Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Rock 'n Boogie Blues: the history

When I was a youngster, studying piano, my teacher often gave me boogie pieces to learn.  I loved them!  Actually, I loved them a lot.  So, as I got older and started composing, I often would write a boogie piece for piano solo just for fun.  After several years, I realized I had enough material to publish a book.  So I published my first volume of boogie pieces several years ago.  As the years passed, I began adding more of the blues in with the boogie and published volumes two and three as well.

Last year, I studied jazz theory with Russell Schmidt at the University of Utah.  What a fun class that was! Because of my experiences with Russell Schmidt, book four contains more jazz-type harmonies than my first three books.  I am very proud of the book.  This piano music is fun to play and even a bit weird (in places).  There are strange titles such as: "Bernie the Lunar Basketball" and "The Skulking Suite".  "Bernie the Lunar Basketball" is taken from my original soundtrack of an original animation that I did about Bernie, a Lunar Basketball.

I like the fact that the pieces are all different, with some being a little crazy.  It is the craziness that makes them so much fun.

So, for all you pianists out there, go to Amazon.com and buy yourself a copy.  Hopefully you will have as much fun playing them as I did writing them.  For you non-piano players, you might consider downloading some of the mp3 recordings from Amazon mp3.

"Anyone who tells a lie has not a pure heart, and cannot make a good soup." - Beethoven

Amazon.com Rock 'n Boogie Blues book 4

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