Friday, January 1, 2021

2021 Musical Projects and Goals

An-other year means an-other post about my musical projects and goals for the next year.  But first, here's a rundown of how well I did on last year's projects and goals.
Scales

Carrying on from October, I have a designated scale each week (it's Bb major this week) that I play on whatever instrument I start playing (provided I can play the instrument well enough to be able to play scales).
 I did this.
Lyres, Harps, and Cymbals
I'm going to stick to the schedule I have going now - a recording of a hymn tune on Sunday, a re-post of old comments on sacred classical music on Monday (I should finish Handel's Messiah this year, and then I'll move on to Saint-Säens' Christmas Oratorio), a post tracing the Biblical sources of a hymn on Wednesday, and a post commenting on a (usually small) point in a hymn on Friday.
I continued with this.  If I recall correctly, my initial plan was to post the notes on Saint-Saëns' Christmas Oratorio immediately after those on Handel's Messiah.  Eventually, I decided to wait until it was closer to Christmastime.  I'd forgotten about it, but in early December I lookt back at my post of projects and goals and was reminded of it.  Fortunately, there were just enough Mondays left in the year to accommodate one post for each movement I had notes about.
Cover Projects

Here's the updated list and what band(s) the projects cover:
I have a few old notes I need to get around to writing about (some as old as 2018), but my only quantifiable goal is to learn a part (or a bit of a part) to every song on Manfred Mann's As Is.  I got the album in late October and immediately loved it (which I suppose is part of the reason I started the Manfred Mann cover project).  There are twelve songs, so it works out to one song a month.  I already figured out a few bits in "Trouble and Tea," including the alto recorder part (so getting an alto recorder in July was worth it).

Because it's 2020, I'm going to listen to the Beach Boys' 20/20 on the 20th day of the month, but only from January to June and excepting February.  I'm hoping that this will give me more time and motivation to work on FAWM (in February) and 50/90 (from July to September).  I do NaNoWriMo in November, and December is usually busy with holiday things, so it doesn't seem worth it to pick it up again for those months (or October).
I didn't get around to writing about some notes I have on the Monkees' Justus album, but otherwise, I accomplished these goals.  I listened to 20/20 in February anyway.  Twice, actually:  on the 20th to continue my pattern and on the 10th because it was the anniversary of its release.

Earlier this week, I made my first recording for the Ecco Mann project:  two guitar parts and the bass part in "Since I Don't Have You."

Because apparently I'm not doing enough of these sorts of projects, I started one on the Byrds in November.  For now, I'm focusing just on posting my old notes (weekly on Tuesdays).  I'm not sure if I'll place as much emphasis on figuring out parts for that project.
FAWM and 50/90

When I set goals about using specific instruments for these projects, they usually don't end up going very well, but I would like to use trombone more, especially in FAWM.  I have a cousin who's in a band that uses brass instruments, and they're releasing a single on 31 January, so I'm sure that at least at the beginning of FAWM, I'll feel something along the lines of "he's in a band with brass, so I should be able to use my trombone again!"

As a general comment:  I've noticed that since I got my Nord Electro 5, I haven't been as particular as I used to be about using sampled sounds.  I always felt that that was cheating a bit, but the mellotron sounds especially have changed my thinking.
I had only slightly more success in FAWM and 50/90 than I did the previous year.  I wrote ten songs for FAWM and fourteen for 50/90.  Of those twenty-four, I like only about seven.

I didn't play my trombone all year, partially because I simply don't have enough space in my room to extend the slide without hitting anything.
Bach Cantatas

I'm going to continue listening to a Bach cantata every Saturday and occasionally print out the notation and take notes.  This year, it'll be BWV 96 to BWV 150, but the box set I have doesn't include BWV 118, 141, or 142.
I did this.
Clarinet
I've been saving up for a clarinet since June, and according to my spreadsheet, I'm about 78% of the way there.  As I mentioned a year ago, I want to have one by February 2021, but because I'm wary of shipping in the wintertime, my goal is to have it by October.

The other instrument I'd like to get this year is the Hammond XPK-130G - a bass pedal unit to use with my keyboard.  The music store that I got my Nord Electro 5 from also offers a financing deal on the XPK, and - after I get a clarinet - my plan is to save half of my money for the bass pedals and half of my money for a college education.

I never liked the university I graduated from, and over the past few years, that dislike has swelled to disgust and loathing.  I transferred universities in a moment of desperation so I wouldn't have to live in a dorm anymore, but this turned out to be the worst mistake of my life.  Among other failings, the university I graduated from was two steps backwards academically, and part of me feels that had I stayed where I was, I would be much better off now (at least I would have a quality education, and I wouldn't be embarrassed and ashamed by the university I graduated from).  I've been unemployed since I graduated almost six years ago, and I've been rejected for every job I've applied for.  Now, I desperately want to go back to university to overwrite my stupid and useless degree, but I don't know if I'll have the courage, mental capacity, or the finances to be able to do it within a year.

At the end of 2018, I applied to and was accepted by a different university from the same university system as the one I originally attended, but I had to decline because I couldn't even afford the tuition deposit.  One of my goals is to have at least that amount by the end of the year, whether I apply or not.  I'm going to get a good college education or die trying.  In the meantime - because no one wants to hire me - I do these music projects.
I could afford a clarinet by the end of March; I ordered one on 1 October; and I got it in the mail on 8 October.


Unfortunately, I haven't had much opportunity to practice and haven't learned more than a few notes.  But I can (roughly) play what I believe is the only clarinet phrase in the entire Electric Light Orchestra discography:


I actually got the pedal board before the clarinet.  The financing deal disappeared but then reappeared early in summer, so I got one in July.  This also meant that I could (and did) use it on some of my 50/90 songs.  Here's an example:


Here are my "liner notes" on the song:
There's a claim on multiple websites that Electric Light Orchestra's Richard Tandy "was often seen on stage playing the stereotypical 1970s prog-rock stack of keyboards, with bass pedals under his feet."  As far as I can tell, the bass pedal part is unfounded.  The only pedals I've seen in pictures of Tandy's keyboard rig are expression and sustain pedals, not bass pedals.  In any case, I liked the idea of an ELO-type song with bass pedals, which is where this started (but probably not where it ended up).
This is the first time I used the MIDI function on my Hammond XPK-130G (for recording, anyway).  I split my keyboard so that there was a synth trombone sound on the left (played with the pedal board) and Wurlitzer electric piano on the right, and I played the parts simultaneously.  I split the output (lower voice on left out, upper voice on right out), so I had more control for mixing.
Instruments:
Nord Electro 5 (synth trombone sound played via MIDI on my Hammond XPK-130G, Wurlitzer)
Electric guitar (with fuzz effect, recorded via line-in)
I didn't know if I'd be able to figure out the MIDI functionality, but it was much easier than I expected, and now I use that more often than the built-in sounds.

For a few months, I followed through on putting half of my money into a college fund, but I got a bit discouraged and was lured away by the siren song of more instruments.  For the last half of the year or so, I've been saving most of my money for a Hammond SKX and a Moog Subsequent 37.  While acquiring these is also quite a lofty goal, it's much more achievable than moving to an-other state in order to go back to college.

In a blog post a few months ago, the university I want to go back to said that aside from fall 2016, the new student population has risen every year since 2010 (the year I entered).  It seems unlikely, then, that the university will unexpectedly close any time soon, but I'm a bit concerned that the instruments I want to get will suddenly become unavailable.  This almost happened with my Nord Electro 5 (I got it shortly after the Electro 6 was announced, but the Hohner Pianet sample doesn't work on the 6).

Even though I've been putting most of my money toward instruments, I do put some towards my college fund every month.  Between those savings and a windfall last January, I can now afford the tuition deposit three times over, so while things didn't go the way I'd anticipated, I'm still counting this as accomplished.

As I noted above, I started a project/blog dedicated to the Hohner Pianet in September.  So far, it's mostly been recordings I made with the Pianet sample on my Nord Electro 5.  In August, I got a book of excerpts from Bach's Notebook for Anna Magdalena, and in practicing and learning those, I've become a better keyboard player (although I'm still not as good as I want to be).  I'd like to continue learning and recording those, along with some other pieces (I've done a couple from James Bastien's The Older Beginner Piano Course Level 2, and I'm currently working on a Gavotte by Handel).

I'd like to work more on the other aspects I mentioned in my introduction:  "showcas[ing] Pianet parts from other songs, like the Lovin' Spoonful's 'Summer in the City,' the Buckinghams' 'Hey Baby (They're Playing Our Song),' and the Beatles' 'Tell Me What You See'" and "transcrib[ing] and translat[ing] the text from the demonstration record."  I have a start, at least:  I made a video on "Tell Me What You See" that I plan on posting this week, and I have one section of the text from the demonstration record transcribed and (mostly) translated.
On Piano Day (which fell on 28 March last year), I started learning the Czerny 100 exercises, and by the end of the year, I'd made it through the first seventeen.  In May, I started putting a lot of effort into learning those and other keyboard pieces (from various books I have and from online sources, notably IMSLP), and I think I've posted one a week since June.  I started going through Bartók's First Term at the Piano in the middle of September and was halfway through by the end of the year.  At the end of November, I had so many recorded pieces in reserve that I moved to a Monday/Wednesday/Friday posting schedule for December.

Although I didn't do much work on specific songs that feature Pianet, I did transcribe and translate the demonstration record.  To complement this, I transcribed and translated the demonstration record for the Clavinet too.  I also wrote a number of posts about particular groups who used the Pianet, and research for some of those took quite a bit of time.
Haydn

Partially because there's an excerpt from his F major sonata (Hob. XVI:23) on the Hohner Pianet demonstration record, I listened to a fair bit of Haydn last year.  I have a CD of three keyboard concerti (Nos. 3, 4, and 11) that I'm quite fond of (as far as I know, it's the only recording in my collection that uses pianoforte), and for Easter, I got a 5-CD set of his London symphonies (which I'll admit I didn't listen to until December).  I want to listen to at least one Haydn piece every Thursday (Thursday because it's the only day of the week that has an H).
I did listen to Haydn every Thursday.  For the Thursdays in Lent, I listened to Die sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers am Kreuze.

This overlapped a little with my Hohner Pianet project in that I learned and recorded three of Haydn's German Dances, Hob. IX:22, No. 2; Hob. IX:12, No. 7; and Hob. IX:12, No. 1 (yet to be posted).

I also discovered that those keyboard concerti are not the only pieces in my music collection played on fortepiano.  I have a five-CD set of C.P.E. Bach's keyboard works, and some of those are played on pianoforte too.
Summer Breeze

In 2015, in my introduction to Beatle Audit, I wrote, "I started wondering what would happen if I tried regularly listening to an album while also trying to learn all of the parts to it."  I did this for a while with A Hard Day's Night and Beatles for Sale before giving up on that aspect of Beatle Audit, but when I wrote that, I was actually thinking about Seals & Crofts' Summer Breeze.  This year, I'm going to do it.  The original idea was to listen to it every week, but I'm changing that.  My goal now is to listen to it on the 10th of every month, but - as with the Beach Boys' 20/20 - only from January to June and excepting February.
I didn't plan this project very well.  I followed the listening schedule, and I figured out a part (or a bit of a part) after each listen, but because I listened to it only six times (I listened to it on 10 February too) and there are ten songs on the album, I ended up having to figure out more parts in November and December to reach my goal.
Parts

I'm going to continue figuring out parts but not with the fervor of last year.  For the last few years, I've figured out a part for one of my cover projects every time I see an old high school classmate post about his or her creative endeavors, and I'll be continuing that.  I also aim to learn a part to any song I hear mentioned.
I learned 294 parts (or bits of parts), which is considerably lower than the last few years (865 in 2017, 722 in 2018, and 1020 in 2019).  Either I forgot about learning a part to any song I hear mentioned or I wasn't paying enough attention.  I think the only part that falls into this category is the marimba in the Rolling Stones' "Under My Thumb," which was specifically mentioned in a Jeopardy! clue and which I figured out that night.

I added four albums to the list of albums to which I know at least a bit of each song:  Electric Light Orchestra's Discovery and Face the Music, Manfred Mann's As Is, and Seals & Crofts' Summer Breeze.

Other Notable 2020 Events
In early July, I got a book of Telemann pieces set for mandolin, and while I've practiced a few of those and want to record them (along with some pieces from flutetunes.com), I haven't had the house to myself long enough to do it.  I did only one mandolin video all year:


Starting on 28 July (his death date), I listened to a disc of Bach's organ works every Tuesday (Peter Hurford's seventeen-CD set).  For the remaining six Tuesdays of the year, I listened to a disc of a six-CD set of Buxtehude's organ music.

From Beethoven's (probable) birthday on 16 December until 27 December, I listened to at least one of his pieces every day.

On 21 December, I reached 20 subscribers on YouTube.  Although this is a paltry figure (and most of my subscribers don't even watch my videos), I wanted to reach it by end of the year, partially because it's 2020 and partially because I was twenty when I started my channel eight years ago.

Since July 2019, I've been printing out the notation for Bach's St. Matthew Passion a few pages at a time.  On 29 December, I finally finished printing Part I.

2021 Musical Projects and Goals

Scales
When I start playing an instrument, I start with a scale, provided it's an instrument I can play well enough to play scales on.  I change scales every week and go in the order of Bach's Well Tempered Clavier.  Continuing on in my cycle, I'm on C major for the first full week of 2021, which nicely coincides with the fresh start of a new year.

On Sundays, I post a recording of a hymn tune.  For the last few years, I've been going through The Lutheran Hymnal.  Usually, I record all four voice parts (on mandolin, guitar, and bass).  Since I entered the Easter section, there are a number of hymns with "Alleluia"s, and I want to double these on recorder as often as I'm able.

On Wednesdays, I publish a post tracing the Biblical sources of a hymn in The Lutheran Service Book.  In the last few months, I've been diligently working on setting up future posts, and by the time the year is over, I want to have transcribed all of the hymns in The Lutheran Service Book.  I have 120 or so left.

On Fridays, I publish a short musicological post about a hymn.  Usually, it's a minor feature along the lines of "this text about going down is sung to a descending melody."

Cover Projects
Here's an updated list with links and what groups the projects cover
Ostensibly, the goal of these projects is to figure out every part to every song, but over the last few years, I've done more writing than recording.  Last year, I recorded only four audio examples.  Still, I plan to continue these explorations.

Since I started Byrd Dimension only in November, I still have a lot of old notes I need to post.  I think most of them are about Sweetheart of the Rodeo, which is my favorite Byrds album.

Last year, I got a box set of the first seven Manfred Mann EPs, and for the first few months of this year, I plan on posting notes I made while listening to those over the course of the last seven or eight months.  After that, I might turn my attention to Mighty Garvey!, which I got even before the EPs but which I haven't listened to as much (simply because it's longer).

I haven't been very productive for FAWM or 50/90 for the last few years, so I have no great hope for these, but as long as I write a couple decent songs for each challenge, I'll be satisfied.

Bach Cantatas
I plan on continuing my cycle of listening to the Bach cantatas (going by BWV number), one every Saturday.  In early November, I'll reach the end (of what I have, anyway), but I'll probably end up restarting the sequence with BWV 1.  Many of the CMQ pieces (see below) are Bach cantatas, and I'm going to make more of an effort to follow along in the notation than I have been.  Occasionally, I make notes on these, and I plan to post them on Lyres, Harps, and Cymbals in the distant future.

I plan on continuing to learn and record pieces with the Hohner Pianet N sample on my Nord Electro 5.  For now, I'm going to continue my schedule of posting pieces on Wednesdays, but since I already have a handful of pieces I recorded last year (which will reach through most of February), I might change this later.  I'm going to continue in the Czerny 100 and in Bartók's First Term at the Piano (which I might finish by the end of the year).  I'd also like to record at least one piece by Mozart and one by Beethoven.

I might write some more posts about specific groups or songs that used the Pianet, but for now I have no definite plans for these.

Cembalet Records
In August, I acquired five EPs by the Mag'net Quartet that feature the Hohner Cembalet.  I plan on listening to one of these every week day in February.
  • Cembalet Party, Vol. 1 on Mondays
  • Cembalet Party, Vol. 2 on Tuesdays
  • Boom sur le Cembalet! on Wednesdays 
  • Chansons immortelles de Marguerite Monnot on Thursdays
  • Cembalet variétés on Fridays

CMQ
I skipt it last time (I used to do it every other year), but I'm going to attempt doing the Classical Music Queue again this year.  Every time I hear a classical piece mentioned, I add it to a list (provided I have it in my collection), and then I listen to them one a day.  I severely underestimated the number of pieces I would hear mentioned, and/so I'll start the year by making my way through pieces I added back in July 2015.  At the time, I was reading a book about Bach, so - like I mentioned above - many of the CMQ pieces are Bach cantatas.

I got the multi-track stems for Fleet Foxes' Shore in December (even before I'd heard the album), and I reasoned that since I'd made so much progress in my cover projects (where I'm trying to figure out parts by listening to a finished mix), learning parts from isolated tracks should be fairly straight forward.  I'm going to wait until July to start that part of this project (so I can simply enjoy listening to the album first), and in the meantime, I'll be posting old notes I made about the first three Fleet Foxes albums (but mostly Helplessness Blues, which is my favorite).  I plan on listening to Shore on the 21st of every month, at least from January to June; I don't know if I'll continue this into July and beyond.

Booker T. & the MGs
During my family's virtual Thanksgiving party, my cousin mentioned Booker T. & the MG's, specifically how he was trying to learn to play organ like that.  Consequently, I listened to the sole Booker T. & the MG's album I have every week for the remainder of 2020.  For Christmas, I got a box set of the first five albums, and I plan on listening to one every Friday (but because fifty-three Fridays don't divide equally by five albums, I'll also listen to The Best of Booker T. & the MG's a few times).

Learning Parts
As in previous years, I aim to figure out a part (cycling through my cover projects) for every time I see posts that old classmates make about their creative endeavors.  Starting in July, I'm going to figure out two:  one for a cover project and one for Vulpine Vox.

Sometimes, I figure out a part as a "toll" for listening to an album.  Although I don't hold myself to this very strictly (especially for live albums and certainly for albums I'm not very familiar with yet), I'd like to continue doing it.  The same goes for figuring out a part to songs I hear mentioned (although I usually pass if it's a song I've already figured out a part to).

Organ and Moog
I'm going to continue to save for a Hammond SKX and a Moog Subsequent 37.  I'd like to get both at the same time (in order to avoid a second trip to the music store, which is a few hours away), but - going by the combined total of what I have saved for each - I'd like to have enough to afford the Moog alone by 2 July (the mid-point of the year) and enough to afford the organ alone by the end of the year.  The first of these goals seems much more realistic than the second, however.

In the extremely unlikely event that I'm able to afford both instruments by the time the year is over, saving for college will become my new priority, but I'll also start saving for a digital Mellotron, which is the next instrument on my list.