Jingle Bells

I'm glad you returned today to listen to this jolly Christmas song called "Jingle Bells." The history of this song is more complicated than you might expect - it isn't associated with Christmas at all! It probably became a Christmas song because it mentions traditions associated with the time of year or the holiday itself. Thanks again for coming to listen!

Listen to the song here
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Mary, Did You Know?

Don't start thinking about that "Friday, 13" at the top of your screen - now's the time to celebrate Christmas! I've had the opportunity to learn some more Christmas songs for you to listen to this season. There are only 2 weeks left, but there's still time! Today's song is called "Mary Did You Know." I hope you like this one!

Listen to the song here
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Music Box Dancer

Welcome back to Tea with Liya! Today, I'll be playing a song called "Music Box Dancer," composed by Frank Mills. If you have heard of this song but haven't actually listened to it, this would be a great opportunity for you to check it out! Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy this song!


Listen to the song here
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As the Deer

Today's hymn on Tea with Liya is a song called "As the Deer." This song contrasts with my previous one in that it's more quiet and gentle. Nonetheless, songs like this one can still convey emotions better than simply saying something. Thanks for joining me on Tea with Liya today!


Listen to the song here
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It seems as though the Christmas season has hit us like a tsunami - or should I call it the season of buying presents? If you live in America, it will be an especially fast transition - one day (i.e. tomorrow) you will be celebrating Thanksgiving, and the next, the cars will fill the highways as people run to the stores for Black Friday.

Here are the lyrics for this song

Maybe this song will help you to forget about all the rush and be thankful for what you have. What started out as a tradition of sharing the love with our families has become an event that can fill up a sizable portion of our lives.

And it's only November 27th!

Image by tookapic from Pixabay

I wonder how much further it's going to go. Even if we can't push Christmas sales past the beginning of November, there are still Thanksgiving sales, and back to school sales, and Valentine's Day sales, and sales for almost every holiday you can think of. Stores, offices, and other capitalist buildings are towering above our churches, whether physically or metaphorically.

There is something you can do to change that - maybe not instantly, but you can make a small change. Instead of running to the store today, why don't you listen to some more songs like this one? (You can find some here.) Thanksgiving doesn't have to just be a one-day break from the buying and selling - you can put some of it into as many days as you want.

One way to do that, for reasons I explained at the top of this page, is to keep filling your teacup with music!

~Liya

In Christ Alone

It's time to listen to another song on Tea with Liya. I'm glad you came here to hear this hymn called "In Christ Alone." I've noticed while other hymns are soft and gentle, this one actually sounds powerful - true to its name, of course! One of the most popular hymns of all time, this is a song that you've probably heard before. If you haven't, now's your chance!

Listen to the song here

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According to statistics, the more time you spend on the Internet (and therefore, the more likely you are to be seeing this), the less likely you are to remember 1999.

Come on, minute hand! Just move to the 12! Image by LouAnn Clark from Pixabay

Here are the lyrics for this song.

It was a year when most of us expected big change. After all, you've got 3 whole 9s rolling over to 0s. Isn't that an important event? It's the new millennium! Let's celebrate!

Hmm...

We'll be able to throw up all our Y2K signs - call it a century of growth and progress....

The new millennium doesn't start in 2000! If only you could have figured that out yourself....

But if 0 AD was the beginning of the 1st millennium, then 2000 must also be the beginning of a millennium.

There was no 0 AD. In fact, how could you decide whether it would be AD or BC? It's like asking whether 0 is positive or negative. So, 1 full year would have passed at the end of year 1, and 2 full years would have passed at the end of year 2, and so on until 2000 full years have passed at the end of year 2000.

If you're 49, it's actually your 50th year of living, but you don't celebrate the new decade at that time. You celebrate when the year finishes, not when it starts.

So then, we really should have celebrated on December 31st, not January 1st.

Wait a minute - why? Just WHY? Why do you consider the 2000th year any more important than the 1999th? 

Um, it's got 0s, and it's a round number, and....

If you use your head, you'll realize that those round numbers actually have no significance outside of your base 10 number system. (That phrase actually tells you nothing.) It's just something for your brain to hold onto.

Someday I'll prove to you that my brain isn't as little as you think it is. 

I needed some brain power to play my song, didn't I?

Are you still there?

Okay, Blue doesn't want me to prove that my brain isn't so little, but I know that you'll still listen to my song. Maybe you'll be able to use your brain for something even better - it's a valuable gift that you can do a lot of things with. The more learning you do - whether it's a course you're taking, or a little something about numbers - the better it'll work. 

And as always, keep filling your teacup with music!

~Liya

How Great Thou Art

This week, I got my hands on a Monday in which to write this post. Today's song is called "How Great Thou Art." It's a nice reminder that we're not at the top of the world, so we shouldn't think ourselves more important than anyone else. I hope you enjoy this song, and keep filling your teacup with music!

Listen to the song here

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Standing on the Promises

This week on Tea with Liya, I'm playing a hymn called "Standing on the Promises." The song reminds us to have a strong faith and not to worry about what might happen - a message to remember as we move into the second half of October. I hope you enjoy listening to this song!

Listen to the song here
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On most days, we're doing less standing and more running. Life really does get busy sometimes.

All those cars are slowing each other down and generating pollution. We really need a better system - maybe you'll come up with the idea! Image by pixaoppa from Pixabay

Perhaps you feel inspired to tackle those pressing tasks 24 hours a day, 7 days a week - but here's the truth: you're not going to feel that way forever.

Of course there are things that need to be done, and I am in no way telling you that you should make up excuses not to do them. However, when we're busy for all our waking hours, we miss out on blessings like spending time with our families.

For that reason, I hope you've had an opportunity to celebrate and take a break over the past weekend. You don't want to spend your whole life dreading Mondays and looking forward to Fridays, but it's always good to take one day out of the week for some time to rest.

Another thing you can do on those days is ... you know what I'm about to say .... keep filling your teacup with music!

~Liya

You Are My All in All

This hymn called "You are My All in All" is my latest post on Tea with Liya today. While the music is pleasing to listen to, it's also important to remember the message of the song as well. I hope you enjoy listening to this song! Even if you didn't, it's only 7 days till another one....


Listen to the song here
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Trust and Obey

I couldn't think of a lot to say in this post, but that's fine - you still get a chance to listen to the song. Isn't that what you came here for?

Sometimes, after we've been doing something for a while, we get distracted. We forget the reason why we started doing this in the first place, and start feeling like we shouldn't do it anymore.

Listen to the song here
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That happened to me earlier this year when I was making my posts. I started looking at the numbers of views and comments appearing beside my posts, and started comparing myself to other people who were growing those numbers much faster than I was.

Unfortunately, all those numbers don't fit inside my brain.

However, I had forgotten that I was posting these songs because music changes lives. I had forgotten that it wasn't about the numbers. Ironically, I usually don't find myself comfortable with popularity, but the influences I was seeing elsewhere on the Internet were changing how I thought about my own content. I suppose I shouldn't start surfing the Web again without a specific goal - in some places, there's nothing but negative.

What's that you're about to click?

Eventually, I decided to take several weeks off (as you might already know) and rethink what I was really doing here. I'm happy to say that I decided to return to Tea with Liya later this spring, focusing instead on enjoying the process while making your life better with music.

Hmm. I did come up with something to say after all. Now you know what to do the next time you've fully convinced yourself that you can't come up with an idea. All you have to do is grab that pencil, or put your hands on that keyboard (computer or piano!).

S.D.G.!

~Liya

You Raise Me Up

The 100th piano cover on Tea with Liya is a song that many of you have heard at some point in your lives - "You Raise Me Up." (A little note: I've been posting some covers on YouTube that aren't over here, so we're actually on post #92 here.) Despite its popularity, the song hasn't been around very long in comparison to my other piano covers - some of the jazz songs I play have been around for 70 or 80 years, and at the times when I do play classical music, those songs are hundreds of years old! I'd better take a step back to our current generation, shouldn't I?

Listen to the song here

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Speaking of generations, I'd like to mention something about the date.

Yes, that's right, the date. September 18, 2019. Just another day like all the 30,000 days that could go by in your life ^♪. Nooothing special about it, is there?

♪30,000 days is about 82 years. Don't waste them.

Hmm...

What's the "Hmm" for?

I'm not so sure that the date is as insignificant as you think it is. While you think about that, let's see how many ways you can write out the date.

Hm. Okay..

• September 18, 2019
• 18 September 2019
• 09/18/2019
• 18/09/2019
• 09.18.2019
• Sept 18/19
• 9/18/19

That's a lot of ways of writing out something that "isn't important," isn't it?

Uh, yeah...

Take a look at the end of your list. What would happen if you tried to write it backwards?

That's a lot of mirrors. Somehow, they form a building. Image by hjrivas from Pixabay

Uh.... Let's see.

Looks like I get.. 9.18.19.

What a coincidence. It turns out that you can do that for any day of the week (although theoretically, it's 10 days). Pick any day from last week Tuesday until tomorrow, and the date will be a palindrome - that is, it can be flipped backwards and still read the same numbers.

Is this the only time it's ever happened?

No. There was also a "palindrome week" in August 2018, July 2017, etc., There won't be another one in October 2020, though. Instead, it'll be in February. But, don't expect them every year. By the time we get to 2098, for example, there won't be any till the turn of the century.

It might be a disappointment to hear that your chances of living till the turn of the century are quite low. Considering the aforementioned 30,000 days or 82 years, you'd practically have to be born yesterday to significantly raise those chances. Even if you were, it's impossible to predict who is going to be alive in 2100.

But, why worry about 2100 when we're here in 2019? There's already lots of beautiful patterns occurring within the days that are right in front of us. Every day holds something that can make you happy, if you take the time to look for it.

Maybe today, it's this post on Tea with Liya. Tomorrow, it could be a bright and sunny day. The next day, some bright red fall leaves. There's no need to know everything that's going to happen to you, when you can just take things one day at a time.

Image by tigerlily713 from Pixabay

And as always, keep filling your teacup with music.

~Liya

Night Train

If you like boogie-woogie music, chances are you'll enjoy this jazz standard called "Night Train." While it was originally composed by Jimmy Forrest in 1952, this cover was inspired by Oscar Peterson's recording of the song. (If you've never listened to him, then I'd say you're missing out on a great example of jazz piano playing.) The song is known for its ability to bring together jazz, blues, and rock music. I hope you enjoy!

Listen to the song here
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The last time I was on a night train, I wondered if everyone else on it with me had rushed out the door at 8:00 or even 7:30 am, sat behind a desk for 8 hours, and then rushed onto this train at 6:00, not to arrive home until maybe 7:30 pm.

Image by Jan Vašek from Pixabay

That's a lot of hours, isn't it? For many of us, those are also the least enjoyable hours of the week - and we've had the misfortune of them being 50% of our time*. So much so that, in fact, Sunday evenings become the worst times of the week because we dread the coming Monday. Another week of work incoming.... I really don't want to do this.... Why do I have to spend so much time in a cubicle?.... 

*16 hours x 7 days = 112 hours. 
12 hours x 5 days = 60 hours. 
60 / 112 = 53.57%

Image by David Mark from Pixabay

I'm just another unit in a long line of "resources..."

Well, I'm 35 now. The days of youth are over -- I can't do anything about it now -- I'm stuck here for another 30 years......

Image by The Vinh Hoang from Pixabay

The rest of the evening would become a cascade of :( 's.

But, why have you made up your mind that you can't change anything?

The possibility is still there waiting for you. You might not be 18, but you can still give advice to those who are. Remind them that working hard now makes a big difference to their future. Who knows, you might even turn on a recording of this song and say, "Do you want to be on the night train rushing home from work, or deciding when you come home from work?"

Aaaaaall aboard! Image by Foundry Co from Pixabay

Of course, if your listener has an interest in the huge, powerful machines (or big chunks of metal - whichever way you see it), then they'd probably try to choose both. That's the exception. Most of us would gladly jump on option two, but you also have to realize the work involved. Doing something like becoming a self-sufficient professional or running a successful business takes a lot of effort before you see any results.

There's no guarantee that you'll see results either.

The point is to make an effort to try and stay away from the 9-to-5. You can't guarantee anything.

You just have to trust that everything will work out for good in the end. What's going to happen is going to happen whether you worry about it or not.

Of course, if you are 18 or 17 or 19, then just replace the "those who are"s and "your listener"s with "you." Because working hard now does make a difference.

Keep filling y----  Whoaaaaa! Did you see the time?! I'm an hour late already, and so are you! Unless... you're setting your own hours.....

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

Back to what I was saying. Keep filling your teacup with music! I'll be filling mine, too - once I get off the night train...

All of Me

It's September already! Whether you're coming back from summer vacation or simply a well-deserved long weekend, I hope this jazz standard called All of Me will brighten your day a little bit - even if the rain clouds are rolling in. Composed by Gerald Marks and Seymour Simons in 1931, All of Me became one of the most recorded songs of the '30s, and was often sitting at the top of the charts.

Jazz musicians consider this song an important one to know, as practicing it with 100% effort (or should I say "all of you?") can help you play better jazz solos. Listen to this piano cover of "All of Me" right here on Tea with Liya!

Just like you have to put 100% effort into practicing All of Me in order to solo on it better, you have to put 100% effort into the decisions you make here on the WWW.... or do you?


Listen to the song here
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Nocturne in G Major

I know... I'm straying from the jazz theme, but I couldn't come up with another reason not to share with you this beautiful song by Frederic Chopin. This song sounds quite different from the ones I usually play, but every type of music has something in common - that is, patterns of rhythm, melody, and harmony working together.

This piece has two main themes that repeat, but they are played in many different keys. (At least this isn't a jazz song where I would have to improvise in all those keys!)

I've been working with this song for several months, as it's on RCM's highest level list of repertoire. When I finished learning the song, the next stop was my "recording studio" (a.k.a., a computer, an electric piano, and some wires), so that I could keep a record of the song and eventually post it here. Of course, even if I had the highest quality equipment and had spent years practicing the song, it still wouldn't sound perfect. That brings me to a point that might have randomly splashed over the side of my teacup, but it's still important.

Listen to the song here
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O Pato

The summer is almost over... but the ducks are still quacking! This week's jazz piano cover is a samba called "O Pato" (aka The Duck), composed by Jayme Silva and Neuza Teixeira. These kinds of songs make us think about how the boundaries of musical styles change over the years.

When you think of jazz, swinging songs from the '40s and '50s like I've Got Rhythm might be the first ones to come to mind. (Okay, I.G.R was written in 1931.) However, the genre has become further and further spread out over time.

For example, a song might be written that doesn't exactly fit within the jazz genre, but wouldn't be perfectly classified as a rag, either. To try and fix this problem, a new "subgenre" is created. But then, there's the stuff on the edge of the subgenre, and different types of music are subdivided more and more, until the sub-sub-subgenres are splitting up the music of individual bands. So, making subgenres doesn't really work - the only way to describe the song is half jazz and half ragtime. Therefore, it becomes included in both umbrellas, making them grow.

 
The same thing can happen with colors, an example I've been using for my last couple of posts. For example, take a look at these different shades of blue.

You see that big box just above the bottom left, the greenest of these colors? Is it green, or blue? This is the same kind of thing we were talking about on my Scrapple from the Apple post.  Perhaps you could ask the computer used to generate the image, but it would probably respond with "00ffff",

Yeah. That was really helpful...

"Helpful" in the sense that a duck answering this question with "Quack!" is helpful. Image by Thomas B. from Pixabay

*00ffff represents an equal mixture of green and blue. According to the computer, three specific shades of red, green, and blue are the only "true" colors, and everything else is a mixture of these. So, whether you say the cyan box is green or blue, you're technically wrong. Okay, I'm done talking about computers.

So, we invent a new subgenre called "cyan." But then take a second to think: where did other divisions like turquoise and teal come from? Those are made by all those little subgenres.

But, unlike the computer's color system, there isn't one song that defines what jazz is. Therefore the definition of a certain genre of music can change as new songs are written and people's interests change.

Those umbrellas from earlier can move around, get bigger, and start overlapping each other. Maybe instead of trying to define everything, we should accept those cyan boxes and try to work with them, even if it's hard to move with these definitions as they change.

If the edge of an umbrella is directly over your head, are you inside or outside?  Image by Pexels from Pixabay

And, it might be hard to keep filling up your teacup with music, but it's an important thing to do. If you;d like to come back here every Wednesday but you just can't remember, I encourage you to subscribe to my email list. I won't send you anything except the latest posts from Tea with Liya!

~Liya

Scrapple from the Apple

Scrapple from the Apple is a famous jazz standard composed by Charlie Parker. Tea with Liya's topical tale this Thursday at twelve o'clock is a piano cover of Scrapple from the Apple. (Like the alliteration? Let me know in the comments if you can make it better!) 

Yes, that's right. It's yet another jazz song composed by Charlie Parker! If you haven't seen my other posts pertaining to his songs, you might want to know that he was an influential jazz saxophonist in the 1950's and 60's. He was known for playing rhythmic solos at fast speeds, a skill he probably acquired through his solid practicing habits. (Perhaps he would be considered one of the "jazz greats," or arguably the greatest jazz saxophonist of all time.)

By solid practicing habits, I mean over 10 hours a day. Seems like a lot, but perhaps not a lot if you're a professional musician. If, on a particular day, you have no performances, no work-in-progress songs, and no one visiting or coming for lessons, you will probably spend most of the day practicing.

I once heard that Charlie Parker used a plastic saxophone to practice. Considering the amount of time it was used, I'm sure it eventually fell apart. Image by Christoph Schütz from Pixabay

Other songs I've played, such as Billie's Bounce, Now's the Time and Ornithology, were also composed by Charlie Parker. These songs will often be played at jazz performances and thus are expected to be a part of the average musician's repertoire.

The chord progressions for this song were based on two other jazz standards that Parker had known for years, one of which is the famous I've Got Rhythm. The number of songs based on that one is unbelievable, but each new composition gains a reputation of its own.

Mood Indigo

This song is especially supposed to feel blue. Although indigo and blue are technically different colors, they can still refer to the same general feeling.

Maybe blue is the color in the middle of this picture where the bass clefs are, and indigo is the color in the corners.

Mood Indigo is one of Duke Ellington's many innovative compositions, and it is especially known for exactly what the title describes. We seem to have had a hard time describing those "down" feelings, as well as many others, so we assign colors to our emotions instead.

How High the Moon

Welcome to August! "How High the Moon," composed by Morgan Lewis, is a jazz song so popular that at one point, it was competing for titles like "National Anthem of Jazz" and "Most Recorded Jazz Song." While originally composed as a slow ballad, musicians like Charlie Parker and John Coltrane were quick to play the song, well, quickly, and write their own melodies using its chords.

While I probably should have posted this song on the week of the Moon Landing's anniversary, I can still inform you how far away the moon is from the Earth.

In your head, they probably look like this:

Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay 

However, most images of "celestial bodies" are not to scale. Here's the actual distance between the Earth and the Moon. It's probably hard to see either of them.

You can probably see this more easily


You may have noticed something interesting. What appears to be right in this picture is actually up from the perspective of the Earth. If the moon rotated 180 degrees, it would also be above the Earth.

So then, is the moon really high after all, if up is any direction away from the Earth? What is 'up', and what is 'down'?

Answer: There's lots of things we don't know about the universe.

Here's another interesting brain twister about directions. Suppose you were driving a car at 60 kilometers an hour. According to the car, you yourself are not moving, but according to the road, you are moving.

Then, you stop the car. But have you really stopped? After all, the Earth is rotating, and it's moving around the Sun, which is moving around the Milky Way, which is moving around relative to other galaxies....

So, you don't really know how fast you are moving. You don't know which way is down, or left, or backwards. Sometimes, our view of the world can change when we look at not the things we know, but the things we don't know.

When you only think about the things you know, you start to feel like you are the center of the universe. But when you look at the things you don't know, you realize that the world is much bigger, and you are much smaller, than you once believed.

But, don't be disappointed. Those thoughts can also remind you not to worry about small failures that really don't matter anymore. You still have a purpose in life, don't you? And every second counts towards fulfilling it. Now it's your turn.

If you're worrying about failing or not being important, let this song remind you to take a look at the moon tonight. Then, try counting some stars. Five? Ten? Maybe three billion more that you can't see?

Image by Annalise Batista from Pixabay

When you're done counting all those stars, go and fill your teacup with music!

~Liya

Stolen Moments

Hmm... I wonder where the name of this song came from. I wasn't able to figure it out by looking at the lyrics this time. However, regardless of the title, this piece still made it to the top of the jazz charts.

Maybe the name of this song came from outer space. That's why Stolen Moments was able to reach for the stars and become popular. By the way, the 50th anniversary of the Moon Landing was about a week ago. Image by Pezibear from Pixabay

In fact, according to AllMusic.com, "Oliver Nelson's composition "Stolen Moments" would likely have assured him a place in jazz history even if he had never composed or performed another song. Although Nelson was a gifted writer, none of his other works ever came close to matching the appeal of Stolen Moments."


 

This song could be placed in the same category as the famous jazz saxophonist John Coltrane's compositions. One of these is the ubiquitous "Giant Steps," known as one of the hardest jazz songs of all time due to its crazy chord changes.

Stolen Moments was nowhere near as difficult to learn as Giant Steps, partially because of its much slower tempo, and partially because it's based on a simple chord progression most jazz musicians are already familiar with.

While this song is incredibly famous, it often isn't played in small ensembles because there are a lot of harmonies going on underneath the melody. (This is especially easy to hear in the original recording.) But, as a piano player, I can play up to 10 notes at the same time.

Here's a picture of my hands. I know that when you listen to piano performances, it sounds like there's more than 10 notes being played at the same time, but here's some solid evidence that these are all the fingers we have. 

What can you do with the moments you have today? You might be spending these ones listening to this song, and unless you have wireless headphones or something, you won't be able to do much else away from your computer.

But, all the time after that is sitting in front of you. Surfing the web can be dangerous - wasting many hours you could spend on the list of tasks that a magnet is tired of holding on your fridge. You can steal back those moments and put them to good use.

“Our greatest currency is our time and we cannot save it [i.e. keep it in a jar for a rainy day]. Spend it wisely and never waste another's or your own.” 
― Kyle Barger

"Being rich is having money; being wealthy is having time." 

“You get to decide where your time goes. You can either spend it moving forward, or you can spend it putting out fires. You decide. And if you don’t decide, others will decide for you.” – Tony Morgan

Wasting your time is wasting your life. Everyone has 24 hours in a day; the question is what you will do with them.

Life isn't a chance. It isn't a flip of the coin where heads mean you will be rich and famous, and tails mean you'll be living on the line. You can't become a famous singer unless you learn to sing. You can't become a CEO unless you learn to run a business - and, of course, put in the work.

Right now, you are deciding your future. You get to decide what kind of life you want. And once again, if you don't decide, others will decide for you. You only have one opportunity to live, so be thankful for what you have and use it to make other people's lives better.

Don't let those stolen moments go to waste!

---

By the way, for some reason this song seems ... blue. Maybe it's because it uses that blues chord progression. But I think it has something to do with the way I see colors along with numbers and musical scales. Maybe it happens to you, too.

Although we all perceive things differently, no matter what color it is, keep filling your teacup with music.

~Liya

Pennies from Heaven

Many times, you can find meaning in music by listening to it and seeing what emotions your brain generates. But sometimes, you can find meaning in music simply by looking at the lyrics.

For example, the lyrics to this song talk about a time when the best things in life were free. Blue sky, shiny moon, bright yellow flowers, just enough rain to keep plants growing.

Perhaps if you hate pulling dandelions out of your lawn, bright yellow flowers aren't too appealing. Image by pixel2013 from Pixabay

But eventually, people settled down in their satisfaction, and forgot to give thanks for and appreciate all the things around them. Why appreciate a sky that is always blue? They thought that they had everything they needed, that life was perfect, that they had nothing to worry about.

Billie's Bounce

What? You don't know this song? If we were in the 1940s, this song would be so popular that even the birds would be singing it.

"WRONG."

Huh? What's wrong with the statement I just made? There were birds, um, "singing" this song in the 1940s.

"You're not talking about real birds. You're talking about Charlie Parker, a famous jazz saxophonist known for the rhythmic variety in his playing. Just because people called him "Bird" doesn't mean he really is a bird."

Of course you would say that, Blue Text. Thanks for shutting down my Billie's Bounce advertising campaign! Hopefully my visitor still wants to listen to the song here:

You could have actually used logical arguments, Liya.

If I were to grab my time machine - where is it? Oh, here it is.

 

Go anywhere in time - as long as you aren't in time. Image from pixabay.com

If I were to transport myself back to 1945, I could hear Charlie Parker performing his composition for the first time, but I don't think it was especially popular, except in the small but avid jazz community which began playing it almost immediately. 

You have to protect yourself from the danger of misleading information. It can persuade you to buy products you wouldn't choose otherwise, sign up for lower quality programs, or believe that an investment is worth buying into when it will actually waste thousands. It can even make you feel like you're bad at something you're actually good at.

Misleading information is everywhere now, but it takes a sharp eye, or ear, to find it. If there had been an advertisement on this page, some of it could be right in front of you. All it takes is observing the world more carefully, and you can discover new things that will make your life better.

While you're using those ears, don't forget to keep filling your teacup with music!

~Liya

The Girl from Ipanema

Today, we're going to talk about change. 

Are you ready for it??? I don't know if change throws up green or red flags in your head.

Okay, here we go.

I talked in my last post about standing up rather than sitting down while listening to music. About a century ago, you wouldn't have a problem standing up, because jazz is unpopular.



You're probably wondering why I said that. You probably think of jazz music as the result of a revolution that occurred in the 20th century. But, it wasn't considered the hottest new music for all of that time. 

Although many great jazz musicians were at the peak of their careers in the 1960s, the music was only really "popular" in the 1920s and '30s. After that, jazz was for the few people who loved going out to listen at 10 PM (why did it have to be that time?).

Don't wait till 10 PM - listen to the song here


Why wasn't jazz popular then? Because things changed.

In the '20s and '30s, jazz was the music that people danced to. Dancing can be a big part of why we enjoy music. Do you think the best songs are the ones that leave you bouncing in your chair? You got it right.

Later in the 20th century, musicians focused more on seeing how complex they could make their harmonies, because the more these change, the harder it is to improvise. If you're playing a song where chords fly past like greased lightning, you can show off your skills with a crazy solo, but it's hard for people to dance to your song, or even keep track of its progress.


If your song is too complex, the audience doesn't enjoy the song because they can't follow it. But if your song is too simple, the performers don't enjoy the song because improvisation is no longer a challenge.

That brings us to a principle that applies whether we're making a blog post, writing a song, or giving a speech.

Whenever you're presenting something, the focus should be on the audience, not yourself.

If you put all the focus on yourself, you won't be able to effectively communicate with your audience, and the purpose of your being on stage is lost. It's important to find a balance between what your audience prefers and what you can deliver.

That's what I've been trying to do on Tea with Liya, while, as always, filling your teacup with music!

~Liya