Dining with Dorothy: 11 song playlist of songs

Somewhere Over the Rainbow played by Dorothy

Amor, Amor played by Dorothy Motto

From Wikipedia.

Amor (1943 song) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amor_(1943_song)

Amor" is a popular song.

The music was written by Gabriel Ruiz (composer), the original Spanish lyrics by Ricardo López Méndez, with English lyrics written by Sunny Skylar. The original title and opening line "Amor, Amor, Amor" became "More and more Amor" in the English version. The song was published in 1943.

The two biggest-selling versions in the United States were recorded by Bing Crosby and Andy Russell.

The recording by Bing Crosby was released by Decca Records as catalog number 18608. It first reached the Billboard magazine Best Seller chart on June 29, 1944, and lasted 7 weeks on the chart, peaking at #4. [1] The flip side was "Long Ago (and Far Away)," which also charted, making this a two-sided hit.

Discussion

Rick Potvin | Piano Lessons in Phoenix, Arizona: Amor Amor

Black Hawk Waltz by Al Toft Orchestra-- then a piano version.

Let's take a glance at the piano sheet music to start this time. You can pick up a lot of interesting information and intuitive feel for the piano song you're going to play just be LOOKING at the music. LOOK at it. LOOK at the patterns of little black notes. See how they repeat. See how the chords change slightly. Even if you do not play piano, you can see things happening on the music that are interesting in terms of the pattern. LOOK at the chords above the staff. LOOK at the octaves in the bass if you know music. Once you're done examining this, play the first video below-- the orchestra version by Al Toft. Then... after all of that, finally listen to the piano version at the very bottom (scroll down). 

Barcarolle by Jacques Offenbach on piano & synthesia.

Alleycat by the Lawrence Welk Orchestra then played by Rick

Take Five in 5/4 time is tricky to play.

Here's Dave Brubeck in 2009 playing his signature tune-- Take Five. It's one of the only tunes in 5/4 that ever became popular. The midsection with the improv is always even more tricky. After this video, see me try it again with just straight piano at Sam Ash. The drummer at Sam Ash talked to me afterwards and said he'd jump in the drums next time. See the drum set behind me.

S'Wonderful - Gershwin - Dorothy's Latin treatment of this 1927 tune.

First-- Gershwin's original piano version.

Now, a smoother more contemporary sounding latin rhythmic version...

Linus and Lucy by Vince Guaraldi, made famous in the Charlie Brown Christmas Special still popular.

It's quite interesting that Vince Guaraldi's jazzy numbers written for the Charlie Brown Christmas Special decades ago is still popular in restaurants and piano bars I've played. I have not seen it done in the raucous (and bad) duelling piano bars, however-- nor on the cruise ships. It has it's place, I guess. Here's the original with the head dance of the cartoon characters...

Ryan, Helen, Jabin, Akil & Nikil at Sam Ash Piano-Keyboard Thursday Nite

For some reason, the camera shut off on me despite my having turned it on at the beginning so I missed Dorothy's opening and the Johnsons, Akil and Nikil, this week. If they have a copy of their smart phone video to post here, that would be great. Here are Ryan, Helen and Jabin.

Bass pedals can be used effectively with piano.

Pachelbel's Canon in D is essential part of any student's repertoire.

First, let's listen and watch Canon in D played as originally written for a string quartet. It took a few minutes to find one without a Youtube ad-- which ads are becoming increasingly terrible in many ways. If Youtube keeps it up... I'll stop using it altogether. The quiet banner ad you can x out is ok but the ads that hijack your viewing of the video chosen are so far beyond media assault that I just can't believe it. Anyway... here's one without an ad-- an acceptable video for now.




Your lesson, should you choose to accept it, is to find music for this online, learn it and post it to the forum link here...CANON in D

Bob Falstein, Cruise ship piano entertainer.

A generation older than today's cruise ship, shout house, and duelling piano corporate shouting events, Bob Falstein represents a tradition of piano lounge entertainment I'm more familiar with. The problem with Bob's props is that he's stuck with the songs he has props for. If a repretoire ha 300 songs-- either memorized or in a fakebook, there's no way to cover those with props. And if you listen only to Bob's playing, a lot of it is jackhammer type chording RATHER than interesting playing. So this is not quite what I'm interested in but it's useful to watch and know about.


More cruise ship piano videos with critiques.
CRUISE SHIP PIANOS are all taken over by duelling piano mentality

Done

Increase your focus 400% with this Indian-sounding music?

A company claims they have music that increases your attentional focus 400%. I don't believe that but I'm willing to try it for an hour and see.



Here's the article describing the function. 1 Hour Alpha Chill Focus Session – Music Based On Neuroscience | Soren Dreier

FOCUS discussion area.

Seasons52 piano bars around the country

I only just found out that Seasons52 is an Olive Garden division that has pianos installed in their restaurants around the country. Checking Phoenix, we apparently have one here.  I could find about a dozen video clips with Season52 piano players on Youtube... here are a few-- with the rest inside the link at the end of this blog entry.



It's hard to tell if the following piano player is really playing or using piano Backtrax-- and reading lyrics off the small TV screen on top of this mini-digital grand. I followed his hands while playing and it doesn't seem right. Are some of the piano players at these restaurants faking it, mainly being kareoke players? If you note the pages in front of him on the rotating stage, when it rotates around where you can see the page, the right side looks blank and the left side looks like a list. It doesn't look like music.



Discussion and more examples... SEASONS 52

Roy F. Potvin used to play Robin's Return

17 videos Play all catholic hymnsby simonchairman1

500 miles high - Chick Corea on Fender Rhodes electric piano

Rick does Here, there, everywhere - Beatles

I - iii - bIII - ii-11 - V7

I - ii7 - iii - IV - I - ii7

iii - IV - vii-7 - III7

vii7 - III7 - vi - ii - ii7 - V7

Chorus

Transpose key center up b3

V - I - ii - ii - III7 - vi

ii - III7 - Transpose back to G - I - ii7

iii - IV - ii7

iii - IV - vii7 - III7

vii7 - III7 - vi - ii 0 ii7 - V7

Rick says-- the chord changes above seem technically proficient yet the Beatles have never been heard talking about HOW they put their chords together. Neither do many band members. It may very well be that many of them are not true songwriters but have ghost writers working for them-- in the background-- studio musicians who know how to put things like this together. All the technical work of classical music has been stripped out too. Where is the commentary by the great composers that explains how they put their material together? It helps tremendously to know the "grammar" of these "chord sentences" when playing the song. It's the onlyl way to go. It's what consistutes musical literacy. Without the roman numeral chords-- one is merely doing a parody of a song without knowing what he's doing. Sure you can get away with it-- but it's more satisfying and more complete when you know the changes.

Dorothy's Sunday afternoon piano/vocal workout medley

Palm Sunday was Jesus' triumphant return to Jeruselum-- marked at about 7 min into this album.

Look for Hosanna Heysanna-- about 7 minutes in.

Piano version coming up.

DIanna Krall the jazz phenomenon... piano lesson is "just watch this".

Americana worth playing on piano: Destination Moon (Dinah Washington)

[Discussion]

[Chords and lyrics]

It's a Grand Night for Singing from the movie "State Fair" 1945

Play this right through and enjoy.

Latin set by Dorothy on Hammond Organ with Rick on congo drums at Sam Ash Piano-Keyboard Night

The Rick 'n Dorthy Show at Sam Ash Piano Night April 3 - Desafinado

Listening assignment: Klaus Wunderlich on Hammond Pop Organ

Students

NEW!! This insert will feature our latest students in alphabetical order [Akil1][Akil2][Alan][Anna][Helen][Isant][Jabin][Juan][Nate][Nathan1][Nathan2][Nikil1][Nikil2][Forum thread where future Sam Ash Piano-keyboard nights will be placed] Sets: [Alan, Isant, Nate, Helen and Jabin on Feb 17, 2014 - 15 min set][Akil, Nikil, Ryan - Feb 25][Akil, Nikil, Joshua - Mar 20, 2014]Just below: sign up for emails of new blog posts by Rick Potvin