Piano Tutorial The Way You Look Tonight

[Olivie Inoue]

This quote was misunderstood on a FB thread. To be clear, no versions of Blakey standards have exact sheet music changes. Horace Silver is a very different harmonist than Bobby Timmons than Cedar Walton than Joanne Brackeen than Mulgrew Miller. This Branford anecdote is gratifying by suggesting that looking at what the composer first wrote might be part of the process.)

Now the improvisation begins: Make up your own set of jazzy changes to the melody in ballad tempo. This version should be gentle, pretty, and even ornamental, where the tune stays pretty much as is but everything else can be free.

(If this stage feels like a stretch, Fred Hersch taught me a good exercise: Accompany the melody with first one voice, the bass, then add in a second voice, the tenor, and finally a third, the alto. Normal 5-note jazz harmony is a piece of cake after that.)

For extra credit, you could watch film version of the great musicals: not as research, exactly, but simply for entertainment, and perhaps as a way to absorb something about the era that created the greatest jazz. Oklahoma! (1955) and West Side Story (1961) come to mind, especially with those astonishing dance sequences by Agnes De Mille and Jerome Robbins.

Update 2: This has been a popular post, and I have received a fair amount of private correspondence asking for clarity about which edition of the songbooks to get. Others have suggested that there were heavy-handed arrangers involved in the piano/vocal scores. I turned to an expert, Mike Kanan, and he wrote:

GK: Tonight on American Family Reunion....a brother and sister who were separated thirty-six years ago when the family had stopped at a gas station to use the rest room and the parents asked the sister if her brother was in the back seat and she said yes and so they drove away and left him there in the Phillips 66 in Wahoo, Nebraska ---- Tammy and Tommy WILDEBEEMER! (FANFARE)

SS (WEEPY): Oh Tom----- it's so fantastic to see you---- you look wonderful---- Oh Tom---- are you okay? You look fantastic. I love you, Tommy. I love you so much. I'm sorry---- I'm getting your shirt front all wet. I've felt so terrible all these years. So guilty. I kept hoping I'd meet you. Are you okay? You look great. Are you okay? I'm so sorry. I've gone through such guilt from this. All these years, I hoped that somehow we'd meet again ---- that's all I prayed for ---- to see you again ----- I've looked everywhere---- where did you go, Tom?

TR: Got a job at the Phillips 66 station. Been pumping gas for thirty years. Never married. Never made friends. Live out back in a camper. Just me and my dog. He's the only one I've ever been able to trust.

GK: That's American Family Reunion.....tonight on many of these public radio stations....heartwarming stories of family ties that years of separation could not break.....such as 28-year-old Buddy who hasn't seen his Mom since he was 6 and he ran away from home and took up a life of crime. You may remember Buddy as the older brother of the famous Iowa septuplets----

TR: Hard. Listen to him. You're a kid in a little Iowa town, and the next thing you know your mother is as big as a garage and she goes away for a few weeks and nobody tells you a thing and when she comes home, she's got seven screaming monsters in her arms, and five-hundred reporters and TV crews camped on the lawn--- and your home is like a feed lot operation, people rushing around to feed em and clean em and you're standing there like the trombonist in the Juilliard String Quartet, non-existent--- so you run away and become a skinhead and get tattoos all over and you knock over gas stations and fill up your truck with semi-automatic weapons and you join the White Aryan Nation in northern Idaho.

Join in a night sky program from your own backyard! The Stars Above Haleakalā podcast features topics about the night skies we all share and the connections we forge between our Earth, our Universe, and each other. Each podcast focuses on a particular astronomy event for families to enjoy while they tune in to learn a little more about what they're experiencing. Your adventure to the stars (and beyond!) starts here!

Welcome to Gifts of the Geminids from Haleakalā National Park. I'm Ranger Laurel. Today, I'm going to be sharing with you a little bit about the how and the why of meteor showers, and in particular, the Geminids. It is December, which is a season for giving and gifts, and so it seems fitting to me that when we watch the meteor shower tonight, we'll explore some of the unique gifts that the Geminids can provide for us.

A few quick reminders before we dive in. If you are listening at Haleakalā National Park, or in any other protected or natural area, please use headphones or earbuds to listen to this program, so you don't disturb others around you or the wildlife. And also keep in mind social distancing guidelines. I know we're all very used to hearing it now, but please avoid crowding, if you're out in a public space have a face covering ready in case you can't maintain that social distancing. Above all, just respect your surroundings and be kind to your fellow stargazers.

This program has been recorded with the intention that you will hear it the evening of Sunday, December 13, 2020, which is the night of the Geminids Meteor Shower. I'll be making references to this particular day in time, and this particular meteor shower. However, if you happen to be joining us from another place, or another time, and you're interested in hearing a little bit about... the end of the world, the patterns that define us through time, what the future hold, maybe... stick around. Because we're happy to have you go on this journey us.

I'm going to start tonight off with a question. And just a heads up, this is not how I usually work. I usually have my audience directly in front of me, in person, and we share and learn in a very collaborative way. However, tonight is a little different, but I don't want to give up on asking questions, because I think questions are really important ways for us to learn and connect with the world around us. And I know this question will probably strike most of us as a little heavy, especially given the year that we've had. But maybe this is a benefit to us not being in person, and having a little bit of space. Because I am not in front of you, you don't have to feel pressured to answer in any particular way, or at all, really. You can just let the question wash over you. And if you don't like it, let it go. Let it drain away. But if you are willing, and interested, and want to engage in it, I want you to consider this:

Woof, right? I bet we'd all write novels to our past selves, if we could. Silly stuff, like "stock up on toilet paper and flour." Or frustrating stuff, like "now is the time to take that trip you've always wanted to take." Or even sad stuff, like "don't keep telling yourself you'll visit your relatives next month." Lots and lots of stuff. So many lessons learned, regrets, heartbreaks, struggles. I know what I would say. If I could talk to myself one year ago from today, I would say "be prepared to let things go." But I would also say, "you are about to find yourself blessed by some pretty incredible gifts."

No matter how you think about it, this year has not been easy, by any means. So why am I even asking about this? What does this have to do with a meteor shower? Well, it turns out that between meteor showers, a feeling that the end of the world is nigh, a sense of return or repetition, this Groundhogs day that we seem to be stuck in, there's a lot of common ground.

We'll get to that, but first, I do want to set you up for success, because I'm pretty sure most of you are here mainly for a meteor shower, and I just happen a distraction until it gets dark enough. So. Before we get too deep into the end of the world, I want to talk about good meteor shower watching. Which also happens to be the very first gift of the Geminids.

So like I promised, we're gonna talk about good meteor shower watching. There are some things you can control, and there are some things you can't. The biggest thing that tends to impact meteor shower watching is the moon cycle. On a full moon, stargazing is, let's just say, not ideal. Our moon is the second brightest thing in our sky, after our sun, so when meteor showers happen on full moons, it's just not the best viewing. But new moon nights, there is no moon out and there's no natural light pollution competition, so the meteors can really shine their best. Tonight, we're pretty lucky, we have a new moon. So given the new moon, and hopefully some good weather for you, which is unfortunately another thing that you cannot control, you should have a pretty decent view of this meteor shower, right off the bat.

As far as things you can control, when it comes to optimal meteor shower viewing. Look around your surroundings for light pollution. You might be able to ask your neighbors to please turn off their blinding security lights next door--I don't know, kinda depends on your relationship with your neighbor. Do you have security lights that you can turn off? Did you leave lamps on inside that you can dim? How 'bout the flashlight that you brought out with you? Is that off? Is your phone? You can listen to this podcast without scrolling on your phone, I promise. All of these things are important for making sure that you can have a good meteor shower experience. So turn down the brightness on your phone, or your tablet, or your screen, or whatever, and put it away, and resist the impulse to check your screens.

If you need motivation, think of it this way. The human eye, in general, can take up take about half an hour to adjust to darkness, about thirty minutes. Luckily for you, this program is about half an hour, so the timer starts now. If you can keep your devices tucked away for thirty minutes, you will have a nice meteor shower.

Finally, you can control in the night sky where you look, and a lot of folks might think that that is the key to seeing the most meteors. However, I'm gonna say, "don't bother." The Geminids, like everyone meteor shower, is named after the constellation from which it appears to radiate. "Geminids" literally means "Children of Gemini," so in this case we're talking about the constellation Gemini. But all that really means is when you see meteors tonight, you could trace them back to the constellation Gemini. But by no means should you fixate only that constellation because the truth of the matter is meteors can and will appear throughout the entire sky. So gift number one of the Geminids: don't stress about the right place to see them. Wherever you are, you have front row seats. So sit back, relax, because now we're going to talk about the end of the world. Bum bum bum...

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