A couple of weeks ago I did an interview for the Indy In-Tune podcast with my good friend Darrin Snider and haven't mentioned it until now. To be honest, Darrin sat me down with a couple of bottles of whiskey and the rest of the interview was sort of a blur. But, given the circumstances, he managed to edit my ramblings in the interview into an understandable format. It's kind of like Letterman with Joaquin Phoenix. Except, Joaquin won't shut up.

You can download or stream the interview from the podcast homepage, ITunes or your preferred aggregator. This helps his stats and gives us all hope that someone is listening and interested in the Indianapolis music scene. Jenn Cristy, who I'm opening up for this Saturday, Mar. 28 2009 at Locals Only, is interviewed in episodes #12 and #31. In fact, you'll find several other fine Indianapolis bands that are interviewed in previous editions of the podcast. That is why you should select "subscribe to this podcast" when given the opportunity.

On the main page for the podcast he has several links related to me that I had forgotten about, including this blog and a bunch of awards. I guess I've been ignoring the intertubosphere too long.

Just as brief reminder, besides playing Locals Only on Saturday, I'm playing Fionn McCool's in Fishers on Friday featuring an interesting mix of covers and originals. The show at Fionn's also features guitarist John Byrne.

My five-year-old: "I talked to God last night."

My Wife: "….um, What did God say?…."

My five-year-old: "He said, "No, thanks. I don't want any coffee." "

END OF CONVERSATION

So, three things from this:

1. My kid was host enough to think of offering God something to drink.
2. My kid probably thought: Since he really only gets one day off, I bet he drinks coffee.
3. My kid talks to God. Don't most five-year-olds?

This is a notoriously slow time for musicians in my area (the dead zone of the Midwest). But, I usually use it to fix gear and write music(or rewrite bad charts, which takes me awhile). This time I've been using it to get inspired to play piano and write music again. I'm study(note: I did not say "playing") the Beethoven piano sonatas. The reason I write "studying" and not "playing" is because there is no way I could conceivably learn to play these, for the most part, virtuosic piano sonatas. I don't have the technique. I certainly don't have the time. I AM trying to learn a couple of them. An easy one(op. 49 No. 2 – a sonatina really) and a huge mace-like blow to my ego(op. 2, no. 2-Not even one of the most difficult). The cool part is all the composing devices and effects Beethoven uses on one single instrument.

SOLO.

For 15-40 minutes at a time.

I can't write a decent 3 minute song.

So, I'm really using them to study composition and what is possible on the simple piano. I finally bought the two volumes of the 32 sonatas late last year and have been using books by Rosen, Taub(see sidebar) and most importantly a video lecture series from Great Courses(Teaching Company) taught by Robert Greenburg. Greenburg covers all the sonatas in 24 45-minute lectures. They are designed for non-musicians, but they are a great introduction from a composition stand point. From a slightly more technical standpoint, I've been listening to pianist Andras Schiff give lectures on how he interprets the sonatas (he recently recorded all 32). He gave these interviews at a few British concerts of the sonatas that he performed. They can be found(and downloaded) here:

http://music.guardian.co.uk/classical/page/0,,1943867,00.html.

It's really easy to hear how amazing all the sonatas are 200 years after the fact, especially if you actually play piano. But, the mileage Ludwig gets out of a single instrument with compositional techniques is beyond amazing. I expect my kids will either absolutely love or hate them by the year's end. I play them on my IPod way, way too much.

Also, I get the feeling they are beginning to realize what hack Dear-Old-Dad is……

Jack Helsley, Harry Goodloe and I spent some quality time with Dave Lindquist last Friday. We played a few tunes and he had some interesting questions. When we could stop laughing and when he had the Camcorder actually turned on, some good stuff was videotaped. Doris, from the Jazz Kitchen, said I should've worn a suit or nice shirt. Looking at the video now, I guess she was right. But, the effect would've been marginal. Dave Lindquist was kind enough to put up with all of our crap and Dave Allee was kind enough to let us use the Jazz Kitchen. So, thanks be to the Daves.

The result is located here: http://www.indy.com/videos/show/76 and here: http://www.indy.com/posts/3346

All this is leading up to our big return to the Jazz Kitchen this Saturday, January 5 from 9:00pm to 12:00am. Hopefully, other people will be there also.

DOES NOT LIKE

Today, I worked on my new computer trying to get a Microsoft cordless mouse to work with the Microsoft screensaver in Vista (it doesn't, but there is a special fix – make sure the HARDWARE works with the SOFTWARE).

But, as I am working my two-year-old son clambers up on to the piano bench in front of my keyboards. He then proceeds to put on the headphones and hammer away on the Kurzweil PC1X (which is turned off). While he is doing this, he starts singing at the top of his lungs. It was a tune he made up. He does that a lot. After he is finished with his little mini-concert, he applauds himself and yells, "Yeeaaahh". My friend Jack told me that I should tell him that people don't applaud for jazz musicians. But, I figure, why ruin his fantasy. Eventually, he'll go to enough concerts with me to see the bitter, surreal truth. Then, he'll go to medical school.

You have to give the guy credit for creativity. I wonder if you can fit two child seats in there?

I found this via http://blog.newsarama.com/ who found it via http://www.neatorama.com/2007/09/03/ghetto-batmobile/.

In other words, no originality here, just a weird sense of awe.

I heard this the other day on an NPR podcast. Another "This I Believe" essay which I makes incredible sense. In some ways, I guess this would border on "I'd like to give the world a coke" touchy-feely-ness. But, I would sum it up this way: Everytime a good soloist plays, he's trying to mind meld with the entire audience. Every time I play a solo, I'm more like Johnny Carson's Karnak the magician.