From now on, you’ll be known as MISTER StrongerTea around here. Keep it up!

You ROCKED that! Really nice work! Of course, once I update the music with the new parts, you’ll have to learn the bridge! :)

Man, this is the coolest job ever.

By the way, other folks, if you’ve got a recording of one of my tunes, I would absolutely love to see it. Send me a note, or a tweet, or whatever. Who knows — you may even make the site! :)

This weekend I was able to get parts four and five finished and uploaded for Piano Funk Groove #4 in Bb. Scroll down the page for the new sections.

In part four, we go through the Bridge section in Eb, through the little chromatic bass-line leading back to the main melody. Then, in part five, a little break! We’ll review the much simpler “chords” section which connects the last main melody back to the intro groove.

That bridge is pretty fun to play – it’s definitely one of the more straightforward “funk” parts of this tune. Give it a try!

I’ve only got parts six and seven left — which are both dedicated to different sections of the breakdown. I actually did a bit of the work for them over the weekend as well, so I’m expecting to wrap them up before this coming weekend.

Thanks for your patience, while I work out the kinks in my production process on this series!

Today, for me, more learning that this stuff takes a bit of time. I had hoped to just whip these last videos out, but I’m finding that it’s taking me about a week to finish each additional part. At that rate, it’ll take me another month to get the remaining four parts finished up. But I’m going to see if I can beat that!

In other news, the original example video from Piano Funk Groove #1 in C (which I originally did for Expert Village), is getting awfully close to 1 million views! I wonder if I can finish my remaining edits before it gets there…

Once I’m finished with Funk Groove #4, my plan is to start production on Funk Groove #3 in F. Here’s a video of a rough recording without the bridge if you haven’t seen it. This seems to be everyone’s favorite, so it makes sense to start it next. Some other users (Hey Thunderbird!) were asking when this one would be finished.

What this means: If there are things that you don’t like in the format I’m using for Funk Groove #4 — now is your chance to request changes. If you’d rather see me focus on other things than I do, now is the time to let me know! Just send me an email, or post a comment.

But now I’m back, and I’m continuing to finish up the last video editing for Piano Funk Groove #4 in Bb. I finished up the next video (part 2/7) over the weekend, and you can watch it now over on the dedicated Piano Funk Groove #4 page. Or simply subscribe to my YouTube channel, if you’d prefer.

Don’t forget I also update fairly regularly to both my Twitter and Facebook pages, if that’s more your style.

The next videos should be coming shortly, keep an eye on the site and work those fingers!

As always, comments, suggestions, questions — all welcome. Either comment here, or send me an email!

I’ve noticed that the dedicated page doesn’t yet have any comments enabled. I’ll sort that out, so that we can get some discussion going on the actual page.

The bad news — I’ll be traveling for the next two weeks, so I won’t be able to wrap up the other six videos until I get back.

The good news — they’re mostly done, except for final editing, so once I get back, I should be able to wrap them up quickly.

This is just the first of many series which I have queued up, and I’m using this one as a template for those to come. If you have comments, suggestions for improvements, etc. Send them in! I’ll have the chance to make changes in future series, so let your voice be heard!

New Youtube Channel

If you’ve been following my old channel on Youtube, you should know that I’m moving to a new channel, and all new videos will be posted there. If you’d like to keep up easily, subscribe to the new channel.

Talk to you all in a couple of weeks!

Visit the Piano Funk Groove #4 page to download the sheet music and one of the MIDI files right away. As I finish editing and uploading the videos, I’ll be adding them to this same page, so keep an eye on it. I’m planning to have at least two of the videos up in the next couple of days.

You can also reach that page by following the link at the very top of the site.

If you’re a MIDI file user, post some comments as to whether this format will work, or suggestions for changes. I want to provide MIDI files for all of the new groove tutorials — and I’d like to do them in the way which will be most helpful! Some questions to get the discussion started:

• Include the bass/drum backing parts, or would rather just have the piano parts?
• For the piano, does it help for me to split right/left hand into two channels (synthesia can show them in different colors if I do this)

Thanks!

The ball’s starting to roll downhill now. I’ve moved my old aqua-web.com site to its new domain and everything seems to have gone smoothly. Please let me know if you’re having any login problems, etc.

If you’re into social networks, and that’s a more convenient way to keep up, feel free to follow me on Twitter or Facebook. The latest updates are over in the sidebar.

Funk Groove #4 is written, notated, MIDI-fied and the backing tracks are sounding pretty good. I’m shooting and editing now, and hope to have the full series posted before I leave at the end of July. As a teaser, here’s a little audio snippet of the ending.

Funk Groove #4 in Bb (Ending Snippet) by groovewindow

Finally, I’ve been toying with doing a weekly live broadcast on ustream. I’m not exactly sure what the format or content would be yet, but I believe I could pull it off.

What do you think? If you have thoughts, ideas, suggestions for what you’d like to see — post them in the comments. I think it might be a quicker way to get questions and issues you’re dealing with up and out into the airwaves.

www.groovewindow.com

I currently only have a placeholder there, but will be moving this site to that domain this coming weekend. If you have bookmarks to the site, be ready to update them, although I’ll be adding redirects such that you should be automatically redirected to the corresponding page on the new site when you try to visit here. If I do things correctly, nobody should need to create new accounts. Everything should simply move. Here’s hopin’ (crosses fingers).

I just didn’t want you to be surprised by the change :)

I hope to get the switch done this weekend (July 3/4) when I’m not grilling or watching fireworks…

Hey, hey, hey! (spoken in my best “Fat Albert” voice)

I’m so excited about the new funk piano videos I’m working on! I’m to the point where music is written and most of the arrangements are in good shape, so I’m just about to start shooting. It’s been a while and I’ve forgotten how much work goes into getting the full tutorial series together. Writing, arranging, putting together sheet music and MIDI files (yes, the new series’ will have MIDI files so that you can download for practicing), not to mention shooting and editing.

At any rate, I needed a quick break from all that, just to play a little music, so I put together this cover of one of the very first funk piano tunes I learned: “Tune 88″ by Jeff Lorber.

Keep an eye on the site, because there will be a ton of new stuff and some big announcements coming soon. As they say on the hold lines: “your patience is appreciated.”