Taking a break from the classical stuff because my wife wants me to play Moon River.... she loves it, bless her.

Can you good people help me learn to play it well and, preferably, quickly? I don't have the sheet music

if you want to be able to play it quick, why not find an easy arrangement.

something like that maybe:
http://www.activemusician.com/item--HL.00311201

{EDIT} I want to apologize for not thinking of Doug's video below. Must have been tired...

I have just recently done a version on Youtube incorporating scrolling transcription -
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=IO0FextfSsM

A much clearer version is at my website at
http://www.bushgrafts.com/jazz/video.htm#m

Doug

A wonderful arrangement Doug!
Best, John

Have an arrangement which I can let you have in MIDI format, or PDF, or both. E-mail me at michaels.music@merseymail.com if interested. My site at http://uk.geocities.com/rm.hammond@btinternet.comwill give you an idea of the sort of arrangements I do.

Nice arrangement Doug. Can you share any more info on your scrolling transcription? Have you ever heard Cy Walter's arrangement of this piece?

rada

Doug, that's a terrific web site. Thanks for the link. BTW, is that a double glissando in Georgia?
Very cool.

Hello cruiser. You say....." preferably, quickly?

But how much quicker do you mean? it's is a song that is limited in my view to the written score. A jazzed up arrangement, I would think might sound odd. Isn't it a romantic song?

Have I got your message right?

swingal,

Thanks everyone for your help so far

Doug[/b] , you've got a great website and I love your arrangement of Moon River.

Mikka[/b] , thanks for your offer of help. I've sent you an e-mail.

swingal[/b] ...sorry I meant that I'd like to learn it quickly, not play it quickly! It's my wife's birthday on August 12th and I know she'd be thrilled if I were to surprise her by playing this piece, which she loves. I don't want to play a too 'simple' version but rather a version which has some 'colour' and to which she could sing along. Basically I guess I need some help with improvisation. I usually play exclusively classical piano but I'd love to start playing other music - like Moon River - as well.

EDIT: on second thoughts, I don't think I'm the 'inprovising kind'. I need a score which I can learn and, of course, interprete in my own, personal way.

Hi rada

You asked for info. on the notation views on the videos I have done. Briefly, the steps in making the videos are.

1. Record the song - I use a webcam that records the video and sound. The sound is a direct line in to my computer from the line out of my Yamaha P250 piano.

2. At the same time, I record my playing on my piano's internal recorder as midi. This means that I can do minor edits on my playing later if I need to, and also record the audio separately again to fix any problems.

3. I take the midi file and using either 'Band in a Box' or 'PowerTracks Pro audio' import the song as midi into my computer. Each of these programs will generate a transcription from the midi file, and also the keyboard view you see on my videos. Both of these programs will take a piano performance and 'intelligently' split the keyboard between right and left hands. Both of these need to be quite extensively edited to correct timing errors, and also to split the keyboard more accurately between bass and treble clefs.

4. Although both these programs will 'guess' at the chords being used from the midi file, they don't recognise many jazz type chords. I usually type these in to the program myself.

5. Using a screen capture program (I use Camtasia) I capture the screen view of the piano playing, chords and/or the transcription as the song is it is playing in either Band in a Box or Power Tracks.

6. Again using Camtasia, I combine the two videos - the original, and the screen captures. I add comments / annotations in this program also.

Hope that this answers the question.

Doug, [/b]a delicate, emotive treatment with lovely bass accents. My instructional DVD purchase will come in right after August 1st.

cruiser - have sent what you asked for but would only accept your e-mail address if I left out the "mailto:" part, so if you don't get it, let me know and we'll try again.

Thanks a lot Mikka!

btw, I can't get the link in your earlier post to work. I'd be interested in visiting your web site.

EDIT: the link in your profile does work... I'll take a look

While I realise that playing by ear is rather a second rate piano playing, it has it's useful moments. And this is one. I just played it, starting on G and it ends on C so guess that's one key you could use.

Anyone know what the original composition key was was?

Swingal

It was written in C. Starting note would be G.

jjtpiano,

Thanks for your post above. I hope you all know that what you read was my based on my complete knowledge of theory.

All the playing is done by ear as I cannot read music was never taught except to play by ear.

swingal

Cruiser,

Look at your private messages.........

Play it for your wife and she will love you.......nice weekend.

Best regards,
JB

Doug, I absolutely LOVE your arrangement! Is there a way to get a score for that? (Or is it a sin to even ask? If it is, please excuse me, I am not familiar with the unwritten rules of this world...)
Would you mind if I played your arrangement at a church as a prelude? I hope that's not a breach to some rule of copyright/etc.

Is this score (1 of 2 pages) how Henry Mancini wrote "Moon River" ?

The arpeggio style seems characteristic of HM’s style ... my Henry Mancini Piano Solos include his arrangements of

"Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head",
"Love Story"
"The Patton Theme" and
"Romeo and Juliet"

all party-pleasers ... but "Moon River" takes the cake.

moon river

That is fantastic! Can you please provide the second page of the 'Moon River' piano score, please?

Thank you!

For what it’s worth chaps ... the music made a hit somewhere about 1954 ... but over the years

the tempo has been sped up into triplets for the last three notes to m5 ... "wid-er than a mile" ... and m7 “cros -sing you in ... style"
Mancini’s original score shows a spread of three 8th-notes) ...
similarly quicker at m21 "off to see the ...World"
and m23 "such a lot of ... world"

You must know every bar of this piece by heart, so just sit down at the piano and play it by ear. Initially, you won't hit all the right notes, and might think you're just pounding out junk. But with practice, you should be able to zero in on the "right" notes, or something close to them. Use the rhythm of the song as your guide and just play the notes by ear as best you can. Even if you don't get to the point where all the notes are "correct," so what? You'll have your own original arrangement, and that should be much more satisfying that just memorizing a sheet music version, or playing a conventional "canned" version from a lead sheet.

Swingal asked, "Anyone know what the original composition key was was?"

When I bought the original sheet music arrangement from our music store, the original key for this was 'Bb'.

Re: Original Key

Based on this, looks like Gb. Whether or not that's how the composer wrote it, I don't know.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7SI7N22k_A

Looks like fake books often have it in C, but Bb would be another "easy" jazz key.

Doug McKenzie, great arrangement, and beautiful playing !

I want to share in this context one of my favorite versions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSHryOfQGtc

that i'm sure any moon river lover...would appreciate (: