Soundtrack Above The Rim
Katariina Washuk
The album shipped over two million copies and won the Soundtrack of the Year award at the 1995 Source Awards.[4] The cassette version of the soundtrack contained three extra tracks that could not fit on the CD due to time constraints: "Pain" by 2Pac (with Stretch), "Mi Monie Rite!" by Lord G, and "Loyal to the Game" by 2Pac, Treach from Naughty By Nature, and Riddler. "Pain" was initially rejected for use in the film by Dr. Dre, but at the request of recording engineer Norman Whitfield Jr., the track was recut and remixed for the film by record producer Isaias Gamboa. Under Death Row, Above the Rim soundtrack was the third album under the label to reach number-one on the R&B Albums chart where it stayed for ten nonconsecutive weeks (Heavy D & the Boyz's Nuttin' But Love interrupted that streak for one week), while it went to second place on the Billboard 200 chart. Track 13 is a sensual remake of Rev. Al Green's classic "I'm Still In Love With You" by R&B recording artist Al B. Sure!
For example, I really love chopin etude op 10 no 11, but it's way above my level. So is it recommended to play a piece you really like, but is way above your level? (I have been playing for three years)
I was forced to take piano lessons when I was young. When I became a teenager, my parents made it my choice whether to continue and I chose to stop piano lessons. I did not find it exciting or fun, it was just pressing keys in a certain order every day and "making music" that I didn't recognize and didn't care about.
At age 19, I had fallen in love with the band Led Zeppelin and just had to try playing guitar. I loved it right away and one of the things that kept me going and learning and playing every day was that I chose the songs and I had fun and did what I wanted. One of the first songs I chose to learn, after playing for only three months or so, was "Under The Bridge" by Red Hot Chili Peppers, which is a very hard song.
Generally, I recommend to my students that they chase what they love, no matter how difficult it seems, but also that they reserve some time for working on techniques and ergonomics so they can play better than they currently play, not just more songs.
A student of mine decided he was going to learn a piece on piano. It's way above his level, and I suggested he left it for a year or so, but encouraged him to have a go, and sorted some tricky parts. Last week he turned up and played, pretty well, mostly from memory. Pedalling needs sorting - he's only just started using it. But, a great effort has paid off, for him, not me, as he managed it without much help at all. He sets himself deadlines, and usually meets them. If only every student was at least similar!
So, in some cases, yes, it's a great idea, if the player has the tenacity to see it through. In others, though, the proverbial brick wall gets in the way, rendering it a bad idea, with a demoralised student.
Only you know which group you are in, but if the latter, there are loads of other pieces that would be far quicker to turn around, until your level is up to the Chopin piece without too much of a struggle.
I'm a guitar player, and some years ago I decided I wanted to learn "Cavatina". I practised very very slowly for about a year until I reached a point where I could actually hit all the notes. I then found I was being held back by lack of technique, so I went to a teacher to get help with that. Another year later, I had it sorted.
I also worked out my own arrangement of "Take 5" for solo guitar - and then found that it was harder than I could actually play! It took me 2-3 years to get the basic notes down for this one. It is still my test piece for how current my skills are. If I haven't played much for a few months, it'll take me another few months of practise before my skills are up to scratch enough for this one.
The key thing though is practise properly!!! Don't just try to steam through it, miss half the notes, and say "job done". Work at it properly, slowly. Get each note right, and the phrasing right, and the transitions through the passages right. And only when you can hit every note properly, at about one-tenth speed, do you try to speed it up a little. That's how you build your skills up.
While many simplified arrangements of famous pieces are terrible, it may be possible for you to either find an arrangement you like, or study the piece, determine what you like about it, and come up with an arrangement that you can enjoy playing. For Chopin's op. 10 number 11, I would suggest that you replace most of the arpeggios with a couple of notes in the right hand, or (depending upon your skill) perhaps just one the melody note (though adding a parallel harmony part would almost certainly make things sound better). If you keep the arpeggios that fall on downbeats, you could probably end up with something you can enjoy playing that would capture the essence of Chopin's piece.
I play guitar, and I tried out songs that where above my level. I managed to learn a few parts, other parts where still far from perfect, or I could not do altogether. Then I put it aside, and came back a few months later and I recognized that suddenly the whole song, also the former difficult parts became easier, and I progress faster as I am continuing learning the song.
I have not done this on purpose, or this was not a "method", but I had this with a few songs (fingerstyle guitar pieces) I came back later. But you can built a method out of it: You like a song, go for it, practice it some time, some parts you will learn, other might drive you crazy, stick to your song 1-2 weeks (or whatever timespan you like, but I think just one evening will not be enough to make this "effective"). Then after you clearly reached your "limits" step back, practice something different (I guess there is not just one single song you admire...) and come back when you feel ready, and hopefully everything comes out easier and fresh ;)
Side note: Just reminds me as I am writing, as a theoretical computer scientist I am much into mathematicics, and I remember the famous Henri Poincare (one of the core figures behind the ideas made famous by Albert Einstein about space and gravity) once said that he was doing a similar thing with mathematical ideas and problems and beliefs in some "subconscious processing" of them. Google his name and terms like "creativity" and "subconsciousness" to find out more about him and his "psychology of creativity" if you like to.
Is it recommended? I don't think so. Recommendations focus about efficiency in acquiring skills. Messing around with stuff beyond your paygrade is not efficient. Obsession may often deliver results in the end, but one cannot control obsession. And obsessive work on a good lesson plan will generally deliver more than obsessive work on something inaccessible.
So you won't likely get recommendations about obsessing about something too hard for you. That doesn't mean that it cannot work in some respects. If you do stuff like that, it still makes sense to let a teacher look over it from time to time to avoid establishing bad practices.
I have been playing with a Tone Generator on my Laptop hooked to my Stereo, and my 58 year old ears stop at about 12 Khz. - I might be able to stretch it to 12.5khz, but frankly my light bulbs make more noise than that.
I have heard that teenagers set their ringtones on their cell phones at 17Kz, so that adults can't hear them. -- I am wondering if there is any 'worthwhile' music above 10Khz? - The upper notes of pianos are about 4 khz.
Yes, it's there. And, like you, my hearing isn't up there anymore, but for whatever reason things don't sound right when the high freqs aren't present. Like audio circuits themselves, measurements and what you actually hear are apparently not always absolutely in step.
Quite an interesting subject. I am 50 and my hearing stop at 18.5 KHz. I had my routine physical exam about 2 years ago including the ear test. And the doctor was quite surprise at my hearing test. Now, I am not sure what is the most accurate way for a hearing test to be conducted. But I have tried all kind of hearing tests on the internet and also with my tone generator and my ears will stop between 18 KHz and 18.5 KHz. I am not sure what to make of this as I thought that the older you get the less sensitive you are to high frequency.
As an added comment, cymbals (as pointed out above) and triangles are two instruments with a very big high overtone load, and I'm pretty sure that their top Hz's go well above my hearing and yours. They are instruments of "indefinite pitch", so I believe those high tones are a mass of complexity that stress amps and cartridges to a high degree.
Like I said, my own hearing is seriously down from my teenage years of being able to hear out to 22k (I could hear dog whistles and "ultrasonic" burglar alarms), but for reasons I do not understand, I can still clearly experience the impact of these frequencies.
Oddly, my deaf ear still is very susceptible to sounds that my ear and brain can no longer "hear" and interpret. My tinnitus in that ear increases mightily in certain medium-noise settings, even though I can't specifically identify hearing anything in that ear. In other words, I have lots of tinnitus set off by noise in a deaf ear.
Interesting topic. I was at an audio show today and talking to a few guys about how bright so many of the systems sound (bad!). One person said that maybe the designers of many of these are old and therefore they sound good. Funny comment, may be true. I quickly left a room with a pair of $50,000 speakers with crazy expensive tube amps that sounded so bright they were just horrible.
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