More than 1800 existing versions of the well-known hymn Amazing Grace, but just one of them played in “3/4+3/8” time! This is what one can hear in Rick Wakeman‘s beautiful 2 Disc DVD & CD collection Amazing Grace. http://youtu.be/z6_Ulj_CyCI Progressive rock legend Rick Wakeman seems fond of this meter–it is the same one used in the opening theme of his famous masterpiece Journey To The Centre Of The Earth (1974). Of course, you can also think the “3/4+3/8” time as a “9/8 (2+2+2+3)” mixed meter, or as a “4/4+1/8” mixed meter if you prefer. In any case, this version of Amazing Grace is another witness to Wakeman’s originality and lyrical approach to the piano. [Per saperne di più…] su di noiRick Wakeman and “Amazing Grace”
arrangement
Piano arrangement from Vivaldi “The Seasons”Arrangiamento pianistico da “Le quattro stagioni” di Antonio Vivaldi
Just found on YouTube a very nice video of my easy piano arrangement of the Largo movement from L’Inverno of Vivaldi‘s The Seasons, included in my most beloved book Echoes of Venice—The Music of Venice for Piano Solo or Sing-Along (San Diego, California, Neil A. Kjos Music Company, 1996, pp. 16, WP396, $3.95). Many thanks to jeffozvold for having played it so beautifully and having posted it on YouTube! Now this video (http://youtu.be/wUrCJiXO79w) has been deleted from YouTube. Too bad, because I think it was played very well indeed! You can listen the audio of it here:
Echoes of Venice is available through music dealers and online at the Kjos Music website.
I am using this book with many of my piano students since several years and with great success at schools recitals too. This collection of easy intermediate piano arrangements (with lyrics included) is dedicated to the beautiful city of Venezia and features six famous classical and traditional pieces closely related to it: Il Carnevale di Venezia (Paganini), Largo from “L’inverno” (Vivaldi), Barcarola (Offenbach), La biondina in gondoleta (Mayr), and the old traditional songs Il barcarol del Brenta and E mi me ne so ‘ndao (this latter also known as Peregrinazioni lagunarie or Tragando l’ansana).
Fats Waller stride piano styleLo stile stride di Fats Waller
Fats Waller‘s jubilant piano style certainly was one of the most popular facets of the whole Harlem Stride Piano style and a main model of the Swing Piano style too. Here is my own arrangement of the song Truckin’, using many of Waller’s peculiar techniques and originally published in the Summer 2005 issue of Sheet Music Magazine. Please contact me in case you are interested in receiving the score of this music:
For more on Fats style and note-for-note transcriptions of famous recordings by him such as Numb Fumblin’, Smashing Thirds, Martinique, Dinah, etc., you can see my folios Harlem Stride Piano Solos and The Soul Of Blues, Stride & Swing Piano, and my method Jazz Piano: The Left Hand.
