Hi everyone! Here are two new links:
http://www.acmppublishing.com/jeremypelt/html5/index.html?page=1
http://www.kingdomsold.com/music-monday/garnet-walters
I’m so excited! More music and shows in the works!!
Check this out!!!
I’m so excited about this press release from JSQUARED magazine!! Thanks again!!
My new album!!!
I’m so excited to announce that my solo piano album “The Foundation” is now available on iTunes, Google Play and Amazon!!
I’m So Excited!!!
Wow!! This Thursday (Yes two days from now), my solo piano album, The Foundation will be available on iTunes, Google Play and Amazon. I’m really excited about this achievement!! This album is an autobiography of my life from songs that I like to what drives me as a creative musician. Two more days until “The Foundation” is released!!
New album…
So on October 15th, 2015, my new album “The Foundation” will be released on iTunes, Google Play and Amazon! I’m really excited about this! Here is the promo! Enjoy!
Man…it has been a while…
Hi everyone! It’s been a long time. A lot has been going on and I haven’t kept up as I would have liked (Forgive me please…). The good news is that I have more posts on the way!! Thanks for following and being patient!!
Linear Harmony
Hi everyone! It’s been a while since my last post! I’m glad to be back. I have learned a lot of things lately and I would like to share one of those things with you.
So I was practicing some chord progressions that were really abstract. The way I was approaching them were “Here is the first chord. Here is the second chord, then the third chord etc…” Then it hit me. I have been approaching chords like a laundry list or even as static events. To sum it up, I was looking at harmony and chord progressions vertically.
So decided to look at harmony from a linear perspective. How would this be done? Well, I looked at Bach chorales just to see how harmony worked. Bach’s harmony was so linear that the chords flowed into one another. It wasn’t just a static list of harmonic events. The harmony had momentum. Each note in the chord had a destination from the beginning to the end. I began to pay more attention to the details in how each chord connected to each other.
After that, I checked out saxophone players like Charlie Parker. Now one saxophone player cannot play a chord because the saxophone is a single line instrument. However, a saxophone player can spell the notes in the chord as a line. In doing that, moving in harmony becomes more interesting.
In life we have events and milestones that stick out (some more than others). At times we focus so much on the milestones and events that we can forget about what goes on in between that leads up to the next thing. The same applies to music. Instead of looking at chords and harmony as a lists of events, try to look at it linearly. Harmony will be more of a story that you will never forget and you will be more tuned in to detail.
The Fractal Nature of Goals and Music Practice
This is from a great book “The Practice of Practice” by Jonathan Harnum!
Animated Sierpinsky Fractal
Setting goals is one of the most powerful things you can do to get better at music or anything else. Some people write them down, some just have a vague idea of what they are, but we all have goals for nearly everything we do. Goals are covered in more detail in The Practice of Practice, but here’s a quick run-down.
A Sierpinsky Triangle
Goals are like the cool animated GIF of a Sierpinsky fractal above: there are goals within goals within goals. It’s goals all the way down. The usual advice is to break goals down into long-term, mid-term, and short-term goals, but you can and should dive deeper, and consider smaller goals. Writing down long-term goals is a good practice, one you should revisit at least once a year. Mid-term goals are also good to have. For me those are from one year to…
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Out of the Comfort Zone
So the other day I went to a church that I attend and play for in the evenings. I usually play the piano/keyboard there. They have a pipe organ that is played in the mornings. By the looks of that thing, it’s very intimidating. I was invited to try it out and I figured “It can’t be any different that the Hammond B3 in terms of function”. (I do play the B3). So I tried it out and I ended up getting it in about 20 minutes. It was a great experience. It felt different to play on something that I was actually afraid to play. I was actually more inspired than anything else because of this. What came to mind was what my professor in college told me:
“When you work on one thing musically, it will effect/affect everything else.”
Playing the pipe organ surely did that. I am now more intentional in voicings and thinking about harmony in a more linear fashion. I also understand the harmonics and overtones as well. My ears grew a lot because I left my comfort zone.
The moral of the story is get out of your comfort zone. Don’t be afraid of fear. Don’t be afraid of learning something new. Masters were once novices at some point.
Motivation to Practice: Go With the Flow
English: Alberto Guerrero (standing) with Glenn Gould, circa 1945.
There’s a lot to like about the video of pianist Glenn Gould below. I’ve highlighted three things that happen in the video (see clips below).
As the great Robert Krulwich (of Radiolab and NPR) pointed out in a recent post, Gould appears to be deep in a Flow state, practicing Bach’s Partita #2.
For me, achieving Flow is one of the biggest motivators to continuing to practice, because it’s a transcendent experience and feels wonderful. Part 2 (of 6) in The Practice of Practicecovers helpful aspects of motivation, including Flow, in greater detail. Some players, like drummer Allison Miller, told me that sometimes they’ll go into a practice session with no other goal beyond getting into that Flow state, or a meditative state.
Here’s what Mr. Krulwich said, and as to the last clause, I couldn’t agree more :
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