St Patrick's Day

Am gathering Irish songs and down loading them on my ipad for this Wednesday at Bristol Glen. I may start out by singing at the piano, "It's not that easy being green" from Sesame Street. I have never song for them before...so I will have to think about it.

Sustenuto Pedal

I started using the sustenuto button on the two Allen organs I play. You can do some nice things with it but I don't want to get too used to it since most pipe organs don't have one.

So beats my heart

I just got the music for Fred Waring's "so beats my heart" the opening phrase is great for open harmony! I don' like to overdo open harmony.. But this song is just crying out for it.

Stainer's finger substituions

I have not been practicing the Stainer finger substitutions enough when I sit down on the organ so I just photocopied the one page so I can also work on them on my piano. Hopefully that will help.

More Songs to work on

After much looking about, I finally acquired a copy of "Veradero" a fast song recorded by George Wright and since by several others on the organ. Also, after much digging I finally found a collection of music which contains "Powerhouse" by Raymond Scott. It was in a Looney Tunes collection of music which has other songs, that by their titles, also sound interesting. This week I also continued working on the chords for an arrangement of "Dance of the Blue Marionettes" which was recorded by Sidney Torch. I always have things to work on. When Powerhouse comes that will require a lot of practice.. .it is a frantically fast piece.

Video recording

This afternoon I made three video recordings of me playing my Allen 311 theatre organ at home:
"Poinciana", "Scotch and Soda", and "Anyone Can Whistle." Now I just have to edit them in the front and back of the recordings before I put them on Facebook.

Stainer's Organ method

I have been working on Stainer's organ finger substitutions for sixths and thirds. These are a real challenge for me but as othe things assigned by my teacher, I see the need. Other past challenges like these have done wonderful things for my playing.