your fingers were fly'n on "Minute Waltz".....good stuff... thanks!
My Music is Up Again
by Farkel 31 Replies latest jw friends
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avishai
THANK YOU!!! I loves me some farkel music!
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Celia
Fantastic ! I had all your piano pieces downloaded on my old computer, lost everything when we moved stuff from that computer to the new one... Now, on dial-up, it will take me a whole day to download it again ! But I have your cd somewhere around here...
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purplesofa
wow, thanks for sharing..........cant listen right now........but cant wait to listen
purps
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juni
Fantastic Doug!!!
I love piano music - Liebestraum, Traumerei, Minute Waltz.......... BRAVO!
Thank you very much.
Juni
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bebu
Thank you!! I am not a major piano fan, but I do like Chopin. And you make me like everything else as well. Wonderful!!
bebu
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Farkel
I fixed the broken link! :)
Farkel
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Farkel
I will herein offer my own critique of my own music. I've had plenty of time to listen and re-listen to it, and I know what I can do and cannot do, so that makes me qualified to do this.
We musicians are our own worst crtitics, or maybe the best critics of what we do.
Here it painfully goes:
The Bumble Boogie: I've played that since I was 13 years old. It is stale and without any life anymore. I should never play it again. It is just going through the motions and it has lost its spark when I play it these days. I give it a "C."
The Danse Macabre: ahem, most excellent! It has spirit and freshness and is probably the best thing I have on my site. It took me over a year to learn it and since it is a Franz Liszt piano transcription (reduction) of the original Camille Saint Saens original Orchestral Score it should be considered unplayable because just about anything Franz Liszt wrote is unplayable. (I've never found a recording of it, and there are a LOT more pianists who are better then I am ). Yeah, I'm proud of that one. "A-".
Linus and Lucy - what can you say about this classic? Vince Geraldi wrote this in about 1961. It is so difficult to play that most artists who play it on the piano leave out the middle parts. I didn't. A fellow pianist friend of mine who plays it, was astounded that I even attempted to play the middle parts, let alone record them. A critic several years ago stated something like "as a classical pianist I understand why you played it the way you did." His gist was that I didn't play it "jazzy" enough. I can live with that. I was hard enough to play, anyway. I'll give my self a "B" or even a "B+" because I even attempted to play it.
Chopin #11 Prelude - I'm embarrassed I even bothered to make that public. Chopin's preludes are a lot more subtle and I butchered it. "C-".
Chopin's A flat major (Minute Waltz) - I'm even more embarrassed to share that one. I first learned that one when I was 10, and I don't think I play it any better now that i did then. "C".
Sleigh Ride - not bad! "B."
Traumerei - Robert Schumann is very difficult to interpret and play. I will stand up and say my version is not that bad. It is nothing like the performance that Vladimir Horiwitz did in in his come-back recording in 1962, but I am not ashamed of my rendition. "B+".
DubSticks - simply Brilliant, but rather sloppily executed! It is the FIRST thing I have composed! (And the only thing I will EVER compose!. I'm crappy at that stuff.) "B+".
Solace - the Mexican Serenade - Scott Joplin is very difficult to play. It is because of the subtle syncophations in his music. Most players play his rags faster than they should be played, and this particular rag should be played very slowly. Marvin Hamlisch played them beautifully in the circa 1972 Paul Newman, Robert Redford movie, "The Sting." To hear them the way they should be played, watch the movie. "B."
Schubert Impromptu, Opus 90 - I first heard Arthur Rubenstein play this delightful piece over 30 years ago and always wanted to learn it. Three years ago I learned it. Franz Schubert worshipped Beethoven, and his music shows it. I believe I play it well, but if I was to record it again, I would play it slower, lingering more on the melodic phrases and not trying to show off with the allegro sections. 'B". Sigh.
Love in Winter - has an interesting history - several years ago a poster from the Phillipines who went by "Gotcha" emailed me and sent me a music score and asked me if I would learn it and record it. I said "ok." The title was in Korean and that was interesting, but the musical notation was, well, basic musical notation. It is only 4 pages of fairly simple music, except it had a lof of subtle syncopation. Syncopation is hard to pull off if one wants to make it sound right. "B+".
"Syncopation": noun, in music it is where the emphasis is not on the beats but on the off-beats, and it fucks you up if you are not paying attention.
Loony Tunes - I like it! It sounds so much like the dub song "Living Together in Love and Insanity", doesn't it? :) "A-".
Misty - the most important thing about this one is that this is the ORIGINAL version that its author Errol Garnet played, not any of the other versions. It is jazzy and also syncophated and there is a lot of harmonies here that are special. I'll give myself a "8" on my rendition. "B+".
That's about it. It is not perfect, but it is still good.
Farkel
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Gopher
BTTT for any who missed this. I first heard these renditions by Doug when he posted them out here in 2002, and they are brilliant!
I cannot stop replaying Dubsticks Fantasy (Chopsticks / From House to House). The barking dog sound made me ROFL. (Ever had a dog follow you around when you went door to door?)
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lisavegas420
woo hoo...i've always loved your music. Especically Dubsticks.
lisa