Introduction to Music

I'm not just a computer geek day and night, or at least I try not to be. There are a number of things that I really enjoy doing, and one of these is the piano. Something about playing the piano I really adore, and I think its mainly because its always the best instrument to release tension and help focus the mind.

I started learning the piano at a young age and stopped taking lessons also at an early age. Mixed with geekiness and passion of piano, I purchased a Yahama Clavinova and went back to the piano and just dabbled myself, a couple of years later, I'm actually back to taking lessons again, more over to learn to read music than anything else.

I much prefer playing my own stuff than other peoples, though I do have a lot of respect for many compositions I've had the pleasure of playing. Here are recordings of myself playing a random selection of tunes. Although some of these are "other instruments", they are all actually from the piano, including the guitar in "Summer Life". I don't think all of these are by any means great, but its the pleasure in composing and playing them that's all I'm after.

3rd Planet I found this tune the other day when I was browsing through some old disks. I can't remember when I did it, but sounds like I was just messing about. There is something I liked about it enough to record it to the computer. Its short and sweet.
Pandora's Box This is a reasonable tune I suppose, though I do wonder why I recorded it on a percussion instrument. I did originally record it to use as background music for a DVD menu system for my Nephews christening, so I suppose thats probably why. I really should do the piano version though. It should sound better.
Labyrinth I didn't actually compose this tune and unforunately can't remember who did, but I did play this differently than it was originally written. I thought this was a really good tune, and made an effort to make it more of my own. My teacher uses this recording as a teaching aid now to show that you don't have to play a piece of music exactly as its written on the page.
Her Tune I composed this for an old girlfriend's birthday. I've found it's difficult to write a piece of music for someone that represents them. People are very complex, and music can't be if you want to be able to enjoy listening to it.
Doodle I totally made this up as I went along. This was just when I was testing out the recording gear to the computer, hence the recording isn't very good in places, but I kept it so thought I'd post it up anyway.
Summer Life I made this one up also as I went along. Tricky thing with playing by ear is that different instruments require different styles of music. This is a spanish guitar, which required some more complicated piano playing so that it wasn't obvious it was not a real guitar. I few people have told me they can't believe it's actually a piano. Let me know if you think I'm yanking your chain and its actually a real guitar. ;-)

My Music

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:50