Here is this weekend's lesson piece-- Andante in C Major. You can get a head start on your lesson-- or you can follow along from anywhere you are. We'll look at the chord changes in Roman Numerals, and find alternative "voices" to use on your keyboard or piano ensemble-- to use instead of straight piano. We might even get to the point of improvising on Mozart's creation with an extended section in the same mood and style. The LITERACY of the chord progressions is also to be pointed out. The chord sequences have to "make sense" from a music grammar point of view. And last but not least, why is this piece interesting? Does it make you "feel more organized" in your thinking? Why are pop artists who study classical music writing better pop tunes? Why are there very few pop tunes written in any genre over the past 20 years that have a timeless quality to them? Go back to the pop-music of Mozart and you'll begin to find out.
Check this out-- then I'll try it solo on the piano shortly.
{t:Long Train Running}
{st:Doobie Brothers}
{C:Intro Gm7Dm7Gm7 Repeat these chords}
{c:Verse 1}
[Gm7]Down around the corner[Dm7]
A [Gm7]half A mile from here[Dm7]
You [Gm7]see them old trains runnin'[Dm7]
and you [Gm7]watch them disappear
Without [Cm7]love [Cm6]
where would you be [Gm7]now [Dm7] [Gm7]
Without [Eb]love [Gm7] [D7]
[Gm7] [Dm7] [Gm7]
You know I saw miss Lucy
down along the tracks
She lost her home and family
and she won't be comin' back
Without love
where would you be now
Without love
{c:Verse 2}
Well the [Gm7]Illinois Central
[F#m7]and the [Gm7]Southern Central Freight
[F#m7]gotta [Gm7]keep on pushin' mama
[F#m7]'cause you [Gm7]know they're running late
Without love
where would you be now
Without love
{c:Solo over verse 1 chords}
Well the Illinois Central
and the Southern Central Freight
gotta keep on pushin' mama
'cause you know they're running late
Without love
where would you be now
Without love
{c:Verse 2 (hold final D7 chord)}
Where the pistons keep on charmin'
and the wheels go round' and round'
And the steel rails are cold and hard
for the miles they go around
Without love
where would you be right now
Without love
where would you be now?
{np}
Long Train Runnin Chords (ver 2) by Doobie Brothers @ Ultimate-Guitar.Com
Not bad-- leslyruga Maybe someone at Seasons 52 can do it this way-- I don't know. It's really interesting to find people from anywhere and everywhere doing piano vocals for these famous rock songs from the seventies. I just looked for it on a lark and found this guy doing it. It's funny that I've never seen it done on cruise ship piano/singer loungers or duelling pianos-- because I think those venues are ALL hijacked by two guys from PHoenix-- who Dorothy sold a piano case to back in the early 80's to house a digital piano. All those duelling and ship people play the SAME TUNES... NEVER a tune like this. I'll find out more about that piano hijacking conspiracy in coming months and report my findings here. In the meantime, I'll work on my version of this tune and post it here soon.
Discussion and more video of Doobie Bros. in live performance on this tune
LYRICS
The lyrics seem to be flip flop between trains and the idea that our lives are positioned due to love of others. I didn't bother researching the origin of the lyrics-- that's just a quick observation. I like the train part of it-- and for what it's worth, the love of others as important to our lives is a truism. Combining the two ideas is an interesting juxtaposition.
ROMAN NUMERAL CHORD CHANGES
We may as well take the first chord as a "minored one" chord written as "i". But wait , there's more. Consider the flat seven. In the key of C, that's your Bb. So it's a I-chord with a flat 7 and a flat 3. Techincally it's called a minor 7 chord... so it could be written i-m7... .or i-7. The entire song is based on the guitar strumming playing on the interesting combo of i-m7 to a sort of V-chord... but in this case it's a minored V... or small "v"... In C that would be G on the bottom with your flat7 as F, the minor-3 tone as Bb... and the D. The melody for the opening strum then becomes Eb to D over and over. Add that fancy samba drumming back ground with congo and bongo-- as a 16-beat-- and there you have it. Why don't they write songs like this anymore? Stupid pop music today trashes it's own good history. If it weren't for youtubes like the above, these songs would be gone. That's an editorial comment-- also part of my piano "lessons".
I had occasion to teach this song the other day but I didn't realize that the knuckle part on the black keys is a small part of the entire song called Bubble Gum. You learn something new on the internets every day. There is a serious side to this-- in that the knuckle part is a great way to break the ice with students because it's silly and plain fun and easy. I never met anyone who didn't want to try it themselves. Watch for it near the end of BubbleGum. Here's someone who took with the short knuckle part of BubbleGum and played it twice in every octave of his piano. This is part that I teach-- and now that I've seen this demo, I think it might make sense to teach it in various octaves as well. This demonstrates the "sameness" of the groups of keys called an octave, from the low to high range... in a silly engaging and fun way. More discussion at the following link. KNUCKLE SONG
Here's a short intermediate skill level piano piano piece I'll have students listen to today as an example of counterpointe where harmony is woven between the real melodies of the left and right hand. My copy is from Volume 17 of Music for Millions, a book of 142 "easy pieces" of classics in piano compiled by one Denes Agay and published by Consolodated Music Publishers in 1956. It's still being published and is now available for $12, a great value, at Amazon, online Easy Classics to Moderns (Music for Millions, Vol. 17): Denes Agay: 9780825640179: Amazon.com: Books
Play the video again, and follow the notes below. Then print out the following one page score and try it yourself. It's absolutely essential to play hands separately first-- and in fact, it's more fun to do that too since there are melodies in both left and right hand that complement one another in that counterpoint fashion-- which must be ridiculously difficult to compose.
One you develop some facility with this--- given todays keyboard and piano "voices" or different instruments like synthesizers and other sounds that are digital samples of string orchestras, replay this piece using interesting new sounds-- and upload to youtube and post it to our forum discussion.
Here's a playlist with Mozart quality intelligence increasing music combined with isochronic beats to induce specific brainwave frequencies. Will it actually DO anything for you? I dunno. It's an interesting experiment however as both the The Mozart Effect and brainwave frequency alteration using isochronic tones HAVE been studied at length, scientifically-- and prove to have some merit. But enough talk--- have a listen. It's a long playlist so if you bookmark this page and come back to continue where you left off, just use the little click forward arrows in the bottom left corner near the play button to find one you haven't heard yet.
