Saturday, December 31, 2022

2022 Musical Projects Review

The end of an-other year means an-other post about how well I did on my musical projects.

Scales

When I sit down at or with an instrument, I play a scale, provided I know the instrument well enough that I can play a scale on it.  I go in the order of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier and move on to the next one on Sundays.  For the first full week of 2022, I'll be practicing D major.
As a special deal from the music store, when I got my Hammond SKX, I also got a flashdrive with backing tracks in different keys.  Since around April or May, part of my daily keyboard practice has been to improvise something while playing along to a track in the key of whatever scale I'm practicing that week (there are backing tracks only for the major keys, though; when I'm practicing a minor scale, I play along to its relative major).  Since July, I've also been cycling through the SKX's preset sounds.  I discovered that the tenth bank includes the same presets as the reverse-color octave at the lower end of the B-3's manual.

Lyres, Harps, and Cymbals

This is my blog for hymns and (occasionally) classical sacred music.  On Sunday, I post a recording of a hymn tune (I've been making my way through The Lutheran Hymnal), playing the four-part arrangement with mandolin (soprano and alto), guitar (tenor), and electric bass (bass).  On Wednesday, I have a post tracing the Biblical sources of a hymn in The Lutheran Service Book, and on Friday, I have a short post about a musical feature in a hymn.  On rare occasions, I post about classical sacred music on Monday.

Last year, I started recording (using recorders) the hymn tunes named after saints.  I have no set schedule for recording these, but I post them on Tuesdays.  I'd like to make it at least half way through these tunes by the end of the year.

I've been waiting (since May!) for my Hammond SKX to arrive, but once I finally get it, I'm going to start making my way through James Bastien's Great Hymns Arranged for Organ.

I've been working ahead on my Wednesday posts by putting the hymn text (if it's public domain) and the Biblical passages that the hymnal cites into a draft.  I'm about two and a half years ahead at this point, and I'd like to have all of these posts framed by the end of the year.
I had been writing the Biblical sources posts at the rate of one a week (working ahead a couple weeks, if I remember correctly).  Within the first week of the year, though, I changed my schedule and tried to write two a week.  I didn't always meet this goal, but I did work ahead enough that I now have posts written and scheduled until the middle of October.

In April, I made a list of what hymn tunes are named after saints so I knew which ones I still had to do.  At that point, I was already about halfway through, and so I modified my goal.  I don't remember the details now, but I think first I set the goal to be done by the end of the year and then later I moved this up to October (so that the whole project was done within a year).  I went mostly alphabetically, but I skipt over "St. Gertrude" for a while before it seemed difficult and intimidating (and it was).  Eventually, I got back around to it though, and I finished the project near the end of September (although the last two tunes weren't posted until October).

Near the beginning of October, I started putting more effort into framing future posts about Biblical sources.  Previously, I'd workt on these in somewhat of a piecemeal form, pasting in what passages I'd already transcribed and stopping after transcribing something new.  Sometimes, it might take me a few days to set up a single post.  Starting in October though, seeing that I was running out of time to meet my end-of-the-year goal, I started framing two whole posts almost every day.  I finished on 18 November.

I never started Bastien's book.  I got the SKX in February, but there were complications with the stand.  In the meantime, I used the stand from my dad's old keyboard, but since it's an X-style stand, there wasn't room for my bass pedals underneath it.  For months, I'd been waiting for the stand made specifically for the SKX, but later I found out that, apparently, the factory that makes that stand shut down, so it's no longer available.  I got a different stand, but it arrived only a couple weeks ago (on 15 December), and I figured I might as well wait until the new year to start the book (also, I still had a tune I wanted to record using the bass pedals with my Nord Electro).  I'd planned on using the SKX's pipe organ sounds, but now I think I'll just use one of the Hammond organ sounds.  That way, I can simply follow the registration suggestions in the book.

Cover Projects

Most of these were started with the goal to learn every part to every song, and while I'm still working on that, the focus now has shifted more to writing about various features I notice.  Here's a list of the projects:
I don't have any specific plans for these projects, but I'm sure I'll write about various features and probably even record a few songs to demonstrate what parts I've learned.

August will mark the tenth year of the Verulam Cover Project.  I feel like I should do something special for the occasion, but I haven't thought of anything suitable.

At the end of 2019, I started a blog about the Byrds, but I really haven't done very much with that.  It was never intended to be on the same level as the above projects, and I'm considering abandoning it.
Near the end of April, I learned the chord progressions for the nine of the songs on the Byrds' Mr. Tambourine Man album.  I already knew the chords for "Mr. Tambourine Man," "Here without You," and "We'll Meet Again," so once I figured out the others, I knew the chord progressions for the whole album.

In October, I started posting a part from a Zombies song on my Instagram account every week (mostly following the track listing of The Decca Stereo Anthology for now), partially to prove that I'm a "superfan" (the term used in the caption of one of the band's posts), but also to review the songs.  There's a lot that I've forgotten and need to re-learn.  So far, I've re-learned all the parts I used to know in "Woman" (and improved the accuracy of the bass part), discovered I'd been playing some of the guitar solo in "Leave Me Be" in the wrong octave, and fixed my notation for what I know of the bass part in "I'm Going Home."


Here's a list of what audio examples I recorded for these projects this year:  Electric Light Orchestra's "Tightrope" (just the Moog part at the beginning) and "Prologue" (from Time), the Alan Parsons Project's "Nothing Left to Lose" (the accordion solo, which was the first thing I recorded with the SKX) and "Stereotomy," Argent's "Sweet Mary" (the Fender Rhodes introduction), and the Zombies' "Nothing's Changed" (the Hohner Pianet/Vox Continental solo in the alternate take).

FAWM and 50/90

I participate in FAWM and 50/90 every year, although for the last three years or so, my productivity has steadily declined.  I have no great plans for these, but I'm going to participate, at least.
I ended up writing only two songs for FAWM.  The first one was the first time I used Moog in anything I've written, and the second may be the most prog rock I've ever gotten (because it has both fuzz guitar and Mellotron flute).

50/90 went even worse:  I wrote only one tune, and it's not even very good.  I'd started a second one but never finished it.

Bach Cantatas

At the end of last year, I started listening (on Sundays) to the Bach cantatas I have in order by BWV number.  Occasionally, I follow along in the notation and jot down some notes. 
I didn't follow along in the notation at all, but I did jot down some notes while merely listening.

Mandolin Monday

About a year ago, I discovered the mandolinmonday hashtag on Instagram and have recorded a piece for it every week since.  (Eventually, I started uploading these to YouTube too.)  I'm going to continue this in 2022.  Most of the pieces I do will probably be traditional tunes (last year, I found three massive collections of Irish and Scottish tunes on IMSLP, so I doubt I'll run out any time soon), but I'd also like to do a few pieces from Elgar's Very Easy Melodious Exercises in the First Position, Op. 22.  These were written for violin, but they won't all translate easily to mandolin.
For the first three Mondays of the year, I did pieces from Elgar's exercises (the first, second, and fourth).  From there, I moved on to The Caledonia Collection, although I ended up doing only two pieces:  "Highland Laddie" and "Corn Rigg."  After that, I started working through The Dance Music of Ireland.  (All the links are to the "re-runs" on YouTube, not to the original posts on Instagram.)

One of my diversions was the Krakozhia National Anthem from the movie The Terminal.  I posted it on Instagram and Twitter in June, and when I edited it for YouTube, I also included the notation (which I transposed from Ab major to G major in order to make it easier to play on mandolin).

Hohner Pianet

A couple years ago, I started a blog where I write about the Hohner Pianet, a German electric piano from the 1960s, and, as a continuation of the original demonstration disc, record pieces using Pianet samples on my Nord Electro 5D (uploaded on Wednesdays).  In 2022, I'd like to finish recording Diabelli's 12 ersten Lectionen am Pianoforte (I've recorded the first seven, although I haven't posted them all yet).  Aside from that, I'm going to focus on Handel.  A few months ago, I scoured IMSLP and downloaded a bunch of his minuets.  Eventually, I'd like to take a break from this project, but I don't know if I'll do that this year.
Handel pieces I recorded:
I have yet to post those last two.  I experienced a lapse in motivation and didn't work on any Handel pieces for almost all of April and May, and around November, I ran out of motivation completely.  At that point, though, I'd already recorded more of his pieces than I thought I would (I didn't know if I would make it even to twelve), and I'd recorded enough Pianet pieces to post one a week well into 2023.

In March, I started going through Bartók's Mikrokosmos, although I plan on doing only the first volume.

I finished going through Diabelli's 12 ersten Lectionen in early June, although I didn't post the last one until August.  Here's the complete playlist.

In August, I discovered and started doing selections from Telemann's 168 Keyboard Pieces, TWV 36.  I've posted only one so far, but I've recorded seven.  I'm also modernizing the notation.  I've been using the Pianet T sound for these rather than my usual Pianet N.  Something about the timbre of the T seems to suit the character of the pieces better.  Plus, Telemann's name starts with the same letter.

I haven't posted it yet, but in November, I recorded an arrangement of a classical piece using the Hohner Clavinet and String Melody II sounds on my Electro.  There's a version of this piece on the Clavinet demonstration record, so I felt this slight diversion from the Pianet was warranted.

Telemann Lieder-Buch

In March last year, I started working through Telemann's Fast allgemeines Evangelisch-Musicalisches Lieder-Buch, a collection of some 400 hymn tunes.  Along with learning to play the pieces, I'm also modernizing the notation, which - apparently - exists only in soprano clef.  I try to post one tune a week (on Thursday), and so far, I've been successful, but it's constantly a struggle not to fall behind.
I think it was in March when I started approaching this project a bit differently.  Instead of focusing on one piece at a time, which is what I had been doing, I began learning two or three pieces simultaneously, which is what I've been doing for my Hohner Pianet project for the last year or two.  Doing it this way allowed me to learn (and then record) more pieces in a shorter period of time.  This really started to pay off around September, when I was working through a bunch of shorter tunes, and I recorded two or three months' worth of tunes every month.  Currently, I have enough tunes recorded to post one a week until mid-August, although I'm not nearly that far ahead in doing the notation for the videos, which is a tedious task.

An-other reason I'm getting further ahead is that I started trying to do what Telemann mentions in his autobiography:  "I never let a single day go by without putting down on paper at least one staff filled with notes."  Most of the time, the staff I wrote out was a tune from the Lieder-Buch, although I'm sure I missed some days.

Django Reinhardt

In April, Denny Laine's Instagram account posted that he regularly listens to Django Reinhardt and credits him as an influence.  I felt that I should listen to Reinhardt more, so I'm going to listen to a disc a week.  I have four different box sets:  The Absolutely Essential 3-CD Collection, Classic Jazz Archive (two discs), Swing Guitars (ten discs), and The Classic Early Recordings (five discs).  I'm most familiar with The Absolutely Essential 3-CD Collection, which I think I've had for over ten years now.  I listen to Swing Guitars every now and then, but Classic Jazz Archive only rarely.  I haven't listened to The Classic Early Recordings before.
Of all of my prescribed listening for this year, Reinhardt was the only one I didn't really get tired of.  Sometimes, I even lookt forward to Saturdays because I knew I got to listen to him.

British Invasion

Last year, my cousin started a British Invasion cover band, and when I saw him during a trip to Kansas, he specifically mentioned the Hollies, the Kinks, and the Spencer Davis Group.  I felt that I should become (even) more familiar with these bands, so I'm going to listen to them regularly.

The Hollies (on Mondays), cycling through:
  • 30th Anniversary Collection (three discs)
  • Stay with the Hollies
  • In the Hollies Style
  • Hollies
  • Would You Believe?
  • For Certain Because...
An-other goal I have is to figure out the second guitar part in the middle of "Bus Stop."  I learned one of the parts years ago, and/so I feel I need to learn the other one too.

I've figured out the bass part for "Stop, Stop, Stop" twice, but I never wrote it down (which is why I had to re-learn it).  The liner notes in the 30th Anniversary Collection explain that the version on that compilation has a longer instrumental break compared to the one on For Certain Because....  I'll have to write out the part and compare the two.

If I can find a suitable sound on the Hammond SKX, I'm going to make a video demonstrating the reed organ part at the beginning and end of "Dear Eloise."  The reed organ sounds I've found for my Nord Electro 5D don't have the right tonal character.

The Kinks (on Tuesdays), cycling through:
  • The Kinks
  • Kinda Kinks [Deluxe Edition]
  • Kink Kontroversy [Deluxe Edition]
  • Face to Face [Deluxe Edition]
  • Something Else
  • Village Green Preservation Society [Deluxe Edition]
  • Arthur or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire [Deluxe Edition]
Originally, I was going to limit my Kinks albums to those by the original line-up (up to Village Green Preservation Society).  I got Arthur for Christmas though, and my cousin had also mentioned this album specifically, so I'm including that one too.

The Spencer Davis Group
I have only two Spencer Davis Group albums:  The Best of the Spencer Davis Group and Eight Gigs a Week: The Steve Winwood Years.  Eight Gigs a Week is a two-CD set and contains all of the tracks on The Best of the Spencer Davis Group (although, curiously, there's a different take of "Gimme Some Lovin'").  The liner notes explain that the collection "includes every studio recording the band made with lil' Stevie for Fontana Records" with the exception of a German-only track.  I'm going to listen to this once a month, one disc on each of the first two Thursdays.
I figured out the second guitar part in the Hollies' "Bus Stop" in late January.  I'm not sure that what I have is 100% accurate, but it's probably as close as I'll ever get.  Along with referencing the recording (of course), I also studied this live performance in Germany in 1967.  The parts aren't played exactly the same as they are in the recording, but being able to see the guitars helped.

I wrote out the first third or so of the bass part for "Stop, Stop, Stop" on 1 January, did a little work on it here and there throughout the next two months, and finished it off on 28 February:


I made a video about the reed organ part in "Dear Eloise" in mid-June:


While I was at it, I also made a video about the reed organ solo in "'Cos You Like to Love Me":


In early March, I learned the harmonica solo in "Whole World Over," and near the end of September, I finally got around to recording a brief video of it along with guitar (I'd learned the chords in April 2017):


Because of this project, I also finally got around to listening to Hollies (the 1974 eponymous album), which I've had on vinyl for years but hadn't listened to.

I learned parts for songs by the Kinks and the Spencer Davis Group too, but somehow, the Hollies became the most prominent group in this project (maybe because I had those extra goals).

In February, I started listening to two-disc sets of other British Invasion groups on the other two Thursdays of the month, cycling through the Searchers, the Dave Clark Five, the Small Faces, the Tremeloes, the Zombies, Herman's Hermits, Peter & Gordon, and the Yardbirds.

Cab Calloway

At Christmas 2018, my cousin had mentioned Cab Calloway in such a way that made me feel a bit ignorant for not being very familiar with him.  I knew he was in The Blue Brothers, but I didn't know much more than that.  In July last year, I'd found a compilation album of his music (in the Absolutely Essential 3-CD Collection) at Half Price Books in Kansas.  In order to redress my ignorance, then, I'm going to listen to this every month:  one disc on each of the first three Wednesdays.
I don't really have anything to say about this, but I did it.

Mellotron

Last year, I recorded a couple pieces using all (or mostly all) Mellotron sounds (a movement from Holst's Brook Green Suite and "It Was a Lover and His Lass," an English madrigal).  I'd like to do more recordings like these, but for now, I have only two planned.  I won't reveal them now, but one is a Scottish tune I found on flutetunes.com, and the other is a classical piece for a string ensemble.
In mid-January, I recorded the Scottish tune, "My Ain Fireside":


In late June, I recorded a Mozart horn duet using the "2 Brass" sound:


In late September, I finally got around to doing the classical piece, Aase's Death from Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite:


Books

More years ago than I care to reveal, I started reading Peter Guralnick's Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock'n'Roll.  I set it aside a few times (because I was busy with other things), but I've been slowly making progress in it over the last year.  I'd like to finish it this year.  I also plan on finishing a book I started reading in November about ABBA:  ABBA: The Treasures by Ingmarie Halling.

To-day, I started three more music books:  The Monkees: The Day-by-Day Story by Andrew Sandoval (the new, re-written version from 2021), Infinite Tuesday by Michael Nesmith, and Man on the Run: Paul McCartney in the 1970s by Tom Doyle.  The Monkees is a massive tome, and I doubt I'll get through even all of 1966.  I don't read as quickly as I used to, so I don't know if it's an achievable goal to have finished Infinite Tuesday and Man on the Run by the end of the year, but I'd like to be at least half done with both.

I'm also going to start working through William Lovelock's First Year Harmony, which I found on Internet Archive, although this may become too advanced for me rather quickly.  I'll see what happens.
I finished the book about ABBA on 11 March, the book about McCartney on 19 October, Nesmith's book on 27 November, and the book on Sam Phillips on 11 December.

In The Monkees, I'm currently in July 1966.  I decided to watch the episodes and listen to the albums when I read about their original broadcast or release dates.  I haven't really gotten to any of those yet, but I did listen to Davy Jones' solo album (for only the second time) in early August.

In April, I started reading a biography about Benny Goodman (Benny Goodman and the Swing Era by James Lincoln Collier).  In May, I started reading Bob Dylan's Chronicles (Volume One), and I finished it just a few days ago (the 28th).

I workt through First Year Harmony until FAWM started in February, but then I never got back to it.  I didn't really understand the point of some of the exercises.

Recorders

I've had a soprano recorder since 1997 or so.  I got a tenor in 2017 and an alto in 2019, but it was only in the last year or two that I started multi-tracking these to make recordings of recorder ensembles.  I started doing the four-part arrangements of hymn tunes (using electric bass for the fourth part), and I did a two-part arrangement of "The Holly and the Ivy," but I'd like to do some other tunes with recorders too.  So far, however, I have only one planned, which I'll do in May.
In mid-March, I recorded "Dans la forêt lointaine" with alto recorder.  It's a French tune (if I remember aright, I first heard it in high school French class), and I'd found an arrangement as a canon on flutetunes.com.


In May, I recorded "Now Is the Month of Maying," also with alto recorder:


To mark International Owl Awareness Day on 4 August, I recorded "Sowa na gaju siada" (a Polish folk song about an owl) on tenor recorder (double-tracked):


Parts

As always, I'll be learning parts this year.  For each time that old high school classmates post about their creative endeavors, I figure out a part for one of my cover projects (because I feel that I have to work harder than they do).  Sometimes I figure out a part as a toll for listening to an album, but I don't always observe this very strictly.
I figured out 315 parts (or sections of parts).  I got to a point where I now know at least some of each song on Manfred Mann's Machines EP, the Beach Boys' Today! (with the exception of "Bull Session with 'Big Daddy,'" which really isn't a song), and (as mentioned above) the Byrds' Mr. Tambourine Man.

Other Things to Note

For the last two years, I'd listened to a 17-disc box set of Bach's complete organ works and then a 6-disc box set of Buxtehude's complete organ works.  (I started on 28 July, the anniversary of Bach's death, and then listened to a disc a week until the end of the year.)  Instead of doing that this year, I listened to a 13-disc box set of Chopin's complete piano works, one disc a day starting on 1 March, Chopin's birthday.


Since around April or May, I've been trying to pare down my YouTube "watch later" list, which consists mostly of classical music pieces.  I had almost five hundred videos it, and now it's just over four hundred.  It's slow progress because after I've watched one video from the list, YouTube will recommend me more that I want to watch and I add those to the list.  In August, I watched a bunch of pieces by Dvořák (I love his Bagatelles, Op. 47), and I think it was because of this that I later developed something of a strategy and tried to focus on a particular composer in a given month (November was Mozart, and December was Beethoven, although this week, I took a break to listen to a six-part BBC program from 1974 about the Beach Boys).

Since 2013 (when I first listened to it), I've listened to a vinyl copy of the Apples in Stereo's Fun Trick Noisemaker every 12 October (except for 2018, when I forgot).  I did that again this year, along with two other special record-listening occasions that I started observing in the last couple years.  On 29 June, I listen to a Lawrence Welk record (29 June is my grandfather's birthday, and I inherited a lot of his Lawrence Welk records), and on 28 December, I listen to the Bill Evans Trio's Portrait in Jazz (the back of the record sleeve notes that the album was recorded on 28 December 1959).

Just this week, I passed sixty subscribers on YouTube.  I don't know if I'd consider this very significant (partially because I know that in terms of YouTube subscribers, this is nothing and partially because most of my videos still get far fewer views than that), but it does make me feel like I'm making some progress.