Making Music

[Sean Regan]

i've posted a few elsewhere.

Apart from gardeninng, koi and golf which are more fair weather pursuits for me, my other interests include my jukeboxes and musical instruments, a tenor sax and leccy piano
Beats watching telly when it's raining, or dark outside.
I subscribe to a dedicated USA messageboard for Yamaha keyboard players. We upload our efforts to "Box" and link them so others can comment on our performances and "make helpful suggestions," but more often, it prompts us to have a go at tunes, we might not otherwise try. Over the last ten years I've probably uploaded more than 200 of my recordings, of differnt genres of music, from classic jazz standards, to mostly vintage pop and Motown. I'm in the process of re-recording some tunes on the Tyros 5 I bought last year, which replaced the Yamaha PSR 1000 I'd had for nearly twenty years,

Here's a few examples of this piano's versitility. It's all "live" recordings, no double tracking or editing which is possible. You'll be relieved it's only the piano that "sings" not me! Although some on the message board attempt it, believe me their piano playing can be good, many better than mine, but I wish some wouldn't try to sing.

Anyway, here's a few I like to play.

Classic Standards

Box

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Frank Sinatra.

I've Got You Under My Skin.mp3 | Powered by Box

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Here's That Rainy Day mp3.mp3 | Powered by Box

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Lionel Ritchie

Easy.mp3 | Powered by Box

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Bobby Darrin

Dream Lover mp3.mp3 | Powered by Box

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One of Elvis's

Can't Help Falling In Lovemp3.mp3 | Powered by Box

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Everly Brothers

Let It Be Me.mp3 | Powered by Box

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BeeGees

How Deep Is Your Love.mp3 | Powered by Box

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Cyndi Lauper (with part of Miles Davis' trumpet solo from his version).

Time After Time.mp3 | Powered by Box

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The Isley Brothers. (I love playing this).

At Your Best.mp3 | Powered by Box

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Buddy Holly "Big production."

True Love Ways mp3.mp3 | Powered by Box

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[Becky]

Thanks for sharing these with us, Sean! You're a talented player I had a keyboard years ago... when I was learning a particularly tricky piece (3rd movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata IIRC) I recorded it on the keyboard really slowly then speeded up the playback In my defence there was no way I could have played it at full speed!

I don't have a keyboard anymore but I have an old piano that I'm hoping to renovate this year. Hopefully I'll be able to get back playing after that.

 

[Sean Regan]

Thanks for sharing these with us, Sean! You're a talented player I had a keyboard years ago... when I was learning a particularly tricky piece (3rd movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata IIRC) I recorded it on the keyboard really slowly then speeded up the playback In my defence there was no way I could have played it at full speed!

I don't have a keyboard anymore but I have an old piano that I'm hoping to renovate this year. Hopefully I'll be able to get back playing after that.

Thanks for the kind words.

I'm just a self-taught chords and right-hand player as most amateur keyboard players are. I did music for a term at grammar school, but all I can remember is "Every Good Boy Deserves Favour and FACE."

I'm not that good at reading music. Those little dots seem to move around on the staff lines, whilst I'm looking at them. I'm far quicker at working it out in my head than trying to read the music.
But I do know my chords and I use some substitute jazz chords, in a lot of what I play. I do busk the right hand a lot.
If it's a new tune, I've not played before, if I'm not too sure of the melody, though I know or can read all the chords from the sheet music, I download a version off Youtube and put my laptop on a the small moveable table attached to my chair, beside the piano.

Recordings of popular tunes are usually made in a key that suits the singer. So I work ouit which key a song is in and I can modulate the piano so I can play the right hand using the fingering of a key of my choice. I then play a few seconds of the video, then copy it on the piano and so on, until i've got it. Having done that I sometimes try to improve on it. I find it's an easy way to learn rather tthan guessing at it and then "remembering" the wrong phrases. I can put the piano back as it should be and then play the tune in one of "my keys," which is often Eb.

 

[Sean Regan]

This was hard to remember and retain the vocal line, as he's all over the place, but it's not a bad tune. I had a go at this a couple of weeks ago, as I heard it in a TV music documentary, it was the first time in a couple of decades, I'd heard it.

Rick Astley

Never Gonna Give You Up.WAV | Powered by Box

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[Gail_68]

@Sean Regan I've totally enjoyed them and your Rick Astley was good...lovely entertainment before I go off line for bed "Thank you"...can you do Foreigner "I want to know what love is" as that is my all one favourite and very powerful on the high notes of singing.

My sister learnt on one similar to yours and also had private lessons and was good but she packed up in the end and haven't heard her play in years...there's nothing better than hearing the keyboards or piano

 

[Sean Regan]

Thanks for that.

I haven't played that, I quite like Foreigner. I've actually got a copy of "Waiting for a Girl Like You" in one of my jukeboxes.

They and a group called "Player" were quite similar. Lead singer singing powerful high notes. I've aalso got this in the same jukebox.

I recorded this on my old PSR 1000 a few years ago

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[DrCase]

I have the same hobby
Mine involves a guitar a amp and YouTube backing tracks
My favorite time to play is during the morning watching the sunrise.

 

[Sean Regan]

I have the same hobby
Mine involves a guitar a amp and YouTube backing tracks
My favorite time to play is during the morning watching the sunrise.

Nice to hear from a fellow enthusiast.

I don't do mornings, unless it's a "golf day."


How about some links?


I played guitar in my teens and early twenties, I used to play in a little band. I still have it, it's an Otwin Studio, made I think in Eastern Europe. With the fitted case it cost me £45. That's about a thousand quid in today's money.

I converted it to electric. I managed to get the on/off and volume controls through a sound hole in the body on the end of a bit of wire coat-hanger.
It's sixty years-old now and pretty much unplayable as the neck has become a bit loose, but it has sentimental value.
As has my copy of, "Eric Kershaw's Dance Band Chords for Guitar." Which is about the same age. Mickey Baker's book gave me the jazz chords.

A friend played trumpet. He impressed me with the fact that he was able to look over my shoulder at the music, which was for "C" instruments and transpose the notes as he read them.

I've always admired jazz guitarists.

I've a few Barney Kessel, Wes Montgomery, Tal Farlow etc., CDs.


I uploaded this little known recording by Barry Gailbraith a few years ago from an LP I have. It's surprisingly had over 19,000 hits and dozens of positive comments.

I've a Hohner valve guitar amp somewhere up in the loft. Couldn't really use it in our small house when we had small kids in bed.
So I moved on to keyboards, I'm on my sixth.

I like playing my Tyros 5 late at night, but then I use earphones, as the sub-woofer can vibrate the floorboards if It's a bit too loud.

 

[Sean Regan]

I've a lot of respect for Todd Rundgren, as a songwriter, musician and a producer.

They wanted the sound of a motorbike revving, on "Bat Out of Hell." So he did it on his guitar.


I've copied this from my album forty year-old album "Something Anything." Where he plays all the instruments..."but not all at the same time."

I Saw The Light.mp3 | Powered by Box

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I've also the single in one of my jukeboxes.

I also like his more recent association with Daryl Hall. Here they are playing and singing a song Daryl Hall wrote.

Marta Altesa impressed me with her bass cover, playing along to Paul Young's version, which was more popular in the UK. Look at how long are her fingers!

I can play that...after a fashion. Recorded on my old PSR 1000.

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[Gail_68]

Thanks for that.

I haven't played that, I quite like Foreigner. I've actually got a copy of "Waiting for a Girl Like You" in one of my jukeboxes.

They and a group called "Player" were quite similar. Lead singer singing powerful high notes. I've aalso got this in the same jukebox.

I recorded this on my old PSR 1000 a few years ago

Box

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Thanks for that Sean very relaxing...when you play your music

 

[DrCase]

I don’t have any thing recorded
I just play what I feel when I here it , I can honestly say that I don’t know 1 song recorded by anyone .

The black Gibson I bought in 1976 .
I bought the acoustic electric about a year ago.. it the only guitar I play now

I bought the grandkids some guitars to play when they visit me

 

[Sean Regan]

A nice collection.

One of our sons and the eldest of four daughter's four kids, were into ukuleles..... An expensive passing fad.
Her son takes guitar lessons. Her other two daughters seven and eleven play a bit on their dad's old leccy piano which he doesn't use. I let them play mine when they visit.

I got a bit of the way towards getting them to play my keyboard as a piano, duetting on this. Lots of kids learn it.

A much maligned Hoagy Carmichael tune I like (as I do and play many of his tunes), recorded by Bea Wain at 22, with the Larry Clinton Orchestra who only died in 2017 at 100 years old.

Heart and Soul.mp3 | Powered by Box

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Our son-in-law has two guitars, but doesn't play them much.

I record backing tracks on the piano, so I can play along with them on my tenor sax.

 

[DrCase]

I bought my grands so much stuff they got bongos tambourines microphones ukuleles harmonics

Some one has to step up with some talent soon

 

[Sean Regan]

I bought my grands so much stuff they got bongos tambourines microphones ukuleles harmonics

Some one has to step up with some talent soon

I think it is an advantage if you have some natural ability, an ear for music if you like.

I've a cousin who used to live near us when I was a teenager. Her mother paid for piano lessons and she could play as well as most kids in their early teens. The family moved to South Africa when she was fifteen. When they came back twenty-five years later, I asked her if she still played the piano. She had to think about it, then replied, "Piano? I gave that up when we went to South Africa, I only did it because my mother wanted me to."
We've a family friend who plays the piano. Taught as a child. Take the music away and she stops playing. Unable to busk anything.

I think a lot of young people aren't willing to put the effort in to learn to play an instrument.

 

[DrCase]

My grandkids are 4 - 5 - 6 - 12 they like being in the band . And show a lot of interest for 30 min at a time.
I started playing when I was 10 with friends in the neighborhood