in Murrieta: Incredible Hulk, Brian's Song, two classical
• 15 Robbins Hollywood Dance Folio #15
• 15 Robbins Hollywood Dance Folio #7
• 28 Frank Sinatra centennial

2019-04-30

• 7 loose sheets

So that's 165 songs in April

2019-05-31

• 31 Leslie Bricusse (some are still kind of hard)
• 69 Best Big Band Songs Ever
• 40 The Forties
• 22 loose sheets

So 162 songs in May

2019-06-15

• 3 loose sheets
• 15 Robbins Dance #6
• 31 Irving Berlin Dance #21
• 31 Irving Berlin Dance #30

The latter is from the Irving Berlin Universal era with the harder arrangements. Still tricky in some cases but I made it through.

2019-06-16

• 36 Sesame Street Songbook (arr Oliver, 1971)

Some still tricky, mostly for rhythm. (Not easy being green, especially.) Theme song bridge is really the only one with a hard key.

2019-06-18

3 Chicago, Besame Mucho

I was feeling good about myself over the weekend, but last night and tonight I am a clumsy mess again. Just because I am tired? Playing the new batch of loose sheets from eBay, but also a Robbins folio that should be easy.

2019-06-19

Not great today, but better than yesterday, at least…

• 3 Rock around the clock, what a difference a day made
• 15 Robbins Hollywood #2
• 13 loose sheets

2019-06-19

• 10 loose sheets
• 1 I'm looking through you

Which I know well is the first song I ever actually played by ear on the piano, as opposed to just playing the chords. But I've never actually played the authorized 2nd edition arrangement of it before, and it's weird how different it is from my headcanon.

2019-06-20

• 19 loose sheets
• 1 what a difference a day made

and what a difference indeed: I am solid tonight

2019-06-22

• 2 what a difference, rock around the clock
• 1 everyone says i love you
• 1 loose sheet
• 4 armed forces song folio xxxvi: i write the songs, hill street blues, wkrp, call me

2019-06-30

Rodgers and Hammerstein book: dissonant/chromatic things in hard keys are still bad for me. I have no idea if I was playing anywhere close to the right notes in Poor Jud. I think I was at the start of the Carousel Waltz (only 2 sharps there) but I could have been wrong and probably wouldn't know.

Mister Snow is also very rough going, with jumping 4-note chords in the left hand at the same time as ledger lines in both hands.

• 3 Armed Forces Song Folio (what a difference, rock around the clock, something's gotta give)
• 26 loose sheets

Chloe I can keep tempo a lot better than before

Cocktails For Two I still am slow in the optional high chords

Last Sunday trying to play Too Marvelous For Words I had the freaky experience of having a blind spot for the bass part in the first quarter note of the measure. My brain was filling in a blank staff unless I explicitly fixated over there. Went to the Berkeley eye clinic to make sure it was not a retina problem. They decided it was a migraine. Would it have been so blatant that something was wrong if it didn't have all those measures at the start with just the bass note and nothing in the treble?

• 14 Rodgers and Hammerstein Song Book, through Soliloquy

So that's 232 songs in June

2019-07-08

• 2 New York New York

There are two versions: one in F going into Gb (UK), and one in D going into Eb (Italian). In either I am awkward on the ostinato in the bottom half of the right hand, but overall I think I am better at the F/Gb one than the D/Eb one, in spite of the 6 flats at the end of the former.

• 2 Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Wish You Were Here

Showing how bad I still am at reading rock rhythms

• 41 Rodgers and Hammerstein Song Book

some of the rest of which are better than others, but none really terrible

• 1 What a difference a day made
• 3 Baby Doll

which I am still super sloppy at

2019-07-10

• 3 beatles complete
• 4 beatlemania #1

both so weird in their arrangements, in different ways

• 2 rock around the clock

• 33 Beatles Complete (through Can't Buy Me Love)

Skipped I'll Keep You Satisfied because it has four sharps and I don't know what it's supposed to sound like. Did bumble through Please Please Me, also with four sharps.

2019-07-14

Back to Beatlemania #1:

Most of it is going fine, but "It's Only Love" still just sounds like gibberish. I can read the notes and rhythms, but can't understand what they are trying to do with them

• 56 Beatlemania #1

Which feels like an important milestone, demonstrating that I can really read rock rhythms, and can also fight myself to play what's on the page even when I think I know the song better than the arranger.

• 2 loose sheets (Yesterday, Tequila)

2019-07-15

• 17 Lennon & McCartney: A Retrospective (skipping non-Beatles songs and from Beatlemania #1)

since I couldn't find Beatlemania #2

Songs in E or A I'm still just bumbling through. Need to learn how to play in sharps!

The Fool on the Hill is a total mess, I think mostly because they've transcribed most it in 3/4 even though it's not.

2019-07-18

Working through Beatles M-Z: Skipped Only A Northern Song because the combination of E and dissonance and weirdness is too much. I am doing downright well with most of the other key signatures. Bumbling in E, but bumbling through.

• 2 Old Town Road (in Bb, not B, because B is still too much)

2019-07-31

• 86 Beatles I-Z (through Words of Love)
• 13 Irving Berlin Universal #16
• 15 Robbins #9
• 3 loose sheets
• 1 What a difference a day made
• 23 Robbins #18
• 2 This Loneliness https://musescore.com/user/9481/scores/5163692 plus random improv at Steph's office party

So that's 311 songs in July!

And way more Beatles songs than I've played in ages. Not all great by any means, but I can read rock rhythms and I can sort of play in E.

2019-08-01

Strange Interlude was back on top of the stack and took 4:14 to play, so I think it's fair to say that my tempos have converged. It is a strange song, true to its title.

2019-08-04

• 11 Queen A Night at the Opera

God Save the Queen is missing! So much for songbook integrity.

Sweet lady is hard because of the key

• 7 Dark Side of the Moon (Breathe, Time, Breathe Reprise, Great Gig in the Sky, Brain Damage, Us and Them, Eclipse)

Skipped Money because of annoying rhythm. What happened to On the Run and Any Colour You Like? These are just accompaniment, not including the melody.

2019-08-05

• 1 Lady Gaga Bad Romance

2019-08-16

• 69 loose sheets ("keep"):
  • My Old Flame
    • Still a little rough
  • Mister Sandman
  • Button up your overcoat
    • The E# in the refrain is still awkward
  • I'll be seeing you
    • Still bad at the 8va intro
  • We'll meet again
  • I couldn't sleep a wink last night
  • Tiptoe through the tulips
  • All or nothing at all
  • Stella by starlight
  • Poppa don't preach to me
  • A gal in calico
  • Red sails in the sunset
  • Stars fell on Alabama
  • Hello Dolly
  • Loveless love
    • Ornamental parts are still tricky
  • Witch Doctor
  • Tuxedo Junction
    • Still slow at jumps
  • Fly me to the moon
  • On a clear day
  • How high the moon
  • Rock around the clock
  • Heart and soul
  • Hey there
  • Chitty chitty bang bang
  • Republicans our country needs you
  • Nightingale sang in Berkeley Square
  • Whatever will be will be
  • Pennies from Heaven
    • Ending still tricky
  • My foolish heart
  • Born free
  • Just a little closer
  • Perhaps perhaps perhaps
    • A little better at the key change, but not good
  • Who's afraid of the big bad wolf
  • Woody woodpecker
  • The peanut vendor
  • Goodnight my someone
  • The trolley song
  • Lavender blue dilly dilly
  • Laura
  • Song from Moulin Rouge
  • Chicago (1959)
  • Blueberry Hill
  • Homin' Time
  • The couple in the castle
  • Unforgettable
  • T'ain't So Honey T'ain't so
  • A dream is a wish your heart makes
  • September in the rain
  • Sierra madre
  • Nature boy
  • I'm a dreamer aren't we all
  • Hold me thrill me kiss me
  • Collegiate
  • Gallagher and Shean
  • Stars and stripes forever
  • Days of wine and roses
  • White cliffs of Dover
  • How high the moon
  • Glory of love
  • Kiss the boys goodbye
  • This is the inside story
  • Broadway rhythm
  • Moonglow
  • How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm
  • Little Orphan Annie
  • T'ain't So Honey T'ain't so
  • Strange Interlude
  • Time after time
  • Whistle while you work
• 31 Irving Berlin Dance Folio #32 1938
  • From the era with harder arrangements

2019-08-18

I can read the rhythm of Girl from Ipanema now with only a little fudging, so that's progress

2019-08-21

• 3 Satisfied, Helpless, Old Town Road

2019-08-27

• 25 loose sheets:
  • Twilight Time
  • Lullaby of Broadway
  • Wind and the rain in your hair
  • Thanks for the memory
  • Love and marriage
  • Der Fuehrer's Face
  • I want to thank your folks
  • How much is that doggie in the window
  • Misty
  • Try a little tenderness
  • Come rain or come shine
  • San Francisco
  • Singin' in the rain
  • Deep in the heart of Texas
  • Shaft
  • Stairway to Heaven
  • Girl from Ipanema (which I'm pretty close to getting right now)
  • Seventh Heaven
  • Little Pal
  • What a difference a day made
  • Just a gigolo
  • Perhaps perhaps perhaps (key change still difficult)
  • Awful lot of coffee in Brazil
  • Swinging on a star
  • Alone
• 31 Irving Berlin Universal #14 (1928)
• 16 Hill and Range #3
• 30 Irving Berlin Universal #34 (1940-1941)
  • Do Ye John Peel is a mess

2019-08-31

• 15 Robbins Hollywood #12

So that's 239 songs in August

2019-09-30

What did I play at my parents'? At least:

• 7 songs:
  • Hotel California
  • Flight of the Sorcerer
  • Why am I so romantic?
  • The Alley Cat Song
  • and I think 3 others from the hits of the 40s book

And here:

• 81 loose sheets:

  • Casino Royale
  • The Entertainer
  • Andy Griffith
  • Little Orphan Annie (1931)
  • It's a woman's world
  • Makin love ukulele style
  • Groovy kind of love
  • America calling
  • Alexander's ragtime band (1911)
  • Holiday for stringd
  • Things we did last summer
  • Sweetheart of sigma chi
  • Everyone says I love you
  • Brazil
  • Sunshine
  • b/w Je Vous Aime
  • Vict'ry polka
  • What do you want to make those eyes at me for
  • With these hands
  • Mary's a grand old name
  • It is no secret
  • Spring wil be a little late this year
  • A toast to the flag
  • I believe in miracles (1956)
  • Hail to you legion men
  • Hop scotch polka
  • Weary
  • There must be a way
  • Together
  • Daddy's little girl
  • Behind those swinging doors
  • Lili Marlene
  • Count every star
  • Let's take the long way home
  • The whole world is singing my song
  • Forever and ever
  • Sweetheart of all my dreams
  • America I love you
  • Golden Earrings
  • Love thy neighbor
  • If my people
  • One more tomorrow
  • I'm glad I waited for you
  • I'll always be in love with you
  • A lane in Spain
  • Sally in our alley
  • Mammy's little sunny honey boy
  • Lonesome lover
  • You can't beat us if it takes ten million more
  • Sometime
  • Londonderry air
  • Happy birthday
  • Way down in Alabama
  • Sometimes I'm happy
  • A day in the life of a fool
  • When I fall in love
  • Misirlou
  • I simply adore you
  • Ev'ry night about this time
  • Answer saying that you love me
  • The end of a love affair
  • Moonlight on the Danube
  • b/w Moonlit Waters
  • Golden Gate
  • b/w Back in your own back yard
  • When
  • b/w Whisper sweet and whisper low
  • Lovely little silhouette
  • b/w I've been longing for a girl like you
  • Four Walls
  • b/w Mary Anne
  • Changes
  • b/w What are you waiting for Mary
  • Bluesette
  • The great pretender
  • You don't know how lucky you are
  • A taste of honey
  • Just come home
  • Jesu joy of man's desiring
  • Sail on silv'ry moon
  • Is there still room for me neath the old apple tree

• 31 Irving Berlin Universal #7

• 31 Irving Berlin Universal #15

• 19 De Sylva Brown Henderson Supreme #3

• 17 Ray Charles anthology

So that's 186 songs in September.

2019-11-01

• 30 Feist Dance Folio 2A
• 72 The Library of Jazz Standards

So that's 102 songs in October.

2019-11-10

• 15 Robbins Hollywood Dance #4
• 15 Robbins Hollywood Dance #10
• 4 Armed Forces Song Folio #9

2019-11-24

• 3 loose sheets (Cafe Continental, Cryin' My Heart Out For You, The Kid in the Three Cornered Pants)
• 100 Frank Sinatra Centennial

2019-11-27

• 15 Robbins Hollywood Dance #17

So that's 152 songs in November

2019-12-14

I still can't play the intro to Silver Bells properly, and have to play the ornaments in the chorus from memory instead of really reading them.

I am better than last year, but not great, at the key change in Sleigh Ride.

• 15 Christmas songs
• 12 loose sheets
• 15 Robbins Hollywood #5

2019-12

That was all the access I had to a piano in December.

So that's 42 songs in December

2020-01-26

• 4 Stars fell on Alabama/Chicago
• 3 loose sheets
• 12 Frank Sinatra's Hits on Parade
• 14 Annie vocal selections
• 8 Christmas songs
• 4 Satie Gymnopedies/Gnossienne

2020-02-01

• 10 loose sheets
• 2 Feist folio 2A
• 3 46 Contemporary Piano Solos
• 2 Songs by Singapore Composers

So that's 62 songs in January

2020-02-15

• 32 loose sheets ("keep")
• 1 Beethoven's 5th symphony

2020-02-29

• 27 loose sheets ("keep")

So that's 60 songs in February

2020-03-24

• 32 loose sheets ("keep")

2020-03-31

• 27 loose sheets ("keep")
• 9 loose sheets (artist copies, all today)

So that's 68 songs in March. Away for 11 days of it, but then home every day afterward for social distancing.

2020-04-09

• 19 loose sheets ("keep")
• 12 loose sheets (artist copies)

2020-04-24

• 12 loose sheets (artist copies)
• 25 loose sheets ("keep")

2020-04-30

• 25 loose sheets ("keep")

So that's 93 songs in April

2020-05-03

• 20 loose sheets ("keep")

2020-05-08

• 7 loose sheets (artist copies)
• 7 loose sheets ("keep")

2020-05-09

• 0 today

2020-05-10

• 6 loose sheets ("keep") today

2020-05-11

• 5 loose sheets (artist copies) today

2020-05-12

• 7 loose sheets (artist copies) today

2020-05-13

• 6 loose sheeets ("keep") today

Sloppy playing. Tired? Something messing with proprioception?

2020-05-14

• 6 loose sheets ("keep") today

There is something bothering my right eye so I was not playing super well.

2020-05-15

• 5 loose sheets (artist copies) today

2020-05-16

• 0 today

2020-05-17

• 7 loose sheets ("keep") today

2020-05-18

• 3 loose sheets (artist copies) today

2020-05-21

• 8 loose sheets ("keep") today

2020-05-23

• 1 we're the couple in the castle

2020-05-24

• 11 loose sheets ("keep")

2020-05-25

• 5 loose sheets

2020-05-26

• 5 loose sheets

2020-05-27

• 3 loose sheets

2020-05-28

• 7 loose sheets

2020-05-30

• 13 sesame street songbook 1971 (through people in your neighborhood)
• 5 loose sheets

2020-06-01

So that's 137 songs in May

2020-06-02

• 1 T'ain't So

This was the first time I can remember being able to sing along while simultaneously reading music (as opposed to just playing a chords under the sung melody).

2020-06-03

• 7 loose sheets

2020-06-04

• 1 couple in the castle

2020-06-05

• 2 t'ain't so, where you lead

2020-06-06

• 3 loose sheets

2020-06-07

• 2 loose sheets

2020-06-09

• 6 loose sheets

2020-06-10

• 2 back home again in indiana

2020-06-11

• 3 loose sheets

2020-06-12

• 4 loose sheets

2020-06-13

• 2 loose sheets

2020-06-14

• 10 loose sheets

I still am not fabulous at Fur Elise, but a lot better than I used to be

Added The Fishing Hole and Ev'ryone Says I Love You to the standard rotation recently.

2020-06-15

• 7 loose sheets

2020-06-16

• 1 Heart and Soul

2020-06-18

• 9 loose sheets (incl 3 arrangements of I Love Lucy)

2020-06-19

• 7 loose sheets

2020-06-20

• 2 loose sheets

2020-06-21

• 11 loose sheets

2020-06-22

• 4 loose sheets

Steph is officially tired of hearing The Fishing Hole and is glad to hear me trying Linus and Lucy instead.

2020-06-25

• 8 loose sheets

Still bad at Linus and Lucy, but Steph likes it

2020-06-27

• 1 loose sheet

2020-06-28

• 16 loose sheets

2020-06-30

• 4 loose sheets

So that's 113 songs in June.

2020-07-02

• 7 loose sheets

2020-07-03

• 7 loose sheets

I am finally actually reading/playing swung 8ths and straight 8ths differently. I wonder if I can keep it up or if I will get sloppy again.

2020-07-04

• 5 loose sheets

2020-07-05

Having a harder time respecting swing in Ev'ryone Says I Love You. I think the trick is that I have to start moving my left hand earlier because the 16th note of the 2nd half of the swing doesn't leave as much time to get in place for the next beat.

2020-07-06

• 3 loose sheets

2020-07-07

• 3 loose sheets

2020-07-08

• 3 loose sheets

2020-07-11

• 2 loose sheets

2020-07-14

• 1 T'ain't So

2020-07-15

• 9 loose sheets

Not swinging so well today

2020-07-17

• 2 loose sheets

2020-07-18

• 7 loose sheets

2020-07-19

• 1 Indiana (1917 arr)

2020-07-21

• 7 loose sheets

2020-07-24

• 2 loose sheets

2020-07-25

• 2 loose sheets

2020-07-26

• 9 loose sheets

2020-07-27

• 9 loose sheets (new artist copies)

2020-07-28

• 8 loose sheets (new artist copies)

2020-07-29

• 1 loose sheet

2020-07-30

• 3 loose sheets

2020-07-31

• 11 artist copies

So that's 102 songs in July

2020-08-02

• 8 loose sheets

2020-08-04

• 5 loose sheets

2020-08-05

• 3 loose sheets

2020-08-1x

• 4 loose sheets

2020-08-18

• 5 loose sheets

2020-08-21

• T'aint so

2020-08-??

• 7 loose sheets

2020-08-31

• 7 loose sheets

So that's 40 songs in August, which is terrible, even knowing that I was away from any pianos for a week in there.

At the same time, I can sit down and play things just fine after a gap of a week or more, so I guess I am competent even if I am not actually doing it.

2020-09-01

• 6 loose sheets

2020-09-02

• 2 loose sheets

2020-09-03

• 4 loose sheets

Left My Heart in SF is still extremely clumsy

2020-09-09?

• 3 loose sheets, another try at Left My Heart

2020-09-10?

• 7 loose sheets

2020-09-11

• 5 loose sheets

2020-09-13

• 7 loose sheets

2020-09-15

• 4 loose sheets

2020-09-20?

• 3 loose sheets

2020-09-25

• 5 loose sheets

2020-09-26

• 3 loose sheets

2020-09-28

• 2

2020-09-29

• 5

2020-09-30

• 2

2020-09-31

• 2

So that's 60 songs in September.

2020-10-22

• 16 loose sheets (not actually today; all month)

2020-10-31

• 7 loose sheets

So that's 23 songs in all of October, alas.

2020-11-30

• 15 Christmas songs
• 8 Armed Forces Song Folio Jan 1963
• 8 Armed Forces Song Folio Jul 1951
• 15 Robbins Hollywood #17
• 10 loose sheets

So that's 56 songs in November

2020-12-16

• 10 Christmas songs

2020-12-26

• 8 Christmas songs

So that's 18 songs in December

2021-01-31

• 10 loose sheets

For a total of 10 songs in January

2021-03-01

• 14 loose sheets

For a total of 14 songs in February

2021-03

• 15 loose sheets

For a total of 15 songs in march