Hey guys

Here’s another addition to my pianist portfolio which I have attached to a dedicated page on my newsletter [image below].

As my work with instrumental piano covers is an entirely separate venture to my original musical endeavours, I needed another name to share them under that could also double as a YouTube channel name. I came up with ‘One Man & A Piano’ as I think it sums up exactly what I am trying to do as a musician. I mostly work solo for many reasons that I won’t get into here. I also value music that is simple and performed without the crutch of too much technology and production magic. ‘One musician, one guitar’ is essentially my favourite genre because I adore an artist who can move the audience just on their own without all the special effects of modern technology. I am trying to echo that here with my piano work.

As this venture is entirely centred around performing covers, I cannot monetise the videos here or on my YouTube channel for copyright reasons. But you can still support me as a musician and writer and help me make more videos by becoming a paid subscriber to this Substack. I have set it at the lowest possible price here in the UK, £3.50 per month (less than $5) and intend to keep it at that price as long as humanly possible.

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As with the previous songs in 4/4 that I have released on this page, this one was the result of my extensive practice regime with a new left hand arpeggio I am learning; 1, 5, 11, 5. I have been trying to learn this to a high standard in the last 6 months or so to improve my playing in common time (4/4) as I have spent years playing only block chords or octaves with the left hand and it always made my playing sound dull, amateurish and childishly simple.

As time progresses and I get a better handle on the method, I will be venturing into more expressive, varied and nuanced methods of left hand playing but for now I am concentrating on nailing this one. I want to be able to play it perfectly across all keys so I can instantly adopt any song in 4/4 into my repertoire. The versatility of this method is why I am focussing on it and I have already found it useful in collaborations with other musicians and artists.

That’s also why the songs I have been covering are such well known Pop songs… I am aiming to maximise my employability as a performer, and the vast majority of music performance work in the cash strapped UK centres around contemporary music that the majority of audience members are familiar with.

The song is ‘Titanium’ by the French electronic artist David Guetta and features the Australian singer/songwriter Sia on vocals. It featured on David Guetta’s fifth studio album NOTHING BUT THE BEAT which was published by Virgin and EMI records and was released as a single in 2011.

Thanks for listening - Pete Brennan (One Man & A Piano)

Hey guys. Here’s another addition to my piano portfolio and the most recent song I have covered to date. I have been actively trying to incorporate more modern and contemporary songs like this into my practice and repertoire this past year or so.

Historically, I have tended towards playing oldies in my cover version sets because that's where my taste in music typically rests. I adore 60’s music: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, Motown, bubble pop, Rock ‘N Roll, etc and have always over relied on that playing those songs.

As timeless as that stuff is, and it often goes down well at gigs, playing only oldies can tend to alienate a younger audience and thus potentially prevent me from getting gigs where I am asked to entertain that demographic. So, to diversify my repertoire and increase my employability as an artist, I have been actively learning more contemporary pop songs. Call it ‘strengthening in weaker areas’, if you will.

And one of those songs is this one from 2020. When I first heard it, I was struck by a few things. Tate McRae’s voice was the first thing. There’s something vulnerable about her vocals in this, an anguish in her voice that I found enthralling. And since hearing some of her other work, I have become even more captivated by her singing voice. Like Miley Cyrus, Lana Del Rey or Sia, there’s just something about her singing voice that gives me goosebumps. There’s a character to it, a level of humanity and imperfection that appeals to me. The producer accentuates these qualities by adding some heavy BitCrushing effects to her voice which fit in with the chilled out, Dubstep feel of the song.

She also constructed and performed these melodies in a swung and sometimes seemingly lazy way. It feels like it is fluctuating in and out of time with the meter of the song. Lagging behind and catching up. It doesn’t really, but the flow of the song makes it feel that way to me. I found that I mimic this style when I play it on piano by actually varying my tempo; speeding up in the middle of bars and slowing down towards the end of them. This character became embedded in my performance of the piece and thus when I sat down to record a performance of it, I discovered that I couldn’t use a click track at all. This is a free hand performance, with no metronome, click or drum track because that’s how I play this song, with endless free expression.

The second thing I noticed was the topline melody that she was singing, it’s just so gorgeous. The chord progression (6, 4, 1, 5) is pretty standard, if not cliche, at this point. But the melodies of the different sections that she has written for it I think are sublime. There’s an energy and a drive to them that pushes the song forward. They seem dramatic and add dynamism to what is all in all a pretty chilled out song.

It’s one of the first songs I started learning with the left hand arpeggio (1, 5, 11) method that I now often use when playing in 4/4. I used this song to familiarise myself with it within the key of C#m (Aeolian, 6th mode of E Major). I have one song that I practice for every key in Ionian and Aeolian (24 songs) and play them on rotation to help me nail down the method in every ‘natural’ key signature.

This track is called ‘You Broke Me First’ by Canadian singer/songwriter Tate McRae and was first released as a single in 2020. It later featured on her second EP ‘Too Young To Be Sad’ which was released in 2021 through RCA Records.

Thanks for listening - Pete Brennan (Musician - Songwriter)

Moon River was composed by Henry Mancini with words crafted by lyricist Johnny Mercer. It first appeared in the golden age of cinema classic 1961 ‘Breakfast at Tiffany's’ as a diegetic song being performed by the film’s star Audrey Hepburn. Her character Holly Golightly performs the song as part of the plot of the movie in the iconic scene below.

There's a whole story behind the history of this song but I’m not going to get into it here. The reason it means so much to me and my family personally is because this was my late maternal Grandad’s favourite song. The Andy Williams version was played at his funeral and for a LONG TIME I couldn’t hear it without breaking down into tears because it reminded me of him so much. For the same reason, I never learned to play the song on guitar or piano either for the longest time.

It wasn’t until the end of my third year of university that I did learn it because my sister, who was also studying music at the same university, wanted to sing a cover of it in her final performance and dedicate it to our late grandfather. I was the pianist for her final performance so I had to finally learn it.

It took me a few weeks but I eventually managed to play it without crying anymore. I essentially had to desensitise myself to it through exposure. (There’s a valuable life lesson in there somewhere).

The version I ended up playing as accompaniment to my sister was just legato block chords as I had only just learned it at the last minute and was still quite raw. The left hand arpeggios I play in the above version is the result of the piano practice I have put in since graduating university.

I tried recording my performance of this song to a click metronome to keep me in time, but I found that in the rigidness of keeping to a set tempo, I lost some of the expression I naturally put into it. So this performance is recorded in free time.

That does mean that, on occasion, my timing is slightly rough. A few of the left hand arpeggio notes land a little late or early throughout which I find is very noticeable when playing in 6/8, particularly on the 4 beat.

I’m still practicing this left hand method (along with others) and improving incrementally, one day at a time. I may revisit this song in another post in a year or so to see how much tidier and more disciplined my playing will become in that time.

For now, I hope you enjoy this early effort.

I dedicate this post to my late grandfather John [below], my little sister Sass and my little brother Ethan.

Thanks for listening… Pete Brennan (Musician- Singer/Songwriter)

In all seriousness, this is a good tune. It has a legitimate folky and singer/songwriter vibe which elevates it above just being another mass produced factory pop song that one would expect ‘The Bieb’ to churn out. That is almost certainly due to the fact that Ed Sheeran wrote this song.

No matter how one may feel about old Ed, (and a lot of musicians feel quite vitriolic about him, believe me) he has an undeniable talent for songwriting. You are perfectly within your rights to say his music is not for you, but to argue he is no good or should be dismissed as a musician and songwriter is disingenuous. The cultural relevance of the man’s work over the last 15 years cannot be denied and the numbers never lie.

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This is the second video I am releasing of my instrumental piano covers on SubStack after I recently uploaded my performance of ‘I Feel It Coming’ by the Weeknd feat Daft Punk. (I didn’t cover only Canadian artists on purpose, that was merely a coincidence).

I hope to curate a large sample of such videos as an only Pianist Portfolio that I can use to source out pianist work. When I have enough of these posts, I’ll set up a dedicated page on my SubStack for the portfolio and move these videos over there. But until then, they give me more ‘content’ to meet the high demands of my self-imposed release schedule here.

‘Love Yourself’ was released as a single in 2015 and was a featured track on Justin Bieber’s fourth studio album PURPOSE (Def Jam records). It was written by Ed Sheeran, Benny Blanco and Bieber himself and reached Number One in the charts on both sides of the Atlantic.

I hope you enjoy it…

Pete Brennan (Musician - Songwriter - Essayist - Author - Dime Store Philosopher)

As some of you will be aware, I am working hard on a ‘Pianist Portfolio’ at the moment.

In the not too distant future, I am hoping to find some work as a ‘function pianist’ playing instrumental arrangements of contemporary songs, jazz standards or sonatas. You know the kind of gigs I am talking about, right? Some dude in the corner twinkles away on a piano playing songs that the guests vaguely recognise while they sip on G&Ts and make small talk. Yeah, those kinds of gigs.

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Weirdly, to get that kind of work one has to be pretty good at piano, so I have been practicing like a madman for the last six months or so since I graduated university. I plan to release plenty of these kinds of videos on a dedicated page right here on Substack pretty soon. From there, I can use that repertoire as a portfolio when applying for gigs, etc.

One problem I identified as an area in need of improvement was my lack of skill with my left hand. A year ago, I only played simple chords or octave root notes with it while my right handled the melody. I’ve still got a ways to go, but the left hand arpeggios I have been practicing are really starting to come together.

The 4x4 time arpeggio I utilise in this song in particular has revolutionised my playing as most pop music is in that signature. It is also endlessly adaptable.

Playing it allows me to stretch the notes of the chord out into two octaves, separating them more. This gives them space and stops them getting on top of each other and sounding muddy, as bass chords on piano easily can. The result is a fuller, richer and more professional sounding performance. And the better I get at it, the more I can improvise and play around with it.

There’s still a long way to go, but I am getting better every day.

There’s a few little mistakes in this performance but it's not a bad effort, I reckon. I’m proud of it, at least.

I took the advice of a few commenters on my last piano video in terms of camera and video choices. You still can’t see my face (‘but I love it’) or the sustain pedal in this shot, but at least the piano keyboard is the right way up this time. Baby steps, eh? Small, incremental improvements with each video. (‘Clean your bloody room, eh?’)

The song, (in the unlikely event that you didn’t know), is a cover of a collaboration from Canadian singer/songwriter The Weeknd and the legendary French electronic duo Daft Punk. It was featured on the former’s third studio album STARBOY (XO/Republic Records. 2016) which was released way back in 2016 and got to Number 4 when released as a single on the Billboard 200 in the USA.

I hope you enjoyed my arrangement and performance. See you next time.

Pete Brennan - Musician & Singer/Songwriter