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