Woods & Strings

Quora Q:  If you had only 30 min a day, every day, to learn piano in a year, how/where would you start & how would you progress? You’re missing the first part, which is an explanation of the level you’re at currently. But, since you said “to learn piano in a year,” I’m going to infer that you mean starting from scratch. Piano is a very physical instrument, and that demands consistent exercise. You wouldn’t, for example, expect to compete in a figure model competition exercising only 30 minutes a day for a year. That said, there are several different methods of approach. Most classically-trained musicians are going to suggest that you might be able to finish a level one within a year at just 30 minutes per day. I’m going to suggest something completely different, and that you take a guitarist’s approach. You need to concentrate on PATTERNS and SONGS, not on dexterity and increasing complexity. To do this: The first 10 minutes of your practice should be scales. DO NOT start with C ma

"Dark is the Raven's Wing" single NOW AVAILABLE for download on Bandcamp The song "Dark is the Raven's Wing" is the title track from Kim Erickson's incredibly masterful 2015 album, The Raven's Wing (which you must absolutely add to your collection immediately, here: https://www.kimerickson.ca/ )  With the string arrangements by the remarkably versatile Joseph Phillips (from whom I did borrow a few notes for my cover arrangement), the whole album is just a stunning triumph of poetry, lyricism, and warmly genuine musicality. Erickson's performance has a sort of intentional melancholy; a practiced whimsy, like a Merchant-Ivory production of an Edith Piaf fever dream. It has deep, deep joy that is wrapped in a shawl of nostalgia hinting at sorrow; a hiraeth ; a Welsh term for that longing we have to return to an ancient home from the distant past that perhaps never even existed in reality. This is the evocation I get from “Dark is the Raven’s Wing.”