Polonaise in E Major

Yeah. I know the jazz fans out there are starting to lose confidence in this blog. "You said that you'd post a song once every week. But this doesn't seem to be the variety we're looking for. You have, like, 30 jazz songs and now you've decided to abandon the genre of music entirely." Please tell me: When did I say that? Some people seem to assume things that aren't really true these days. In fact, one page I read about making good videos said that the average person in 2015 had an attention span of about 8 seconds. (This is not in any way saying that your brain is malfunctioning or filled with rotten eggs. I said some people, and the average person, not you.) Technology might be having a positive impact on this world, but it can also have negatives. Many of us have heard about global warming and radio waves and deforestation. So, back to the topic of music, I've decided to take a break from the modern, jazz music and move back to the old.


But when I say the old, I'm not going to say something like, "J.S. Bach wrote this song in 1821 (not true, he wasn't even alive then) and received great fame for his music because he was only 12 at the time (also not true) and he went to play music for people that walked around on the street (once again not true, many composers played for the nobility) and he decided that the turn of the century was coming soon (in 1821?), so he just decided to leave Romania (he didn't even live there) and no one ever saw him again. (He never did that.) Many people were sad because this great composer had left them. (This might possibly have a basis in fact.)"

As you can see, I just gave you a bunch of detailed facts that aren't really true. I'd rather say that playing these types of songs requires you to basically have a metronome inside your head. You have to be able to keep track of the beat because there's no swing in these types of songs. Everything needs to be lined up perfectly - eighth notes detached there, put in some dynamics (volume changes) there, don't forget that rest there..." If you happen to skip a note, the whole rhythm of the song goes out of whack and you have to start that part over, instead of just continuing on as if nothing ever happened like I'd do with Old Adam. Songs like this need a lot of practice to play well.

Of course, that doesn't mean that they are the most difficult songs in history. If you didn't already know that I've been struggling to pick songs I like from the RCM ARCT syllabus, then you might also want to know that some of the sonatas - most of the sonatas, I think - are about 20 minutes long. My fingers would be quite tired after playing that. They also would be quite stretched if I played the song by Rachmaninoff that's in one of the lists. His hands - and the chords he wrote in his songs - were quite large. I don't think that I'll break any world records for big hands. (huge understatement) However, composers that write songs that only they can play well might get a lot of requests to play that song, because they're the only people that can supply the high demand.

Also, composers that write songs that a lot of people like will get a lot of other people listening to and playing their music. Which is why I posted this song - because I liked it, I played it and I hope you'll like it.