O Mio Babbino Caro

I recently performed in a choral concert which sang "O Mio Babino Caro"by Pucinni from Gianni Schicchi. I have been working on an organ arrangement of it. The song is a wonderfully lyrical melody and will be great when I work it out.

I do not write out my arrangements but work from the piano music which I purchased online at www.freehandmusic.com.

Lafayette Theatre in Suffern, NY

I played the 2/11 organ at the Lafayette Theatre in Suffern, Ny this past Saturday. It is the first 2 manual organ I have played in a while. It has an interesting installation. The console is in the stage left balcony and there is only one chamber which is stage right. That way the organist gets to hear a balanced sound from the organ.

Vintage Music

I have purchased a bunch of vintage music.

In order to get "There's A Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder", I found an Al Jolson book which also included "My Mammy" which I will use for Mothers' Day.

I also have been finding a lot of Shirley Temple music that I was not aware that she sang.
Goodnight my love
and this fun tune I never heard of
You've Got to eat your spinach, Baby.
Also, I finally found the music for this trumpet novelty song which she sang and danced with Bo Jangles.
Toy Trumpet.

For Shirley Temple, when I find the songs, I can look on Youtube to see how she performed them.

Songs For Mother's Day

This Wednesday at Bristol Glen I will play two "mother" songs in honor of Mother's Day this past weekend.

My Mammy
M-O-T-H-E-R

Wish I had more.

Piano/Organ lessons

My piano/organ lessons with John Barratta have been and continue to be a big help. I can see improvement. I try to practice the Hanon and Czerny daily. I have also started working on classical pedaling technique (heel and toe - with my organ shoes.) This has been a struggle but it is coming along.

MusicReader update

The computer program and app in which I store my performance printed music had a major update. There were some bugs as usually with any update, but www.musicreader.biz people were very helpful and responded with corrections. I really like the program.

One thing I will be doing.. since ipad screen is smaller than normal sized glasses I will be getting "organ glasses." They will have a focus length of 30" (I measured the distance from my eyes to the music rack at Bristol Glen) and also will have some magnification. I figure that distance should be fine if I ever play on a 4 manual (or larger) console since the eye doctor said they will a leeway of 10-12 inches. We will see how they work

Woody Woodpecker theme

Last week I acquired several pieces of vintage sheet music from Kampko among which was the theme from the Woody Woodpecker cartoon. It is fun to play. I played it at Bristol Glen this week asking them to guess what it was. I got several cheers of "Woody Woodpecker."