World Music Exploation - Spanish Jazz-Fussion

I had to call for assistance for this week's selections. Special thanks to Luma Zuri, one of my friends from

Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir 3.0, for introducing us to the music of Bebo Valdes and Diego El Cigala.

Bebo Valdes is a Grammy winning Afro-Cuban pianist, composer and arranger.

Diego El Cigala is a Grammy-nominated cantaor (flamenco singer). Their music is a fussion of jazz and flamenco. Listen carefully to the rhythm section (piano, drums and bass).

Their grooves combine flamenco and Afro-Cuban rhythms. The harmonies are typical of music both flamenco and jazz (love those "blues" intervals). The piano and drum licks? Pure jazz.

This is "Lagrimas Negros" ("Black Tears"), which is one of Luma's faves. I just love that piano intro.

I don't know about you, but thanks to Luma, I need to add Valdes and El Cigala's music to my music collection. You can explore more of Bebo Valdes music here:

(c) 2012 by Musespeak(TM), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

World Music Exploration - Fandango by Antonio Soler

The first time I heard the music of Soler was at the Honens International Piano Competition. The sonata reminded me a bit of Domenico Scarlatti's music.Years later, I learned his Sonata in c# minor, which was a lot of fun:

This week, I'm introducing Padre Antonio Soler to my students.

This Spanish (more specifically, Catalan) priest and composer lived  from 1729 - 1783. He is best known for his 120 keyboard sonatas. Soler also composed chamber music, organ concerti and liturgical music.

My ears did not deceive me all those years ago. There is also a Scarlatti connection. Soler was a pupil of Scarlatti

.Here is the clip I'm sharing with my students. The harpsichordist is Mayako Sone from Japan:

The fandango is a Spanish dance. It's a spirited dance in triple meter, usually played on guitar and castanets. It can be sung as well.

If you're up for a challenge, you can get your sheet music for Fandango here:

look inside

Fandango Composed by Padre Antonio Soler (1729-1783). Edited by Samuel Rubio. Music Sales America. Classical. Book Only. Union Musical Ediciones #MUSUMP21604. Published by Union Musical Ediciones (HL.14030574).

(c) 2012 by Musespeak(TM) . All rights reserved.

Great Performances - Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga

Maestro and I enjoyed watching "Tony Bennett: Duets II" on KSPS the other day. Well, he watched, I worked and listened. I've always enjoyed Tony Bennett's music and have been meaning to buy "Duets" and "Duets II".

There were so many great performances but this one stood out: Tony Bennett's duet with Lady Gaga.

They sang the Rodgers-Hart classic "The Lady is a Tramp". Tony was in fine form (as expected). However, it was Lady Gaga who took me by surprise.

I think this was a case where Malcolm Gladwell's Blink logic came to play. I look at Lady Gaga and expect a certain sound, based on what she's wearing. I was expecting a strong pop performance, coupled with an outrageous outfit.

In this case, my eyes were staring at my computer monitor. When I heard Lady Gaga's opening notes, I was floored. I didn't expect her to scat and groove with Tony like she's been singing like that. Her tone, her style, her ease and sense of fun in this number completely took me by surprise.

I got to appreciate her performance for what it was: fresh, fun and polished. Then I looked up and saw the turquoise hair and that elegant dress, which matched the heart of this song to a tee.

Good. Had I looked at her first and then heard her, I would have the image of her wearing that raw meat outfit stuck in my brain. My stomach would have roiled and I would not have enjoyed her performance quite so much.

My Virtual Choir 3.0 Experience

Last year, a friend introduced me to the music of Grammy winning composer Eric Whitacre. Within hearing the first two notes of "Sleep", the hair on my arms stood up, as if to say, "This is really something!"

When the announcement was made about Virtual Choir 3.0, I eagerly signed up. Little did I know how eye-opening and how dramatic, the experience would be.

"Water Night" is a haunting piece. Sometimes, I get poetry, but just sometimes. With "Water Night", certain phrases called out to me: "The secret kingdom of the water opens, flowing from the centre of the night," was by far my favourite line, followed by "And if you close your eyes, a river, a silent and beautiful current fills you from within."

I'll say this straight up, "Water Night" is by far the most technically challenging choral piece I've sung. Strong breath support is required to make it through those long phrases. I didn't have it when I began but I have it now.

However, "Silence and solitude, two little animals moon-led, drink in your eyes, drink in those waters," proved to be my nemesis. Bars 27- 28 soon became highlighted, circled and covered up in rainbow colours.

It was a hard fight, but my ear training improved to the point that I nailed that interval on the final take.

One month of drilling came down to four days/nights of recording. Four frustrating days and nights of tweaking and re-recording (usually done in the wee hours of the night, after teaching):

Night 1 (January 27 and 28): recorded in piano studio. Discovery: it was too wide of an area. Eight-plus takes coughed up one mediocre track. After experiencing uploading issues to the site, I gave up just before sunrise and sent a call for help to Tony Piper at Virtual Choir HQ.

 Day #2 (January 28): I put a box around the mic to limit what it picked up. All was good until someone walked on the area above my studio within the mic's recording range (at least I knew the mic was good).

Then, there the countless lagging video issues with the conductor track and dropped frames in my recording. Discovery: Someone from Virtual Choir was online, ready to lend a helping hand (usually Jack Rowland in Florida, Kevin Callahan in Maine and Holly Christine Brown in Illinois). I wound up with three mediocre tracks (Bar 27 - 28 was still wobbly at this point). I did another 10 tracks that day, more if you include what I deleted right away.

Day #3 (January 29): While visiting relatives, I tried recording in a spare room. The sound quality sky rocketed. I came up with a work-around to the lagging video issue with some help. Three takes resulted in two good takes. I started ending each take with, "If this is the winning take, thank you to everyone involved with Virtual Choir...."

Night #4 (January 30 and 31): Entering the day of the final submission day. I decided to try "one more time" but in my studio bathroom. Takes had to take place whenever the furnace shut off for a spell (it was a cold week). Three takes garnered one that stood head an shoulders above the rest.

But that's just the music side of things. Virtual Choir 3.0 has introduced me to a multitude of choir geeks from around the world. When Eric spoke about the community that has built up, he wasn't exaggerating:

After posting the final take, I joined the throngs who kept checking the submission numbers and encouraged other members who were still working on their recordings. I also couldn't help checking (and re-checking) to make sure my submission was showing up in my VC profile.

Maestro and I celebrated the record number of submissions (3,746 from 73 countries) with people (and pets) from the UK, Australia, Puerto Rico, Canada and the US via Google Hangouts. As a group, we've helped each other with Virtual Choir submissions. We've supported each other through bad days, sad news, health and work problems. We've also celebrated each other's victories - great or small - a good performance, a great shopping spree and most recently, Maestro's birthday. And sometimes, we just hang out e.g. one person knitting, two working, one cooking. There is even talk of having Virtual Choir reunions around the world.

Some of us in Virtual Choir 3.0 are working on more projects together.

This was and continues to be an exciting experience. And speaking of projects, I should start practicing on our next one:

(c) 2012 by Musespeak(TM). All rights reserved.

Music Blog Spotlight: Dianna Denley Music Blog

I'm slowly catching up on reading my music teacher newsletters. APTA News has started highlighting music blogs that members find helpful or interesting.

Dianna Denley's Music Blog shares music resources for the piano and violin, from music book recommendations to practice/practise helps.

It looks like this year, they've got a Harry Potter theme for their incentive program, complete with sorting cards, shields and a jar of bezoar. What a neat idea!

I think Maestro would get upset if I changed Maestro's Musical Quest to a Harry Potter theme, so we'll keep tweaking what we have.

(c) 2012 by (Musespeak(TM). all rights reserved.