Updates: Accompaniment, August In Bloom, Apollo Academy

Excitement Builds for a September Wedding

I briefly mentioned in the News tab of my website that I was going to be playing a wedding gig in September. This will be a good opportunity to network with a couple of other musicians (two vocalists that I haven't met yet) and to gain more experience. I'll be accompanying the two singers, and one of the songs includes Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", one of my favorites (you can also read about the artist in another blog post I wrote last year, by clicking here). The only other time I did an accompaniment "gig" is when I played the piano for a vocalist who sang Christina Perri's "Lonely" at a talent show. It was enough experience for me to "catch the bug" and be more than willing to do an accompaniment again. There's something rewarding about collaborating in real-time with other musicians and having to get everything "just right".

I've only been able to reach one of the vocalists (by phone) so far, and will be meeting with both of them on Sunday morning to talk about the details--where we'll set up, the order of the songs to perform, and when we'll have our dress rehearsal. I've already begun practicing "Hallelujah" and the actual accompaniment is not difficult. I'm not used to only having to play the background, without having to worry about the melody, and I have to admit it's pretty nice.


Halfway to Completion 

August In Bloom (the piano album I'm producing) seems to have been more like a series of experiments rather than a straight-forward album project, and in a good way. I now feel like I understand ProTools 12 like the back of my hand, at least in the capacity that I need to in order to finish the project. I'm halfway done, for the most part (there are 10 tracks, and 5 of them have been successfully recorded). As luck would have it, the album just may be finished by some time in August, making the title quite appropriate for the timing ;)

I believe one of the best approaches is to originally record acoustically. The final recording ends up being digital. But yes, I can play acoustically first, and at the same time record that into the internal memory of the hybrid piano (Yamaha AvantGrande N2). All I have to do after that is play it back, but during the play back I have the piano plugged into the digital recording software. Playing acoustically requires me to get up early, because I have office neighbors and I need to be alone when I play out loud instead of playing with headphones. The bottom line with this issue is that playing acoustically just does something to me where I instantly get inspired to play way, way better, and with much fewer mistakes.


Official Transition to Chico's New Music School

What was once The Wright Keys Academy (the piano school on Vallombrosa Avenue, in Chico) is now owned by Vincent Chambers and bears the new name of Apollo Academy of Music, and soon to be a full-fledged music school that offers classes in a variety of different instruments, as well as music workshops and group lessons. There are package deals being offered right now (Fall and Spring tuition) and some word-of-mouth going on. So far, the folks I've talked to about this seem excited, and the first student I taught at the location seems thrilled.

A few people have asked me questions about the actual piano store itself (Apollo Piano) and yes, that location will stay. In fact, it has been upgraded! The beautiful pianos in there have been rearranged, and new furniture has been brought in to make guests more comfortable. Maybe they did a study showing that people who sit down to listen to piano music are more likely to buy one--who knows :D The store also has a new employee whose job is to keep the books and schedule all the appointments while she's there in the mornings. I'm there two days a week, and I think my job is to hold the floor down with my feet, and drool while I stare at the pianos. Okay, so maybe I've done a few other things while I'm there (print out price signs, answer phones, greet customers, and, you know, drool while I stare at the pianos).

The entire Apollo Piano staff had a meeting recently at a very quiet and work-conducive space (a rusty pizza joint, with beer) and we discussed a number of issues, including a problem having to do with Apollo Piano's moving service. When you sell pianos, you generally have to offer piano moving services, and this can be challenging for several reasons. Since this delves into something a little different than the issues I want to focus on, however, the piano moving plight will be a topic of another post.

In the mean time, I've finalized my routine for the rest of the summer, as well as the routine I'll start when I go back to teaching some of the ESL classes at Sutter County Schools. For now, maybe I'll shoot for having that album done in August-ish. Something has to bloom out of the hot month of August, so it may as well be a finished album :D