French Suite in E Major

You might have something to say about the title: ".....in E Major."  Your brain might be hardwired by now to say that if it's something in something major (or minor), then it's a classical song, and if it has some out-of-the-blue name like "Salt Peanuts," or "Cold Duck Time" (that's probably #1 on my list of songs with strange names), then it's a jazz song. You might not have been sure about River, but generally there's a difference in titles between different styles of music.

Of course, you'll find some songs written in different time periods that are similar to a previous one or influential to the next one. Even in a certain place and time, you'll find two or three styles of music that are being played, listened to, and written a lot, and most people involved in that scene will mostly agree. So, the songs would have their own variations based on the composer but they'd still all be connected to each other in some way. There's a lot of influencing happening in music. Older musicians are inspiring younger ones, people want change into a new musical era, songs bring attention back to some composers, and we can probably continue that list for a while.

Rialto Ripples

Most of you reading this post probably don't have exactly the same interests and views on a topic as the next person who is going to come here. Everyone is different, and that's really a good thing in many ways. If every blog you ever found was exactly the same as this one and every post on every one of them was exactly the same, then you could just read the post and then forget about all blogs because nothing would be new. And if everyone was George Gershwin, the composer of this song (I know some of you are starting to say things because I talk about him - and play his songs - a lot), then no one would bother listening to his songs, and no one would think that he was a good composer.

Summer Slides

Today is September 12, 2018. And I sure hit the record books for Tea with Liya with my 40th post of the year! But - there's only 10 days left until a new season is coming.

I still remember writing this song a few months ago, when I listened to Valse Hot and decided to make a song based on its chords.

(2026: Since I still had a teacher to show my compositions to, he might've helped me with this one.) 

How did it go by so fast? Summer is a time when school ends, temperatures get warm (although sometimes a little bit too warm), and it's the ideal time to do lots of things - do construction, take vacations, play in the park (which is where the other interpretation of "Summer Slides" - the slides that we play with in the summer - came from), go outside, just relax for a while, or anything that needs the sun to be shining for lots of hours - but now, it's almost gone.

But why?

Because of time.

River

Some of you probably came here because you were looking for classical music (like I've been posting for the past few weeks). Unfortunately, this song doesn't meet the criteria needed to be a classical song. First of all, the name. Most classical songs have names like "(type of song) in (key)". There is actually an RCM song called "The River" (which I found while looking for the recording of this one on my computer), but that's not the same song that I'm playing here.

The second giveaway is what the song sounds like - it doesn't have the same structure as the piano sonatas I've learned.

Why can't I be like that....?

You know sometimes, we all get caught up in comparing ourselves to others. I admit that I've been guilty of that sometimes. We all end up thinking things like this:

Whoa, he sure is a really good singer. If only I could....... That video got 100,000 views in only 3 days? I'll never get there.....There's 4 year olds playing ARCT songs. What about me......How did she get the money to buy that car?

There's many things we want to reach, but we think that we can't get there. Sometimes, we really can't get there. Other times, it's because we are stopping ourselves. Still other times, it's because we can't do everything.