Monday, January 7, 2019

2019 Musical Projects and Goals

First, here's how I did on my 2018 musical projects (indented).
Scales - I quite like practicing a scale every day, even if it's sometimes a bit tedious, so I'm going to continue doing that.
As I did last year, I occasionally fell behind a couple days, but I did continue in my cycle of scale practicing.  Near the end of the year, I abandoned doing it for a two-minute period though.
Lyres, Harps, and Cymbals - I'm going to continue with the schedule I've established: a recording of a hymn tune on Sunday, a post tracing the Biblical sources of a hymn on Wednesday, and a musicological post about a hymn on Friday.  I have a back-log of musicological posts to write, but I recently started prioritizing posts about hymns for the current season of the church year.
I maintained this schedule.  "Behind the scenes," as it were, I've also been working on transcribing hymn texts and Biblical passages for future posts.
Cover Projects
Like I mentioned above, I'm discontinuing my Cover Project Listening Schedule for this year.  In some ways, that determined which project I workt on during the week.  I'm sure I'll still do some work on the projects, but I don't expect it'll be as much as I did last year.
This was kind of a failure; in March, I started an-other cover project for the Moody Blues, and I don't think I did any less work on these than in the previous year (in fact, I might have done more work in some).  Of course, as I expected, I was more active in some projects than others.  Over the course of the year, I got to the point where I now know at least a little bit for every song on:
  • The Alan Parsons Project - Pyramid
  • The Alan Parsons Project - Eve
  • Electric Light Orchestra - Balance of Power
  • The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
  • Electric Light Orchestra - No Answer
  • The Alan Parsons Project - The Turn of a Friendly Card
  • The Monkees - The Monkees
  • Jeff Lynne's ELO - Alone in the Universe
  • Colin Blunstone - Ennismore
  • The Alan Parsons Project - Eye in the Sky
I did much less recording for these projects than I have in previous years, so in that regard at least, I did step back a bit.
Instrument Practice - I don't have a set schedule (I probably should), but I'd like to practice piano and flute with at least some regularity this year.  I'm never as good at piano as I'd like to be, and since I just started learning flute last year, I'm not very good at it yet.
I did some practice, but because I didn't have a schedule, it wasn't very organized.  I made some progress in my piano book; a month or two ago, I learned a Telemann minuet, and - even though it's almost certainly a simplified version - I love playing it.

Around August, I started following the daily pieces posted on flutetunes.com.  Most of the pieces markt "easy" are still well beyond my current flute abilities, but I've been playing many of the pieces on mandolin.  Since a fair number are originally Irish fiddle tunes, playing them on mandolin is actually less of a stretch than playing them on flute.
FAWM and 50/90 - I do these every year.  Lately, it seems that FAWM goes fairly well, but I give up on 50/90 after about a month.
I completed FAWM, and - for the first time ever - I actually completed 50/90 too.  Of course, a lot of the songs I wrote ended up being not all that great, but some turned out nicely.
Alone in the Universe - As part of my 10538 Orchestra project, I want to figure out at least one part to every song on Jeff Lynne's ELO's Alone in the Universe.  I have the deluxe edition, which is twelve tracks, so I'm going to focus on one track every month.
and
The Village Green Preservation Society - It'd been on my wishlist for years, and last August, I finally got a copy of the Kinks' Village Green Preservation Society.  I got the three-disc deluxe edition, and I plan on listening to the first disc on the 10th of every month, the second disc on the 20th, and the third on the 30th (since February doesn't have thirty days, I'll listen to the third disc on 1 March).  I want to figure out parts for each of the songs too.
I accomplished this, although for some tracks, I did just the bare minimum of learning a bit of a part.  For instance, for Jeff Lynne's ELO's "I'm Leaving You," all I learned was a single guitar phrase and for the Kinks' "Johnny Thunder," all I learned was a backing vocal phrase.

I don't think I really had a plan in mind for this, but I even learned some parts to some of the extra songs on the deluxe edition of Village Green Preservation Society.  In November, I made a video about how to play the mellotron part in "Mr. Songbird."


I stuck to my listening schedule for Village Green Preservation Society, although I substituted 22 November for 20 November because 22 November 1968 is the day the album was released.  I wanted to listen to it on the 50th anniversary.

As a far-off eventuality, I commented at the beginning of the year that I wanted to "continue slowly earning money so I can eventually buy a Nord Electro 5D."  This happened much sooner than I expected (15 February).  The Electo 6 was announced, but the specific sound I wanted (the Hohner Pianet) isn't compatible with the Electro 6.  This put something of a rush on my getting an Electro 5 before they all disappeared in favor of the newer model.  Haply, the music store I bought mine from also had a special financing plan that was available for only a week.  I paid a down payment and have three years to pay off the remaining balance.  I spent a good deal of time last year trying to scrap together funds to pay my monthly keyboard bill, and I currently have a little over a year's worth of payments saved up.  By the end of the year, I want to have enough to pay it off.

I hadn't planned on doing this, but between the middle of March and the middle of April, I figured out the chords to every Buck Owens song (a total of 40) on the two-disc compilation album I have.

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2019 Projects


Scales - I'm going to continue in my cycle of scales.  I stick with one scale for five days, practicing it on piano, bass, guitar in open D tuning, mandolin, and guitar in standard tuning.  I follow the order of the scales in Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, and every time I complete a cycle, I move up a fret on the stringed instruments (save for mandolin).

Lyres, Harps, and Cymbals - I'm going to continue with the schedule I've been doing for two years:  a recording of a hymn tune on Sunday (I've been going through The Lutheran Hymnal, although I occasionally skip a tune, and recently, I started doing all four voices [played on two mandolins, guitar, and bass] rather than just three), a post tracing the Biblical sources of a hymn on Wednesday, and a post about a musicological feature (usually just a small point) on Friday.

Cover Projects - For the record, here are links to the blogs and what band(s) they cover:
For all of these, I'm going to continue learning parts for the songs, and I'll probably end up writing some posts about various musicological features I notice.  I also have a few specific plans for some projects:

For Beatle Audit, I'm going to listen to one of the Live at the BBC albums every month, alternating between Live at the BBC and On Air - Live at the BBC, Volume 2 and listening to disc one on the 10th and disc two on the 20th.  Since 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of Abbey Road,  I'm going to make a concentrated effort to learn parts from that album.

Since I started House of Four Doors only in March, I haven't done as much work on that project as on the others.  In order to "catch up," I'm going to listen to a Moody Blues album every Tuesday (because the year started on a Tuesday and ends on a Tuesday and because one of the most well-known Moody Blues songs is "Tuesday Afternoon").  I don't yet have all of the Moody Blues albums, but I'm going to cycle through what albums I have:
  • The Magnificent Moodies
  • Days of Future Passed
  • In Search of the Lost Chord
  • On the Threshold of a Dream
  • To Our Children's Children's Children
  • A Question of Balance
  • Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970
  • Every Good Boy Deserves Favour
  • Caught Live + 5
  • Long Distance Voyager
  • Sur la Mer
  • Keys of the Kingdom
In the event that I acquire more Moody Blues albums during the year, I'll include those in the cycle.

This isn't so much of a concrete plan, but I'd also like to listen to the Zombies' Into the Afterlife with some regularity since most of the songs on that compilation were recorded in 1968 and 1969.

FAWM and 50/90 - I'm going to attempt both of these again.  I'd had the notion to use only piano and flute for FAWM in an attempt to get better at those instruments, but I think I'll have a better chance at completing the projects if I don't put any restrictions on them.

Classical Music Queue - I'm starting up the Classical Music Queue again.  Whenever I hear a classical piece mentioned, I add it to a list, and then I listen to the pieces one a day.  I still have three years' worth of pieces to listen to, so there's no chance I'll get caught up during the year, but I'll make some progress, at least.

Bach Cantatas - Since March (specifically since Bach's birthday on the 21st), I've been listening to a Bach cantata every Saturday, going in order by BWV number.  I'm going to continue that throughout the year, going from BWV 43 to BWV 95 (some cantatas aren't included in that range; I have a box set of the sacred cantatas only).  Occasionally, I print out the scores (from IMSLP) and write notes about the music or Biblical references with plans to write about the cantatas on Lyres, Harps, and Cymbals at some point in the distant future.

Nord Electro 5D - This is probably my most boring goal, but it's also the most essential:  I want to have earned enough money by the end of the year to be able to pay off my keyboard.  I'm still technically unemployed, but I make some money by transcribing receipts over the internet.  Lately, the availability of work has been more capricious than ever, and the work itself is becoming a drag, so I want to be rid of it as soon as possible.

In the event that I do have enough to pay off my keyboard, I'm going to start saving for a clarinet, which I'd like to get before February 2021.  I'm constantly thinking of more instruments I want to get, but clarinet is at the top of my list, followed by a Moog synthesizer and then a violin.

Piano Practice - Every time I see something about piano, I'm going to practice for eight minutes (8 minutes because 88 keys).  I'm putting some restrictions on this, though:  I'm not going to practice at nighttime, and I'm not going to count online posts from piano companies and that sort of thing.

1,000 Parts - This might be a bit too ambitious, but I want to try to figure out 1,000 parts this year (it averages to less than three a day!).  Maybe "bits of parts" is a more accurate wording of my goal.  In 2017, I figured out a part (or a bit of a part) every day, with a total of around 860.  In 2018, I purposely didn't figure out a part every day (I didn't want the pressure of trying to continue my streak), but I still figured out around 720.

Part of this goal includes learning a bit of any song I happened to run across a reference to, provided I have it in my collection.  Already, I've had to venture into the dustier corners of my music library and learn some parts to songs that were mentioned in clues on Jeopardy!  I'm still not exactly sure what I'm doing to do in the event that I run across a reference to a song for which I already know a part.  That's happened twice already; for one song, I learned a bit of a second part, but I don't intend to do that for the second song.  I'm also exempting the Beatles songs I read about in The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (which I aim to finish reading by the end of the month); I'm already trying to figure out parts for all of those, and I don't need the extra pressure from this project.