So Danco Samba

I know that it's only been a month since I posted Summer Samba, but this was the song on my Posting Schedule, so I had to do it, right? As I've stated before, it's hard to have a successful blog if you don't do any planning. (If there's anyone reading this who is pulling their hair out because they don't write their blog posts until two days before, don't worry - by no planning I mean literally not even thinking about your post until the day before or even the morning of.)

Especially with this kind of blog where significant time must be spent before each post. Even for a simple jazz standard, it takes a few weeks to get it prepared, and several months or even a year for RCM level 10 songs like this rondo (okay, that might be an exaggeration because it's 7 pages long, but you get the point, it takes time).

So if I completely ignore all the things I've written down about my plans and goals for learning, recording, and posting songs, combined with having the completely wrong mindset about blogging that I certainly don't have, then look below for what's going to happen.

Note: I suggest you scroll down and start playing the song before you begin reading the post, because it's going to be quite long.

To the Lute

You know those days when you're feeling really sad, or really stressed and worried, or really angry, or really anything that doesn't feel good? Then this song is probably for you. It might also be for you if you play a stringed instrument, because that's what a lute is. But I'm playing it on the piano because that's the only instrument I'm proficient at playing right now.

As I was saying, this song might be great for you if you've been having a bad day. It seems like a "relaxing" song (probably because of the pedal and the runs in the left hand). I think that this is a song that would brighten your day. I guess lutes are pretty good instruments, huh?

What if it's raining.....?

Hmm..... it's been a while since I made a post that wasn't the title of a song. But I was thinking that you might want one for a change. For those of you that haven't been reading my blog for months, these are posts where I'm telling you something related to music that I know or think, and I don't actually have a song attached to it.

You might notice that the title says "rain," and you might be wondering if this blog is really about music after all. But the title, "Tea with Liya" has nothing to do with rain, unless I'm sitting inside my house drinking tea and waiting for the rain to stop so I can go for my walk. I suppose the title has nothing to do with music either, but that's why I tacked on the "A Blog about Music" part.

Now let me get down to the point.

Mixed-Up Rag

Yeah, I know. I haven't published a song like this in a while. I've been busy with jazz and my 5-month-old YouTube channel (I gave you a button redirecting to it, right?) and have forgotten a little bit about variety on my blog. You might be looking for something different and you're getting a bit tired of the tags saying "Jazz" for weeks on end, so I've decided that I'll give you something different.

(I didn't actually decide that today - I wrote down my posting dates for these songs a few months in advance. It's difficult to run a blog without a schedule.)

So, you're wondering why this song is supposed to be so mixed up, right?

Summer Samba

There was a change of times and a change of seasons a few months ago, so I decided that this would be a good song to share with you today.  As usual, I probably found this song while listening to the jazz radio. I liked it, wrote it down, listened to it again on YouTube at a later time, learned it, recorded it, and finally posted it today. (Actually, there should be listening in between each stage. Are you listening to a song now? You know that I'm the one to tell you that you should always be listening to songs. If there's no music around you, take a second to go down to the play button for the song, click it, and come back right here.) Sometimes the songs don't make it through all these stages, but you'll see the ones that do in future posts.

Now's the Time

.....for what? Depending on where you live, the past few days might have been some of celebration for you. So you could say that now's the time to celebrate, if you wanted to. If there's flags to be waved, fireworks to explode, and money to be made by the city hosting the party, then why wouldn't now be the time?

Rock Zone

Woo-hoo!

Today's a great day - because it's the day when I've posted my 35th song. This post has a song that you might consider "new and different", but I need to put something here other than just classical and jazz music. If you've looked at the archives on the bottom of this page, you might say that I have 41 posts, but 6 of those were Heads Up posts which are just talking, pretty much. They don't have any music to go with them, although they often tell you to listen to music.

But we'd better get back to the topic of the song itself. You think it will be about a place that's filled with rocks, right? You'll see piles of them wherever you walk, from pebbles to mountains. You'll always be running around so you don't get caught under an avalanche of rocks. And it'll really hurt under your shoes, right? When you finally smash your way through the stone door (while this song is playing), you'll remember to never come to Rock Zone again.

Well, I'm talking about a different type of rock.