Antlerman Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 Rare recording alert! This is off a tape I recorded of my earliest piano works, with songs written within the first 3 months of taking up the piano. They were recorded on a cheep boom box at my mother's friend's house on her old piano. There were no re-takes so this is a pretty "raw" performance and there are a couple clear stumbles in parts. Nonetheless, it's the only recording of these pieces I have from back then. This song was the 2nd I'd written and was an ambitious effort for the time, but everything back then was written in a very dark place for me, struggling to see light through the cracks in my life, or more aptly put, trying to create light to see life. This song was an effort to capture the power and mood that a thunderstorm brought to me emotionally. Take it as it is... a raw performance very shortly after I took up the piano as my outlet of expression. Any feedback is welcome.... Keith the_storm.mp3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sojourner Posted June 20, 2008 Share Posted June 20, 2008 AM Here is my impression of this marvelous piece of art. In the beginning it reminded me of a dream I used to have fairly often of being chased at night and then in the middle of the song I would finally make it to this pole in the middle of a darkened park and I would grab the pole and run round and round it and this would lift me off the ground so that I would fly to safety hence the ending! I think this song matches my dream very well. great piece Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
upstarter Posted June 20, 2008 Share Posted June 20, 2008 Something is weird, I never seem to get the whole piece. All of these downloads end abruptly. Hmmm. Anyway, you clearly have different rain in Minnesota than we have here on the West Coast. This one didn't feel like rain to me at all. But it is a great work, I really enjoyed it. And I cannot conceive of a person writing and playing this mere months after "taking up the piano". That my friend is talent. H Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Zenobia Posted June 21, 2008 Share Posted June 21, 2008 AM - I can't get it to play My computer is acting up.... I'll keep trying, not sure why it won't let me play it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdog Posted June 26, 2008 Share Posted June 26, 2008 Antlerman I was able to listen to it all. I found it quite relaxing, I was looking out my window watching the tree sway in the wind, and it seemed to go with it. I definitely can 'hear' rain in this piece of music. I understood the part where it slowed down, so I interpreted that as the storm or the rain lulling for a short while, then it blew back up again. I think this style of music would probably fit into the new age catagory or contemporary, progressive. Have you heard of George Winston? It's funny because I didn't read all your original post, I just went to listen. And I thought wow this piano really needs tuning!!!Lol, then I read your OP in full. Aha! that explains it. My grandma use to have a honky tonk out of tune piano. I loved tinkering around on it when I was young. I took music and piano many years ago when I was a young girl/teen. I still play piano/keyboard just for personal pleasure and I make up my own pieces too, but not quite up to your standard. Trust me. Lol So I really appreciate your amazing talent. I enjoy the arts, art and music and I appreciate other people's work. I love the classics and am very partial to Rachmaninov, great piano composer. but really I like all types of genres of music. Anything from classical to Metal. My son is very creative and also plays the keyboard a little and drums. And music production. So anyway, I liked your piece alot. I unfortunately am not able to give you any formal type of criticism because I really don't know enough music theory. I did notice that your right hand was melody and left was mainly chords. That is what I seem to do. I am sure since this early piece you have probably progressed on working on using the left hand more as equally as the right. The main thing is I listened and it was pleasant to my ears. !! So keep on going and I would love to hear more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted June 26, 2008 Author Share Posted June 26, 2008 Antlerman I was able to listen to it all. I found it quite relaxing, I was looking out my window watching the tree sway in the wind, and it seemed to go with it. I definitely can 'hear' rain in this piece of music. I understood the part where it slowed down, so I interpreted that as the storm or the rain lulling for a short while, then it blew back up again. I think this style of music would probably fit into the new age catagory or contemporary, progressive. Have you heard of George Winston? It's funny because I didn't read all your original post, I just went to listen. And I thought wow this piano really needs tuning!!!Lol, then I read your OP in full. Aha! that explains it. My grandma use to have a honky tonk out of tune piano. I loved tinkering around on it when I was young. I took music and piano many years ago when I was a young girl/teen. I still play piano/keyboard just for personal pleasure and I make up my own pieces too, but not quite up to your standard. Trust me. Lol So I really appreciate your amazing talent. I enjoy the arts, art and music and I appreciate other people's work. I love the classics and am very partial to Rachmaninov, great piano composer. but really I like all types of genres of music. Anything from classical to Metal. My son is very creative and also plays the keyboard a little and drums. And music production. So anyway, I liked your piece alot. I unfortunately am not able to give you any formal type of criticism because I really don't know enough music theory. I did notice that your right hand was melody and left was mainly chords. That is what I seem to do. I am sure since this early piece you have probably progressed on working on using the left hand more as equally as the right. The main thing is I listened and it was pleasant to my ears. !! So keep on going and I would love to hear more. Hi. Thanks for the comments. Yes I'm familiar with George Winston and the New Age genre. It was back in the mid-80's when I started writing music, and I found that genre to be inspiring to me as I preferred the mood created for me: plus straight instrumental music was much more to my liking than lyrical music. Some of Winston was good, but I saw him in concert and was a bit disappointed by him at that performance, sort of like he hadn't practiced much for a while as he stumbled about the notes throughout the night. What actually started me off on that direction was an interview I heard on the radio with Paul Speer and David Lanz talking about their new album Natural States, how that they wrote the music to go with this steady-cam footage taken in the forests and ocean side of the Pacific Northwest. I had always felt my heart connected to the mountains and nature, and the idea inspired me to sit down at the piano and try to express what I felt/saw in my heart and mind as I imagined it. Immediately I began writing and found a wonderful expression for what was welled up in me through that. Within 3 months I had written a half dozen some pieces that I'd simply called Songs of the Mountains, more as some sort of group working title, rather than some finished production. This was the second song of that group of pieces. I plan to post another few from that group later on here. After this I wrote a series of other piano pieces that I later recorded in my studio apartment on a friend's four-track tape recorder under the title A New Day. I posted two songs from that recording here already in separate posts. (The piano was my own, and it was fairly in tune on those ) After this I got a synthesizer and put my hand to writing for multiple instruments, and took to it right away. Those songs I actually took into a professional recording studio and produced a CD titled Sojourner. You can link to hear 6 of the 10 songs from that recording here: http://www.ex-christian.net/index.php?show...c=10097&hl= When you link to it, you should notice there is a description window for each of the songs where I talk about them. Be sure to pull down the slider on the right of that window to read the rest of the text that goes off the window below it. Thanks for the comments. I'd be interested in your thoughts on the other piano pieces and the CD as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denyoz Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 I took piano lessons when I was 6. Always was a keyboard guy. This piece of work is awesome Antlerman. How old were you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Margee Posted February 28, 2012 Moderator Share Posted February 28, 2012 Antlerman, this is a very old post and denyoz brought it forward...That was awsome!!! And you had just a few lessons!! WOW! My mom was a fantastic piano player, so I grew up to piano music being played everyday. 4 years has gone by - can you put up a new peice? I would LOVE to hear more!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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