Sunday, January 1, 2023

2023 Musical Projects

Here are my musical projects for 2023, starting with those that I'm continuing from previous years.

Continuing 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 week of 2023, I'll be practicing F major.  When I practice organ every day, I improvise to a backing track in the same key (or the relative major if I'm practicing a minor key that week).

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 (usually) 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.

This year, I'm also going to work my way through James Bastien's Great Hymns Arranged for Organ.  I'd intended to do this last year but had some complications and wasn't able to start.

Cover Projects

Initially, the goal for most of these was 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 and what bands they cover:
In October last year, I started posting a part from a Zombies song on my Instagram account every week (usually on Thursday and, for now, mostly following the track listing on The Decca Stereo Anthology), and I intend to continue this, partially to prove that I'm a "superfan" and partially because it forces me to review some songs I've forgotten how to play.

I have a handful of notes about the Monkees' album The Birds, The Bees, & the Monkees that I'd like to flesh out into posts.  I'd intended to do this in December last year, but I was sick for most of the month and didn't get around to it.

FAWM and 50/90

The last few years have been pretty unproductive (I think I wrote less music last year than any other year since I started writing), but I guess I'll give FAWM and 50/90 an-other try.  Lately, I've just been more interesting in playing other people's music.

Bach Cantatas

On Sunday, I listen to a Bach cantata, going in order by BWV number.  Occasionally, I follow along in the notation and jot down some notes.

This year, I'll be listening to BWV 58 through BWV 110.  The box set I have contains all of the cantatas in that range.

Mandolin Monday

Every Monday, I post a recording of a mandolin piece on Instagram and Twitter, and I upload a slightly edited re-run on YouTube.  I plan to continue doing selections from Francis O'Neill's Dance Music of Ireland, although I may do something different every now and then.  Christmas is on a Monday this year, and I'll probably do something special for that.

Hohner Pianet

In 2019, 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).

My main goal for 2023 is to finish recording the first volume of Bartók's Mikrokosmos.  I have five pieces left, and I'd like to have them recorded by the end of March, which is when I started the Mikrokosmos last year.  Aside from that, I'll probably focus on Telemann's 168 Keyboard Pieces, recording the pieces and modernizing the notation.  Like I've done for the last two years, I'll probably also do at least one piece from Bastien's Great Christmas Carols Arranged for Organ (using my Hammond XPK-130G for the pedal part).

I also plan to write a post about Electric Light Orchestra's use of the Hohner Clavinet.

Telemann Lieder-Buch

In March 2021, 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 modernizing the notation.

Last year (especially in the second half of the year), I started getting pretty far ahead in terms of recording the pieces.  I'd like at least to maintain that lead (which means recording four or five pieces every month) and, ideally, get even further ahead.

Parts

For every time that a couple of old high school classmates (a sometime singer-songwriter and a self-styled author) 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 also figure out a part as a toll for listening to an album or if I hear a particular song mentioned somewhere, but I don't always follow this very strictly.

I have two specific parts I want to figure out this year:  the guitar at the beginning of the Lemon Pipers' "Wine and Violet" (which I've unsuccessfully tried to figure it out a couple times before) and the guitar in Johnny Cash's "Tennessee Flat-Top Box."

Projects Specific to 2023

Benny Goodman

In April last year, the music department of the university I desperately want to attend posted a clip of an ensemble practicing Benny Goodman's "Stompin' at the Savoy."  Consequently, about a week later, I started reading a biography of Goodman (Benny Goodman and the Swing Era by James Lincoln Collier).  At the time, it was a lower priority among the books I was reading, so I didn't make much progress in it, but I'd like to finish it this year.  I also plan on listening to The Absolutely Essential 3-CD Collection album every month, one disc on each of the first three Fridays of the month.  In months that have five Fridays, I'll use the last two to listen to two other two-disc albums; in March and September, I'll listen to The Complete Recordings 1941-1947 (a collection of Goodman's recordings with Peggy Lee), and in June and December, I'll listen to Trio and Quartet Showcase.

Ideally, this sort of immersion in Goodman will motivate me to practice clarinet more.  I got a clarinet in October 2020, but I rarely play it.  I recorded a lot of pieces on recorder last year partially in an effort to work my way up to clarinet.  In the biography on his website, Mike Vickers describes something like this.  After Benny Goodman's clarinet "seemed to be calling to me to have a go myself," he played various sorts of recorders, "so I'd been there and done that, recorder-wise.  A clarinet was next."

The Association

I have matching box sets in the "original album series" by three bands:  the Hollies, the Association, and Booker T. & the MGs.  Since I listened to Booker T. & the MGs every week (on Friday) in 2021 and the Hollies every week (on Monday) in 2022, I felt I should complete the set and listen to the Association every week (on Wednesday) in 2023.  I'm also going to include Greatest Hits! in the cycle because it contains a different recording of "Enter the Young" compared to what's on And Then... Along Comes the Association and "Six Man Band," which isn't on any of the albums in the box set, which - for the record - are:
  • And Then... Along Comes the Association
  • Renaissance
  • Insight Out
  • Birthday
  • The Association
My other goal is to learn the recorder solo in "No Fair at All."  I'd learned a simplified version of it in 2017, but I never wrote it down.

Beethoven Symphonies

I've been reading The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume II.  In a letter to his friend Arthur Greeves, dated 5 November 1933, Lewis mentions that his brother has records of all of the Beethoven symphonies and that they were listening to one every Sunday evening.  I thought this sounded like a nice idea, so I'm going to do it, too.  I don't have recordings of all of the Beethoven symphonies, but they're all available on the Frankfurt Radio Symphony's YouTube channel.  I'm going to watch them there (on Sundays, but probably not in the evenings).  For what it's worth, I'm fairly familiar with the third, fifth, and sixth symphonies, and the sixth is my favorite.

Corelli: Concerti grossi

I'd intended to do this in 2022, but I forgot about it until last month.  In the 2021 Christmas concert at the university I want to attend, one of the ensembles played a movement from one of Corelli's Concerti grossi, Op. 6.  There are twelve concerti in the set, which nicely works out to one a month, and so to familiarize myself with the pieces, I'm going to listen to one every Tuesday.  I want to keep things even, though, so if there's a fifth Tuesday in the month, I'll skip that week.

YouTube Watch Later List

In spring last year, I started paring down my YouTube watch later list, which is mostly videos of classical pieces.  I'd like to make further progress in this.  I'm going to continue the strategy I developed near the end of last year and try to focus on one composer every month.  I think January will be Brahms.  Currently, there are 404 videos on the list.
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