Okay so about that final version of Dire, Dire, Docks…
I recorded it, saved it, exported it to MP3, and uploaded it to Tindeck. Then I wrote my final thoughts post on it and saved the draft. What I did not do was listen to this final export. That was three weeks ago.
Tonight I (finally) got around to uploading the newest podcast episode, where I intended to showcase the track in tandem with the final thoughts post. That is when I discovered I (apparently) forgot to click a thing in Cubase and accidentally exported four minutes of silence. Whoops!
No problem. I’ll re-export it from the project file- NOPE looks like I deleted all the project files. Because why would I ever need them again?
Trust me, though, guys, it was better than last time.
I have a new piano teacher, Ainsley. She’s classically trained, sings with her own band, and she plays the tuba. We’ve done four sessions so far, and I think it’s a pretty good fit. She’s a bit more structured than my last teacher, and she’s able to provide a good balance of material between classical repertoire to build my technique and pop stuff for ear training/improv.
Fortunately, throughout all this time playing without a teacher, I’ve developed only one malformed habit: a very heavy touch (“You play piano like a tuba player,” says Ainsley). The remedy is to practice the week’s material as quiet as audibly reasonable, to get used to the light, fluid touch of a musical, melodic hand.
That material is Beethoven’s “Sonatina in G,” an exercise in the twelve-bar blues, and Bill Withers’s “Use Me.” Not a bad mix.
The Nintendo stuff isn’t going away, but until I can find the time to squeeze it in, the lesson material takes priority. It will sound better when I don’t smash the keys with my big stupid ham hands.