Category: life

Video: “Galway Rain” and “Water Phoenix”

Here’s two clips from a live set I did earlier this year for The Purple Sessions in Drogheda. The guys who organise the gig shoot videos of the performers, which is nice to see afterwards. Just this evening I got a DVD from them of the set I did, but they have these two videos up on Youtube already.

Water Phoenix

It’s two songs I’ve not even demo’d yet, but that I like playing live, but it’s good to actually hear what it sounds like from a listeners point of view, so I can think about whether I need to change the songs, or listen to how I’m playing them so I can make the performances better. I’m never entirely happy with any performance or recording, but that’s just how it is at the moment. :)

Galway Rain

The other songs I have video and mp3s of are “The Bliss Returns”, “Is This What They Call Romance?” and “Re-Run” which I might post up at some point. I never ever play “Re-Run” well though – and the recording is wonderfully scrappy and awful to my ears. So I might just keep that one to myself until I get it recorded properly sometime. Heh.

Inspiration: Michael Nyman – “The Piano”

The Piano

I started playing piano quite young, and went through the RIAM classical piano grades. I started to lose interest somewhat at about the age of 15, when I was coming to the end of my grades, and wasn’t really interested in doing a Diploma. But something that reignited my love for playing was the movie “The Piano”, and particularly the beautiful score by Michael Nyman. I saw it on VHS when I was about 13, if I recall correctly, and I remember my parents making a special exception to allow me to watch a movie that was rated 15.

But I was really taken by the soundtrack, and I love the fact that Holly Hunter played the piano parts seen in the movie. Initially, it was the piece “Big My Secret” that I loved and played a lot, but I was won over to all the pieces over time, and they became some of my favourite pieces of music for piano. I spent the rest of my teenage years without going to piano lessons, and discovering pieces of music that I wanted to play, as opposed to just having to learn them for an exam. It’s something that I think was very important in continuing my love for the instrument. That, and discovering artists like Tori Amos and Kate Bush, who used piano in their music in ways that I hadn’t heard before.

The main theme from the piano, “The Heart Asks Pleasure First”, also called “The Sacrifice”, has become one of those standard pieces that piano students all love and learn:

It is a beautiful piece of music, but my favourite is still “Big My Secret”. Some people feel that it’s played too fast in the movie, as the recording by Nyman is much gentler and slower, but I like the flexibility of the piece, and it’s appropriate in the scene, I think:

Holly Hunter in the movie:

(Nyman’s version and some other bits after the cut)
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Dublin calling

I’m in Dublin at the moment, working as a score reader for a small production for the next two weeks. It’ll give me a much needed break from Galway and some time to work on moving to Dublin properly.

I met up with Morgan of Cuckoo Savante (check that band out – they’re awesome) and was chatting about our lives and work. Just catching up really, but he was excited by how many songs I’ve got at the moment. Which made me stop to think how few I’ve demo’d and how badly I’ve done those. I need to stop spending time alone with the songs and start performing them and sharing them with other people so they don’t start to suffocate in my bag.

I’m going through my lyrics at the moment, adding in the edits I’ve made on the fly as I practise and work out the songs. I like a few of them, but I blow hot and cold about my own work quite frequently. I guess I need to let other people judge the work and not be so critical of myself.

Blogging again?

I think it’s been three years since I kept a blog by the way. Kept a regular one from 2000 for about six or seven years.

I’m not sure how much blogging I will end up doing, but we’ll see how it goes.

new music room in the new school - 5

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