“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.”
I do this too when I sing. Part of the reason I don’t like metronomes. To me they almost detract from the natural flow of the music. Every well written song has a natural rhythm, it’s just a matter of feeling it. In my opinion, that’s what music is all about. Not just hearing but feeling.
Thank you, and I agree. It’s all about the feel. Music is something you do: a activity one partakes in, rather than a passive experience.
I’m all about finding what I perceive as the ‘essence’ of any particular song and capturing that in my covers, rather than rigorously learning how to play it perfectly or by the book. I don’t keep rigorous meter nor do I fixate on finding the exact chords, etc. I’m looking for the ineffable heart of the song, not the material body, as it were. As long as I get the message of the song across, I believe I’ve succeeded.
That’s why I learn every song by ear and focus on reacting to it, responding to it, playing with it, etc. (It’s also the part of music I find most fun).
The fuzzy meter thing you're talking about is called rubato, and indeed it functions exactly like you're describing. You do it really nicely here. I also really like your intro.
My comments on your nice piano covers are going to keep doing this to you, and I'm sort of sorry, but I can't help myself:
It's telling that in the article you talked about how you were drawn to the song by the vocal performance, and that's terrific. But you aren't playing the vocal performance, so the main thing that attracted you to the song is not going to be present in your cover at all. So all we hear is the just the melody and chord progression, which to my ear aren't interesting.
Your comment that you want to learn newer songs to appeal to younger audiences is valid. It's just that these interchangeable modern pop ballads don't translate to solo piano. They just aren't musically interesting enough to hold up once everything but the chords and melody are stripped out. If your goal is to play a lot of them in a public space, like a bar pianist or similar, (something I've always wanted to do as well), one after another of these kinds of tunes will reveal how they all sound the same.
Songwriting is different now. Songs are "produced" more than they are "written". With a couple of your previous covers, I've gone and listened to the originals just to hear what you're hearing, and they sound good for what they are. But to my ears that is *in spite of* the fact that there's nothing much going on with the chords and melody. I don't know what the solution is for your goal.
“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.”
I do this too when I sing. Part of the reason I don’t like metronomes. To me they almost detract from the natural flow of the music. Every well written song has a natural rhythm, it’s just a matter of feeling it. In my opinion, that’s what music is all about. Not just hearing but feeling.
This is beautiful, well done!
Thank you, and I agree. It’s all about the feel. Music is something you do: a activity one partakes in, rather than a passive experience.
I’m all about finding what I perceive as the ‘essence’ of any particular song and capturing that in my covers, rather than rigorously learning how to play it perfectly or by the book. I don’t keep rigorous meter nor do I fixate on finding the exact chords, etc. I’m looking for the ineffable heart of the song, not the material body, as it were. As long as I get the message of the song across, I believe I’ve succeeded.
That’s why I learn every song by ear and focus on reacting to it, responding to it, playing with it, etc. (It’s also the part of music I find most fun).
Keep on feeling the music, @MaKenna Grace
Same! I love getting lost in a song.
The fuzzy meter thing you're talking about is called rubato, and indeed it functions exactly like you're describing. You do it really nicely here. I also really like your intro.
My comments on your nice piano covers are going to keep doing this to you, and I'm sort of sorry, but I can't help myself:
It's telling that in the article you talked about how you were drawn to the song by the vocal performance, and that's terrific. But you aren't playing the vocal performance, so the main thing that attracted you to the song is not going to be present in your cover at all. So all we hear is the just the melody and chord progression, which to my ear aren't interesting.
Your comment that you want to learn newer songs to appeal to younger audiences is valid. It's just that these interchangeable modern pop ballads don't translate to solo piano. They just aren't musically interesting enough to hold up once everything but the chords and melody are stripped out. If your goal is to play a lot of them in a public space, like a bar pianist or similar, (something I've always wanted to do as well), one after another of these kinds of tunes will reveal how they all sound the same.
Songwriting is different now. Songs are "produced" more than they are "written". With a couple of your previous covers, I've gone and listened to the originals just to hear what you're hearing, and they sound good for what they are. But to my ears that is *in spite of* the fact that there's nothing much going on with the chords and melody. I don't know what the solution is for your goal.
Speaking of the I-V-vi-IV progression, you nailed that it's extremely overused. In fact there's this: (https://en.everybodywiki.com/List_of_songs_containing_the_I%E2%80%93V%E2%80%93vi%E2%80%93IV_progression)