My goals for this adventure are each tightly linked to each other and are as follows:

1. Learn to read and write on the grand staff.
2. Learn to play the piano.
3. With 1 and 2 completed, begin to study music theory.
4. Become comfortable with writing voice leads over simple pieces I’m already
   familiar with.
5. Compose simple songs.
6. Study sound design and processing in Logic.
7. Create my own music.
8. Possibly get into full on sound creation with tools like C-Sound.

The road ahead is long and I can see no end in sight. This page is an attempt by be to document this journey. I will attempt to post a piece that I have learned, a melody I have created, a sound that I have designed, or a song that I have created at least once a week. This will serve as an audible history of the adventure and allow me to track my progress week over week.

Original Work

1) 03-26-2006 - 5 Notes (Mp3, Score)

An accomplished musician friend of mine has graciously volunteered to help me work through the creation of a song. This file is the result of his first instruction: to pick any five notes and write a simple looping melody using only those notes. Originally he only asked for the score, but I decided to use the tools at hand to learn a little bit about track automation. The result is a guitar-ish sounding riff that is run through a low-pass filter to change the dynamics. It needs work to smooth it out, but it’s something to post. Thanks, Mike.

1) 03-31-2006 - 5 Notes 2 (Mp3)

Revision 2 changes the guitar tone to something more workable and adds drums. Absolutely no attention has been paid to song structure as I am focusing only on building up the instruments at this point.

Piano Practice

1) 01-17-2006	This song is called Lavender’s Blue and it is the first song I’ve posted to this blog. I have had a keyboard for 3 weeks now and an introductory book for 2 weeks. This is a simple piece with a time signature of 3/4. Listening to it, I can tell that I need work.
2) 01-26-2006	Week 3 brings me to a song everyone knows, Blow the Man Down. This is another simple piece in 3/4 which emphasizes broken chords as opposed to block chords. It took me a while to learn this one because it’s the first song that’s forced me to try to make my hands work independently. I need to focus ok keeping the timing correct.
3) 01-26-2006 (90 bpm)	This weeks song is called Cafe Vienna. This song was more difficult because it requires you to shift your right hand up and down the keys. It took me quite a few tries to get this one right, but I am proud of my progress. You can find a second version with a faster tempo (120 bmp) here. I have included two versions this time because I wanted to play it a bit faster than the first recording, but I wasn’t entirely pleased with my rhythm on the second recording. Practice makes perfect.
3) 08-19-2006	After a long hiatus involving moving to Dallas among other things, I’m finally poised to resume practice. This brings us to “The Party”. This song is a french folk tune which I really enjoyed learning. It’s in G Major and while only two notes are ever played at the same time, I really like the melody.
3) 08-31-2006	This week brings us to a little tune called stepping stones. This is the first song i’ve played that uses sharps and flats that are outside of the key. I like the result.