Dear Reader - There’s really nothing like playing the piano…ask Bethany McLoughlin or Paul McCartney!
The Big Thing
Me too actually - because while I love spending my days encouraging others to play, I sometimes have to remember to do so myself.
So I’m going to try and do a bit more playing over the coming weeks.
And without going all January 1 on it and saying I’m going to play piano for three hours every day and upload a new song each week (!), I will upload some short videos if I feel I have enjoyed the weeks’ playing and have something to show for it.
So here’s a hornpipe called the City of Savannah. Taught to me over the course of many Mondays by Seamie O’Dowd and any strange chords you hear are probably courtesy of Gerry Grennan.
Here’s to more playing everyone!
PS this new enthusiasm for playing has been partly motivated by a really interesting book called The Practice. I have a spare copy - first person to contact me gets it.
Where else but Sligo?
Congratulations to our hugely popular and versatile piano teacher Bethany McLoughlin on being crowned recently as Sligo Rose.
Delighted to hear that playing piano helped her win the title too.
Next stop Tralee!
What’s New?
I have read many Beatles books over the years (see below!) - but none as good as the most recent one - John & Paul by Ian Leslie.
He focuses on the relationship between the two Beatles through the prism of 43 songs, exploring male friendship in all its complexities as he does.
Below are some of my favourite discoveries.
If you want to know more go online - or better still read the book!
It was John’s band originally, but year by year he grew to be more insecure around Paul.
He explodes certain myths - for example that John was the rebellious one and Paul the more superficial PR guy - and shows that in fact their characters were more nuanced.
Hey Jude gets better every time I hear it (see below). And while the story goes that Paul wrote it for John’s son Julian, I love Leslie’s take that at its heart it was also about John - written by one friend looking out for another.
John’s Jealous Guy was written not about Yoko but Paul.
And I just loved the opportunity to go back and listen to these great songs again with new context for the history of the song and also the music itself.
Finally…
As mentioned above…go on give it a whirl - but this time listen for the following (thanks Ian Leslie for the guidance):
The minute of messing at the start - I love hearing them jam like that!
1:04 the melody note on the word ‘song’ - an F on a C chord - it shouldn’t work but somehow it does!
3:37 - John’s backing vocals on Verse 3 (sometimes higher sometimes lower) and Paul’s smile!
4:05 - the sheer joy from band and audience as the na na na na chorus kicks off.
The importance of the piano in the track - Paul grew up in a house where the piano and sing-songs were central to social gatherings. So hence Paul chose piano as his preferred accompanying instrument for his best singalong songs - such as Let it Be and Hey Jude.
Till next time - Kieran.
