Tutorial: Rock of Ages -- Reharmonization

Click Here for the midi file of the YouTube tutorial Rock of Ages.

Ivory II Steinway American D: Great new sampled piano

Ivory has a new instrument: The Ivory II Steinway American D. I have loaded a comparison of:

Ivory II Steinway American D
Ivory II Steinway German D
Galaxy Steinway Vintage D

These are my three favorite sampled pianos.
To my mind, the American D contrasts with the German D in the following ways:
American D:  has more wood and sustain to the tone.  It sounds as though it has some age on it.
The German D has a crisp, new piano, string oriented sound that is silvery and delicate.
The American D is slightly more mellow and the image seems a bit more "close up" compared to the German D.  The American D has a more percussive "Pop" to the attack on the high velocity notes, which is very nice.

If you are interested in the details, I recommend downloading the files. Soundcloud only streams 128 kb/s mp3's, but the download is a 256 kb/s mp4, which has more detail. I'll add a demo to youtube soon.
 

I'm going to Paris :-)

I'm going to visit a friend in Paris from August 4th through the 11th.  My friend is a Minister of Music at at a Baptist Church in in suburbs.   I'm super excited about the trip!  If any visitors to this website or any YouTube subscribers know of something Jazz related that is not to be missed while I'm there, drop me a line!

Improvisation in C (home recording of Steinway B)

This is a spontaneous improvisation from last week.  It is fairly simple and straightforward, but it felt as though I got to something real.  I hope you enjoy it, and feel free to download it from SoundCloud.  I did it just before recording The Blood Will Never Lose It's Power, which I posted to YouTube.  I'm trying different recording techniques for my acoustic piano, so the sound is a bit different.

Tutorial: Willow Weep for Me (download video)

Above is the performance of Willow Weep for Me.
Below is the tutorial for Willow Weep for me
Here is a link to the tutorial for download.

Improvisation in G

This is a spontaneous improvisation recently posted to my YouTube Channel. I put up a higher quality mp4 (AAC) file on sound cloud for download. This is one of my favorite things to do... improvisational playing. For me, it really requires a relaxed mind and a letting go of intention.   The vintage piano sound by Ivory is tops and very mood evocative to me.  I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed playing it!
 

What Kind of Fool Am I: Galaxy & Ivory Comparison

I posted this video to Youtube today. These two audio tracks are more of a real world comparison of Ivory and Galaxy pianos. I used the same midi file for both renderings. I played the midi file on a Yamaha CP300 using the Yamaha's internal sound while playing. I then fitted the midi file to the velocity curve of each piano. On both, I use as little "in program" processing as possible. I bounce to 24 bit audio track, and then I use that audio track like any other recorded piano. I manipulate it to enhance the sound as best I can. I use a number plug in's such as EQ, compression, reverb to get a particular sound. In this example, I tried to get the Vintage D to sound similar to a Bill Evans solo piano recording. For contrast, I gave the Ivory a more distant, classical sound. I connect to both of these pianos and find each very useful in different situations.