Showing posts with label piano. Show all posts
Showing posts with label piano. Show all posts

Friday, May 5, 2023

Music . . .

 


. . . by OHO begins at 6PM, Friday & Saturday. 






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Monday, March 6, 2023

Wednesday, January 18, 2023

Innovators . . .

[Note to my 'note' yesterday- To be clear, the 'break' that I am taking is from daily blog postings. I will, in all likelihood, continue posting things as the spirit moves. Here's hoping you'll stay with me and as always, please let me know what's on YOUR mind.  Please don't stop listening to the music! Ciao.]
 

. . . There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Period.
- Brene Brown

(from Harpo Speaks by Harpo Marx)
". . . Being at liberty again, I gave this serious consideration. I asked Chico what he could do to break me into his field.  I couldn't have asked him at a better time. He was then working at a beer garden in Yorkville but he had just been asked to play in a nickelodeon across that street, where the piano player, a kid named George Gershwin, had been fired because customers complained his music hurt their ears. . . "


One of a Kind Love Affair

- The Spinners



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Tuesday, January 17, 2023

Cláirseach . . .

. . . and such

[Note: this will be my penultimate blog, for now.  After 12 years of daily consecutive blogging, I intend to take a break, take stock, catch up on other things, and then who knows what?}

(from Harpo Speaks by Harpo Marx) 
". . . It was all part of the endless fight for recognition of foreigners in the process of becoming Americans. Every Irish kid who made a Jewish kid knock under was made to say "Uncle" by an Italian, who got his lumps from a German kid, who got his insides kicked out by his old man for street fighting and then went out and beat up an Irish kid to heal his wounds. "I'll teach you!" was the threat they passed along, Irish to Jew to Italian to German. Everybody was trying to teach everybody else, all down the line. This is still what I think of when I hear the term "progressive education." . . . "


Harpo Marx Plays Serious
[sic]
 - Harpo Marx



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 PIANOGONZOLOGY - Blogged 
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Monday, January 16, 2023

With Mirrors . . .


 Can you hear all that I say
Beneath all clever wordplay?
Don’t think that I’m insulting you
That I don’t want your point of view
Working from limited base
So easily losing your place
Why feign a blatant expertise
With no obvious philosophies?

Do you know
What you want
To accomplish here?
Will you go 
To the length you say you will
Or is this just all
Smoke and mirrors?

You may just set precedent
with every signal you’ve sent
Why don’t you learn the protocol
To no longer suffer this at all

Say what you mean if you mean it
Do what you feel in your heart
Make it real when you’re speaking your mind 

Impressions churning and spray
Like repairs flowing away
Pushing downstream ferociously
Uprooting each obstacle you see


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                               Put A Finger On It


Sunday, January 15, 2023

Consciousness . . .

. . . of stream

Positivity to temper, accompany, and inundate the empty hours;  facilitating a transcendence from this mere mortal coil with all its toil, trouble and injustice. 

Or, in other words, here's some more music.




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Saturday, January 14, 2023

WTF . . .


A "WTF" moment - was how Baltimore Magazine music critic John Lewis described the track (below) Joyride II from my album For the Ride back in 2008. 




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Friday, January 13, 2023

Doesn't . . .

. . . get much MORE positive that this! 

Ring in the Rightness, from OHO's 2018 release 'Gazebo'




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Wednesday, January 11, 2023

It Won't Be Easy . . .

. . . to just let it go

Sometimes I can get my point across,
And I do it rather well.
You can see
What I think
About me.

It's just my ego.
It gets the best of me.
It's just my ego
It just won't let me be,
It just won't let me be alone.
It's not one of my most redeeming qualities.
Still though it serves me rather well sometimes.
It won't be easy to just let it go,
It's just my ego.

I take such great pride in what I do.
Everyone should take some too.
Don't you think;
Pride in me,
Not in you?

There's a fine distinction between confidence and pride.
There's a fine distinction that I'll never know.
Cloaked with some discretion you emerge from the inside.
I emerge in all my glory. 
What is there to hide?

Mother said that I would never make
Any friends if I don't see
What I'm like,
If I don't lose some pride. 




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                 Critic’s Choice


Tuesday, January 10, 2023

Care . . .

 

". . . All successful democracies rely on informal rules that, though not found in the constitution or any laws, are widely known and respected. In the case of American democracy, this has been vital. . . the unwritten rules of a half-court game of pickup basketball are familiar to anyone who has played it. . . Democracy, of course, is not street basketball. Democracies do have written rules (constitutions) and referees (the courts). But these work best, and survive longest, in countries where written constitutions are reinforced by their own unwritten rules of the game. These rules or norms serve as the soft guardrails of democracy, preventing day-to-day political competition from devolving into a no-holds-barred conflict. . . "


Take Good Care of My Baby
- Bobby Vee
 


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Monday, January 9, 2023

More . . .

 . . .  Star



Changing, modifying, tweaking. . .  the usual stuff. 

This version of the song is played on a physical, Kawai, baby grand piano, my favorite instrument, although editing is more complex, so it is limited here. I prefer the organic experience of the real instrument which provides the ability to be more expressive.

 
     

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                                     Grains


Sunday, January 8, 2023

From Afar . . .

 

. . . you appear not too different from me.

But the scars
You've acquired 
Did not come free.
(Stars ©2020 Raymond M. Jozwiak)



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Saturday, January 7, 2023

Shining . . .

 

(from https://www.reddit.com/r/etymology/comments/28ofkq/when_did_the_word_star_begin_to_refer_to_a_famous/)
". . . In 1779 in England David Garrick was the first actor to be labeled a "star" by J. Warner, saying, "The little stars, who hid their diminished rays in his presence begin to abuse him. . . The term was in common use in the Music Hall Era. This is reflected in the slightly passe phrase "movie star" or "Hollywood star" to refer to the type of celebrity who is famous from cinema, not stage. . . The earliest uses all speak to brightness of the star. Thus "star" likely meant "stand-out performer." By the 1907 Music Hall War it was widely understood to mean "well-known performer.". . ."



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Friday, January 6, 2023

Celestial Bodies . . .


(from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star)
". . . A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by its gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night, but their immense distances from Earth make them appear as fixed points of light. The most prominent stars have been categorised into constellations and asterisms, and many of the brightest stars have proper names. Astronomers have assembled star catalogues that identify the known stars and provide standardized stellar designations. The observable universe contains an estimated 1022 to 1024 stars. Only about 4,000 of these stars are visible to the naked eye, all within the Milky Way galaxy. . ."

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Thursday, January 5, 2023

Speaking of . . .

. . . human

Thinking about songs that I've loved and admired over the years, this one always comes to mind. The lyrics present a very human reflection on one aspect of life in a very innocent, but still unapologetic way. This combined with sophisticated, jazz-inflected chord changes and a sparse instrumentation always drive the point straight home for me. 


Whatshername

- Peter, Paul & Mary



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Wednesday, January 4, 2023

Human . . .

 

(from Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann)
". . . Let us call them the sinister possibilities of human nature in general that here come to light.  German human beings, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of them it is, who have perpetrated what humanity shudders at; and all that is German now stands forth as an abomination and a warning . . . We are present at the last gasp of a blood state which, as Luther put it, "took on its shoulders" immeasurable crimes; which roared and bellowed to the ravished and reeling masses proclamations cancelling all human rights . . . "


More Human Than Human

- White Zombie



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