Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise

I just have to start this post with an IMPORTANT announcement. It's probably the most important thing that has happened all yea--- oops, I just gave it away! I suppose I'll just tell you now. The important announcement is that next Thursday, November 8th, Tea with Liya will have existed for one year! (In case you don't know, my first post was on November 8th, 2017. I'll be celebrating one year by releasing another song I wrote.) That's a long time - or at least it is from the perspective I'm looking at it now. After 10 years, it won't really seem like a big thing anymore.

Little Boat

This is yet another jazz song that I was learning recently. But it isn't really more than you should be doing. I'm always telling you that you should be listening, and if you play anything then you should be playing too. Which reminds me of something I want to tell you about practicing.

As you probably know, as long as I'm playing the songs, which I am doing, I can't just be churning out songs and have them actually sound right without putting some time into practicing piano. But, I have done it, I have read about it and I have heard people talking about it, and some things seem to say, "You can spend 5 hours doing it this way or you can spend 30 minutes doing it that way, and you'll get the same thing out of it."

La Vie en Rose

La vie en rose... if that means the life of a rose, I've seen it already. I always see it growing leaves in the spring, and then getting some flowers later in the season - but of course these always fall off when winter comes. And every rose has its thorn, after all (there's a song called that). Roses are often used as a symbol of something beautiful, but they aren't really perfect. Nothing is, I suppose.

But this song La Vie en Rose is something different. You can play it whether it's summer or winter, whether you have a rose thorn stuck in your finger or not, whether you even know what a rose is or not, and it will still be a good song. That's one of the things I like about music. It can communicate with everyone regardless of other factors.

Waltz for Debby

Ah. It's October already. Can you believe it? Because it's October 10th today, I thought of giving you a song that had something to do with the number 10. But I couldn't think of any. Maybe I will for December 12th. (Hopefully I do, because for all of 2019 there are no Wednesdays whose numbers match the month number.) So I decided to stick to the good old jazz - and in fact a song that was written by a piano player.

What if...?

Sometimes, we're not sure whether we should try something or not. It ends up going like this...

What if I start playing that style of music? Well, I could lose my skills in this one, or I could start thinking differently about music, or I could.... And then what? So I just won't do it.

What if I go to that recital in a couple weeks? Well, I could mess everything up, or - possibly even worse - I could be told that I just won the gold medal and I'll be in all the newspapers within a week, or I could.... And then what? So I just won't do it.

What if I try taking a solo on that song? Maybe I could try this thing that I learned. Well, I could lose the rhythm that the rest of the band is playing, or I could make everyone think that I'm not a good player, or I could... And then what? So I just won't do it.

I'm not really accusing you specifically of anything. I'm just pointing out that all of us (including me) probably end up doing this at some point. What (will happen) if I do this? Well, I could.... And then what will I do? So I just won't do it.

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.