It's been an awful long time since I've posted. I've been reading faithfully though, so some comments may be a bit dated since I'm thinking of posts from a while ago...
Toastie -- Glad to hear that you & your U3 remain together and happily committed. :-) It's quite inspirational to hear that piano playing has made such an impact on your life.
Saranoya -- It's an awfully tough stretch you've had to deal with for quite a while now, but you continue to attack life with the humor and verve that comes across so clearly, even though none of us (I think) have ever met you in person. It's great that you at least are getting to play the Boston finally! Every once in a while I glance over and notice your total post count, and do a double-take each time. Your presence is so much larger than that number would suggest!
Thanks to both of you for sharing this tough chapter in life with us. How dreary would it be if we stuck to 100% piano, 100% of the time, and none of us opened up about the rest of our lives?
FarmGirl & WiseBuff, your pic was just too cute. You look like you could be (half) sisters!
Ragdoll -- Transposing on the fly? Two different keys? Wow... I'm very impressed! You're on your way to becoming a session musician.
Cheryl -- I'll have to check out that "can't focus" thread, I think I need some of whatever it is that you did there to get "in control". Could you quit being so nice and encouraging though? It's getting a little old.
SandTiger -- nice job on your live performance... what a thrill to get applause like that, that would be fun some day. There is clear progress in your technique, some delicately played spots there really stand out and are quite pretty. I'd like to reiterate what others have said as well: it's really nice to hear all the detail about your journey on a regular basis.
ElleC -- Welcome, and congrats on your first recital! An acoustic will be much more difficult, particularly with the pedal, but so so so worth it.
Also a hearty welcome to all the other new names, too many for me to track.
Giant raspberries (of the puerile kind, not the food kind) to everyone posting pics of new pianos. I hate you all.
Congrats to all, soaring to new heights with the AOTW "chuffed"-per-post rate.
My update...
My playing (and PW/ABF/AOTW posting) time has been severely curtailed due to work demands, again. Not as bad as Dec & Jan was, but pretty bad. I've fallen off the wagon entirely re: my method book, just keeping up w/ old stuff and working on arranging a 2nd song for my wife, and taking a bit of time to work on Chopin's Prelude, Opus 28, #4 -- which is much harder than it looks, but I did know that going in based on prior ABF threads.
I reached a point of despair on song #2. I can't sing it in the original key (too high), so I was planning to just sing one octave below. The problem is that I can't carry a tune in a bucket. I can sing along with the piano, if the melody is there and not just the chords. I can also sing an octave lower with the radio, but with no other voice to carry the tune it is much much more difficult to sing an octave lower with the piano than I had expected.
Sliding down one octave on the piano, so that I'd be right on the same note between piano and voice, sounded AWFUL -- just so low that it was terribly muddy and dull, lifeless and dreary.
And, I was having the worst time with the fingering, jumps, etc. regardless. I was basically ready to give up... so I shelved it for a few weeks.
My AOTW... I decided to see if I could find a middle ground, a spot where the top notes of the melody would be near the top of my range, such that it would be singable (is that a word?) but not so low that it would be completely muddy. So, I dropped down from G, picking B (rather than Bb or C, the other candidates) based on the advice that it falls under the hands very nicely and is intuitive in that it uses all of the black keys.
One last problem though... it is still too much of a drop... the octaves in the bass are very low, getting as far down as B1 (counting the first B as B0). Still too muddy and very difficult to keep the left hand from dominating.
So... fine, let's simplify and get rid of the octaves, if I want a dramatic low note (an occasional feature of the song and hallmark of the artist), I can always bounce down there for a moment.
And... voila, suddenly the top of the bass octaves, that were played with my left thumb, can now be played with my left pinky, and the rest of my left hand is free to help out. So, I've slid the bottom notes of the right hand to the left hand, where it makes sense to do so.
Jumps: reduced, dramatically.
Fingering: much simpler now, fewer notes in the right hand, and I'm able to have a more stable hand position.
Muddiness: quite a bit better than dropping the full octave. It needs to be improved to make the song sound decent, but it's my left-hand & pedal techniques that are the primary problem. These will improve with time and focus.
In a word, I'm chuffed!!
It's not as rich and full as it could be, but it's doable for me and it's OK without having the "tink-tink-tink" sound that one gets with stripped down "Easy Piano" arrangements (just my $.02 worth on those in general, but for pop songs in particular).
I'm not fully committed to B though, Db has most of the same advantages as B with the bonus of being a bit higher, improving the overall tone. I'm also fairly comfortable with Db because of all my time with Clair de Lune. One drawback though, the tonic is on a black key, so for much of the song I'd have my thumb on Db instead of B. I'm a beginner, so yes, this does matter to me. I have to figure out if I can stretch my voice that high too. It would be pointless to have the dramatic high notes wind up squeaky or otherwise sound too forced.
I have to decide soon though, because I can't really learn to play it until the key is nailed down --- unlike Ragdoll that is