Practice Journal: Bonus Elvis

 Posted on April 3, 2024

A great practice day, even got a chance to sneak in some Elvis, which is never a bad thing. Satie Gymopedie No. 1 Pretty close to note perfect here, just a few notes that didn’t sound out. Also, I’m still having some issues with keeping those opening chords with even dynamics. If I can get that done, I think I will finally be happy with this one. Trying to pick out my next piece that everyone else learned in lessons, but somehow I didn’t. [Read More]
music  performance  piano  classical  Chopin  Waltz in B Minor  Satie  Gymnopedie No. 1  Mozart  Piano Sonata in C Major  K545  Elvis  Elvis Presley 

Practice Journal: Getting Stuck

Practice Journal: Getting Stuck

 Posted on April 2, 2024

I got stuck; no other way to put it. This has happened a few times, but for the last couple of months, I have just felt that my progress has kind of ground to a halt. I’m flubbing different notes in the same piece each time I sit down. A few of weeks ago, I kind of threw up my hands and walked a way for awhile. At the same time, my daughter started to learn the violin and her teacher provided me some accompianing sheet music, so I basically stopped practicing my pieces for a few weeks and played around with that. [Read More]
music  performance  piano  classical  Chopin  Waltz in B Minor  Satie  Gymnopedie No. 1  Mozart  Piano Sonata in C Major  K545 

The xx @ Cain's Ballroom - 02/15/2013

The xx @ Cain's Ballroom - 02/15/2013

 Posted on February 18, 2013

Grace and I took the drive up to Tulsa on Friday night to see The xx at Tulsa’s historic Cain’s Ballroom this last Friday evening. Since we both had to work on Friday, we already knew it was going to be a big rush to get there and then we ran into horrendous traffic on the way resulting from a crash between a car and a bus carrying prisoners. We were over an hour late and a little stressed out, but we really shouldn’t have been worried. [Read More]
band  cains-ballroom  concert  music  oklahoma  the-xx  tulsa 

Album Review: 12 Shades of Brown by Junior Brown - 3 out of 5

 Posted on December 16, 2012

There is very little modern country that doesn’t cause my ears to bleed. I think it mostly comes from a notion that in order to be good, country music must be something more than top-40 pop tunes sung through the nose. An artist that gets this, in a wonderful way, is consummate honky-tonk master Junior Brown. [Read More]
12-shades-of-brown  album  album-review  country  honky-tonk  junior-brown  music  new-reviews-of-old-stuff 

Album Review: 12 Desperate Straight Lines by Telekinesis - 2 out of 5

 Posted on December 12, 2012

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then 12 Desperate Straight Lines is surely a huge monument of devotion to other bands. I feel mixed on how to critique this album in so far that it’s actually a pretty darn catchy pop rock album with nice hooks and a light airy melodies that make you want to tap your feet. [Read More]
12-desperate-straight-lines  album-reviews  music  telekinesis  new-reviews-of-old-stuff 

Album Review: 11:11 by Regina Spektor - 3 out of 5

 Posted on December 9, 2012

Regina Spektor is a recent pop obsession of mine. I first discovered her from some radio play from her 2004 Soviet Kitsch album. Since then I have amassed all of her albums and remain a dedicated fan. 11:11 is not Regina Spektor’s strongest album, but rarely are first albums the best albums. However, it already demonstrates a strong, quirky songwriting talent and shows off her incredible vocal range. [Read More]
1111  album  album-review  music  regina-spektor  review  new-reviews-of-old-stuff 

Album Review: 1,039/Smoothed Out Slappy Hours by Green Day - 2 out of 5

 Posted on December 7, 2012

From a recent favorite album to an album of my ever-increasingly distant youth. I purchased this album in a small record shop in Boston while visiting Harvard for a disastrous debate tournament my senior year of high school. I’m pretty sure that Dookie had probably already hit the airwaves by the time of the trip or I doubt I would have heard of Green Day considering that my musical diet at the time was a strict combination of grunge and rockabilly. [Read More]
1039smoothed-out-slappy-hours  39smooth  album  green-day  music  review  new-reviews-of-old-stuff 

Album Review: +/- by Buke and Gass(Gase) - 4 out of 5

 Posted on December 6, 2012

So I do that long rant about reviewing albums that I haven’t heard before and then I start with one of my favorite albums of recent years for the first review. The alphabet can be a real pain sometimes. In any case, Buke and Gass (now Buke and Gase) was a band I discovered through the fabulous NPR show Radiolab. Buke and Gase consists of Arone Dyer and Aron Sanchez who play their homemade instruments including a Buke which is a baritone ukulele and a Gass which is a guitar-bass concoction. With these monsters of the junkyard, comes a captivating, driving cacophony of fantastic noise. [Read More]
347  album  buke-and-gase  buke-and-gass  music  reviews  new-reviews-of-old-stuff 

New Reviews of Old Stuff

 Posted on December 1, 2012

So, with the demise of my Project 365 experiment, I’ve been looking for some creative outlets for which I can use this blog. I’ve always been an avid collector of music but over the last decade or so, it’s gotten a little out of control. I’ve somehow ended up with a music collection of some 18,000 tracks across a few thousand artists and albums. However, the sad fact is that there is a huge swath of this music I have never actually heard. [Read More]
albums  movies  music  reviews  new-reviews-of-old-stuff