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Last spring I posted “Classical Smackdown”, which was a little piano ditty (gone berserk) meant to illustrate the endless tension in me between my classical piano training influences and my love of “rocking out”. When I first conceived it, I fully expected that i would get the piano track down and then orchestrate to that. But as it got more and more wild, see-sawing back and forth between genres, the orchestration concept started to feel a bit intimidating. Fortunately I thought it was pretty fun as solo piano, and opted to post it that way with the idea that maybe sometime later .....
Well the 2009 motorcycle touring season just ended in the last couple of weeks and I’ve been ready to come out of music hibernation and embrace a new project. While I did get something started, it was just not engaging me enough, at least for now. Meanwhile I noticed that I was listening anew to “Classical Smackdown” with the thought of giving the orchestration a try, and finally sat down to play around with it. It wasn’t long before I was hooked, although filled with trepidation (“controlled terror”?) as I neared the first boogie section. I knew I would need to come up with a “big band” sound to accompany the piano there, but hadn’t yet tried anything remotely like that, so was entering completely uncharted territory. My apologies to the great horn players of MJ who I know could do a mighty job on this piece – and maybe we’ll give that a go sometime if there’s interest. But for this pass, I really wanted to try my hand at working out all the instruments and seeing how (or if) I could make them play nicely together.
This is a crazy, wild ride and I guess tells the story even better than the original, about the various influences and energies that inform my often raucous piano playing. I did make one change to the first piano recording. The 8 measure between the two “boogies” were originally a repeat of the main theme, but I decided to play in a different little tune there to break it up a bit more. Otherwise, the piano is the same as in “Classical Smackdown” which, if you’re interested, is here:
Classical Smackdown
Doing this orchestration has been a total BLAST for me! It was alternately harder and easier than I’d expected, and I have to say that the process of adding in the percussion was some of the most fun I’ve had with digital music since discovering GB on my Mac! Hope you too will have a little fun with this Smackdown redux!
Special thanks to Shay (kassia) for the multitude of listens and suggestions along the way, and to Dave (bug67) for the squirrel!
Well the 2009 motorcycle touring season just ended in the last couple of weeks and I’ve been ready to come out of music hibernation and embrace a new project. While I did get something started, it was just not engaging me enough, at least for now. Meanwhile I noticed that I was listening anew to “Classical Smackdown” with the thought of giving the orchestration a try, and finally sat down to play around with it. It wasn’t long before I was hooked, although filled with trepidation (“controlled terror”?) as I neared the first boogie section. I knew I would need to come up with a “big band” sound to accompany the piano there, but hadn’t yet tried anything remotely like that, so was entering completely uncharted territory. My apologies to the great horn players of MJ who I know could do a mighty job on this piece – and maybe we’ll give that a go sometime if there’s interest. But for this pass, I really wanted to try my hand at working out all the instruments and seeing how (or if) I could make them play nicely together.
This is a crazy, wild ride and I guess tells the story even better than the original, about the various influences and energies that inform my often raucous piano playing. I did make one change to the first piano recording. The 8 measure between the two “boogies” were originally a repeat of the main theme, but I decided to play in a different little tune there to break it up a bit more. Otherwise, the piano is the same as in “Classical Smackdown” which, if you’re interested, is here:
Classical Smackdown
Doing this orchestration has been a total BLAST for me! It was alternately harder and easier than I’d expected, and I have to say that the process of adding in the percussion was some of the most fun I’ve had with digital music since discovering GB on my Mac! Hope you too will have a little fun with this Smackdown redux!
Special thanks to Shay (kassia) for the multitude of listens and suggestions along the way, and to Dave (bug67) for the squirrel!
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awigze
at work, cant listen but wanted to let you know that I have been watching you! Will listen during lunch and say something meaningful then.