Here are my musical projects for 2024, 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 2024, I'll be practicing G 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.
For writing the posts on the Biblical sources for a hymn, I'm going to follow the system I devised last year and (try to) write a post every Sunday and for every time the hymn is included in the recording of the daily chapel service from the university I want to attend.
Because I've been consistently writing about musical features in hymns, I've almost run out of new things to post. Most of what I have left are features in hymns that are for specific seasons, and I plan to wait until they're seasonally appropriate to write about.
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:
Byrd Dimension hadn't had the same sort of status as the other projects, but last year, I decided to make it a full-fledged project (partially because my cousin's band is named after a bird, and I feel I have to work at least as hard as he does). In the last month or so of 2023, I listened to all of the Byrds albums from Fifth Dimension to (Untitled) plus The Byrds Play Dylan, and I have a slew of notes that I want to flesh out into posts this year.
I've been reading the updated edition of Andrew Sandoval's The Monkees: The Day-by-Day Story, and I listen to the albums and watch the episodes when I read about their original releases and broadcasts.
For every time that old high school classmates (a sometime singer-songwriter and a self-styled author) post about their projects, I figure out a part from a song by one of these bands and listen to an album (cycling through the projects and in a roughly chronological order within each project).
I also have a few specific sub-projects for this year:
I don't know if I'll be able to do this, but I want at least to try to figure out the trombone parts in the Zombies' "This Will Be Our Year" by carefully studying the slide positions in videos of live performances (as far as I know, there are only two: the 2008 Odessey and Oracle concert DVD and the 2019 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony).
I want to make videos demonstrating the organ part in the Beach Boys' "Be Still" (with notation) and the piano solo in the Moody Blues' "Please Think about It."
Like I said last year, I'm still more interesting in playing other people's music than in writing my own, but I guess I'll attempt FAWM and 50/90 again.
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 111 through BWV 166, but the box set I have omits a handful between those numbers.
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.
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.
I plan to post a few pieces from Telemann's 168 Keyboard Pieces that I recorded last year, but currently I have no plans to do any more recordings for this project (aside from one of the Telemann pieces that I want to re-do).
I also plan to write a post about Electric Light Orchestra's use of the Hohner Clavinet, which I'd intended to do last year but didn't get around to.
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. I post a tune every Thursday. I want to maintain my lead (I'm a year ahead in recording the tunes) and ideally increase it.
Mellotron
Last year, I started recording selections from Telemann's ouvertures (TWV 55) and Corelli's trio sonatas (Opp. 1-4) using only Mellotron sounds. I plan to continue this, posting one piece from each collection every month: the Telemann on the Friday on or after the 14th and the Corelli on the following Friday. Occasionally, I do other pieces entirely with Mellotron sounds, but currently, I don't have plans for anything other than the Telemann ouvertures and Corelli trio sonatas.
Projects Specific to 2024
Nielsen: Salmer og aandelige Sange
In July last year, I had the idea to record chorales from Bach's cantatas by multitracking my Moog. In the notation I have, though, each vocal part is in a different clef, and I didn't think it would be worth the effort to transpose each part to a clef I can read more easily. In September, though, I remembered some chorales by Carl Nielsen that I'd run across years earlier, and I started recording those instead. I held off on posting them so I could build up a reserve and so that I could post all of the pieces in the same calendar year. I plan to start posting (on Tuesdays) what I've already recorded and to finish recording the rest of them. Currently, I have five pieces ready to post and five I need to mix and edit videos for.
A number of years ago, I started a blog to collect performances by and interviews with the Zombies. It had lain dormant for a while, but I started doing some more work on it last year. This year, I want to work consistently on transcribing some of the interviews so that specific topics are easier to find, either for me or for anyone else doing research on the band. I got the idea partly from the Beatles' Get Back book (which I got for Christmas in 2022 and which I started reading to-day). The book is basically transcriptions of conversations that the Beatles had during the recording of Let It Be, and I felt that if there's a book of conversations that the Beatles had during the sessions for just one album, there should be transcriptions of interviews that the Zombies have done over the course of many years. My plan is to transcribe a minute or so of audio for every Beatles reference I run across. I've been working on transcribing a 2017 interview from the Grammy Museum (I started with that one because the video is no longer publicly available, but I'd downloaded it years ago), and after I finish that, I'll prioritize the interviews that are oldest or feature the most band members and work my way forward.
Get Back
Along with reading the book Get Back, I'm going to watch the documentary again. So far, I've seen it only once. My plan is to watch a day's worth at a time, on the day it happened.
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).
I have nothing extra to say about this, but I did it.
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.
I finished going through Great Hymns Arranged for Organ near the end of June, and posting the pieces at the rate of one a week, I completed the project in October. Here's a playlist.
Last year, I wrote (or tried to write) two posts per week about the Biblical sources for a hymn. Since I publish only one a week, I got pretty far ahead. I gave up that schedule at the beginning of this year, though (to focus on other things), and it took me a while to develop a new one. In February, I decided to write a sources post for every time the hymn is included in the recordings of the chapel services I watch from the university I want to attend, and near the end of June, I decided to write one every Sunday so that (ideally) I can maintain my lead. Sometimes, I don't get around to writing a post when I should (currently, I have a handful I need to make up), but otherwise, it's a fairly effective system.
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.
After the songs on The Decca Stereo Anthology, I did the demos on Zombie Heaven and then Odessey and Oracle. Currently, I'm working through the songs for the "lost album," but there are only two left.
I wrote about some songs on The Birds, The Bees, & the Monkees in August.
Partially because David Crosby died in January, I decided to listen to all of the Byrds albums I have. I got through The Preflyte Sessions, Mr. Tambourine Man, and Turn! Turn! Turn! pretty easily, but it took me a long time to continue on with Fifth Dimension. Part of the reason is that I thought I would be overwhelmed with taking notes on new features I discovered because it had been so long since I last listened to it. In the last month or so of 2023, I listened to all of the Byrds albums from Fifth Dimension to (Untitled), plus The Byrds Play Dylan. I do have a handful of notes now, and I plan to write about them next year.
In September, I watched the Zombies' Live from Studio Two DVD on its anniversary. I'd attended the virtual concert in 2021 and got the CD/DVD release when it came out, but I hadn't watched the DVD yet. I plan to watch it every year now.
I made a few recordings to demonstrate some parts I learned:
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.
I was equally unproductive this year. I wrote two songs for FAWM and only one for 50/90.
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.
I didn't follow along in the notation for any, but I did write down some notes.
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.
In early November, one of the strings on my mandolin broke. I'd been using the same strings since I got my mandolin thirteen years ago, and I'd been dreading a broken string for months or maybe even longer. I missed a week of #mandolinmonday while I was waiting for the strings to be replaced at the local music store; instead, I played the melody for "Allerschönste aller Frauen," a German swing song from the 1940s, on guitar.
I didn't do anything particularly special for Christmas because it would have been out of season by the time I post the re-run to YouTube.
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.
I did finish the first volume of Bartók's Mikrokosmos (here's a link to the playlist), but it took me until July. I didn't feel very motivated early in the year (partially because it was so cold), and in the first three months, I recorded only three tunes for this project, of which only one was from the Mikrokosmos.
For about two months (mid-August to mid-October), I took a break from posting pieces, and when I resumed, I adopted a new schedule. Previously, I'd posted a piece every Wednesday, but now I'm posting on the first and third Wednesdays of the month. I'll keep posting pieces for a month or two, but currently, I don't have any plans to record any more (aside from one piece from Telemann's 168 Keyboard Pieces that I want to re-do).
I did record a piece from Bastien's Great Christmas Carols Arranged for Organ ("O Christmas Tree"), but I used the Hohner String Melody II sound instead of one of the Pianet samples.
I'd forgotten about writing a post on ELO's use of the Clavinet, and when I remembered, I didn't think I would have enough time left in the year to listen to all of the albums carefully enough to write a well researched post.
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.
Near the end of August, I got to a point where I'd workt a whole year ahead in recording the tunes. I exceeded my monthly goal every month except for May, when I merely met my goal.
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."
I learned the guitar part in "Wine and Violet" in early January:
In late March, I added an-other element to my trigger for working on my cover projects. For every time former classmates posted, I also listened to an album from one of the bands whose music I'm trying to learn (although I didn't include the Byrds). I cycled from project to project and in a rough chronological order within each project. This way, I'm listening to the music with more frequency than I would be otherwise, and I notice new features to write about or find parts that sound easy to figure out.
I figured out 179 parts, although some of these were parts I simply re-learned after having forgotten them and not writing them down. I also started transcribing the lyrics to songs for which I figured out parts, provided I hadn't started transcribing them already. There are a few I didn't get around to, though. I sort of ran out of energy or motivation to figure out parts to songs I heard mentioned, and I think there were a few in December I didn't even write down to remind myself to learn.
Songs posted or referenced by various bands my cousin is in provided a greater impetus for figuring out parts than did "tolls" for listening to albums. For the record, here are the parts I figured out that fall into this category:
Chords for the Hollies' "Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress)"
Chords for Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence" (acoustic version)
Most of the chords for Paul & Linda McCartney's "Dear Boy"
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."
In May, roughly coinciding with Goodman's birthday, I watched The Benny Goodman Story for the first time. I'd received it for my birthday a couple months before.
I finished Benny Goodman and the Swing Era in September. Duke Ellington was mentioned in the book quite a lot, and I felt I should become more familiar with him, so the day after I finished the Goodman biography, I started reading Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington by Terry Teachout.
I practiced clarinet every month, although usually only once a month. I know this doesn't count for very much, but once a month is better than not at all.
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.
I doubled the note values in the notation because I felt it would be easier to read that way.
Usually, I didn't figure out other parts as "tolls" for listening to the albums, but I did figure out the solo (some kind of zither, I think) in "Message of Our Love" and the bass part in the verses of "Everything That Touches You."
I also listened to a 45 of "Windy" b/w "Sometime." I've had the record for years, but this was the first time I'd listened to it.
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.
I think it was in June that I started just listening to them while doing other things and not actually watching them.
At some point, I realized that since Dvořák also wrote nine symphonies, I could easily pair the two collections, so for the fourth cycle through the Beethoven symphonies (9 July to 3 September), I listened to the correspondingly numbered Dvořák symphony on the following Tuesday. I have a box set of them, but I think I'd listened to it only twice before.
The schedule didn't work out evenly, and I ended up listening to the ninth symphony one fewer time than the others, but I'm not too concerned about it.
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.
I'm not sure if I really became very familiar with the pieces, but I did do this. As something of a continuation, in October, I started going through Corelli's trio sonatas and recording some movements using Mellotron sounds. Here's a playlist, although I've posted only two so far.
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.
I made only some progress in this. Often, when I would watch one video from my list, YouTube would recommend me others that I wanted to watch, so I would add those and end up with a longer list than when I started. Currently, the list has 299 videos.
Other Things to Note
The first thing I listened to in 2023 was the first disc of Telemann's Tafelmusik, which started a project I hadn't intended to do: every month, I listened to the complete Tafelmusik.
In March, I started reading Sideman, the book by and about Jim Rodford, and I finished it in June. Also in June, I started reading The New Bach Reader, a collection of documents relating to Johann Sebastian Bach.
Early in April, I started reading a digitized book about Haydn (I'd mistakenly thought it was a collection of letters that Haydn wrote, but I'm reading it anyway). I like the description (in a footnote starting on page 98) of what characteristics certain keys have. Here are some of my favorites:
A major - "Golden, warm, and sunny"
Bb major - "The least interesting of any"
G minor - "Replete with melancholy"
Ab major - "The most lovely of the tribe"
In May, I listened to a two-disc set of some of Telemann's suites and ouvertures (for only the third time), and I had the idea to record some of these using Mellotron sounds, like I'd previously done with a few classical pieces. Along with my own limitations (because I have very little formal musical training), I'm a bit constrained by the character of the Mellotron sounds, so I've skipt quite a lot. I find that the slower movements work better. I've been posting one movement a month (on the Friday on or after the 14th), and I intend to continue this. Here's a playlist.
Along with movements from Telemann's ouvertures and Corelli's trio sonatas, I recorded some other pieces using only Mellotron sounds:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
Ecco Mann - Manfred Mann, Manfred Mann's Earth Band
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).
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).
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.
Menuet in G major, HWV 521 (which I'd recorded a couple years ago but wanted to re-do)
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.
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):
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.
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.
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