Matthew Monday: Iceberg

Back in May, I posted an original composition of a piano piece composed between Matthew and his piano tutor, Mason.  That was titled “Untitled No. 1.”  So I expected his next composition to be titled Untitled No. 2.  He tricked me.  The next piece they composed they called “Iceberg.”  Why?  I have no idea.  But for your listening pleasure, here is Matthew performing his original composition, “Iceberg.”

 

I think I like the Untitled No. 1 a little better.  But the kid is learning!

By the way, as an aside, I will have a few Matthew Mondays coming up.  We’ve been going to a number of baseball games, and I’d like to document them.

Matthew Monday: Untitled No. 1

Matthew, as readers of this blog should know, has been taking piano lessons now for several years.  He has gotten pretty good for a fourteen year old if I can say so myself.  You’ll see his playing in this clip.  In addition he has built up a very good relationship with his piano teacher, Mason, and Mason has not only pushed Matthew’s ability to perform but Matthew’s ability to understand and create music.  Matthew here has composed, with Mason’s help, his own piano piece.  They didn’t give it a name, other than “Untitled No. 1.”

As a preface, you will hear Mason at the beginning introduce the piece.  Also you may hear stray voices from other music classes.  That is unfortunate.  The rooms are not exactly sound proof.

 

 

I think I caught a mistake or two in what I think is striking a wrong key but I don’t know if that’s how the composition was intended.  Still I think it’s pretty wonderful given it was mostly composed by a fourteen year old.  I’m proud of him!  What do you think, the next Frédéric Chopin?  

Music Tuesday: The Veed Video

OK, so VEED is not really a musical piece.  If you noticed my post, “Matthew Monday: Sleeping Lotus,” the link to Matthew’s performance of the piano piece, “Sleeping Lotus,” was not working.  Matthew’s teacher had recorded his performance with phone audio, which was in MP3 format.  Actually it was recorded with M4a, whatever that is, and I was able to convert that to MP3.  But neither MP3 nor M4a would embed in Google Blogger, nor would it upload to YouTube.  I thought I figured out some way to convert it into MP4, but that also didn’t upload to YouTube.  But I thought it embedded into Blogger, and so I posted it.  But after an initial embed, somehow it got disabled, and so there was no audio performance.

But then I came across VEED, a website that converts audio and video into all sorts of formats, and you can modify and add to those videos.  It’s really cool.  Now you have to pay for VEED but they allow you free trials.  If I start needing it much, I will pay for it, but for now free suits my needs.  Not only that, there was a video that showed you the steps to do it.  It was easy enough, here.

So I converted my MP3 to MP4 through VEED, uploaded it into my YouTube page and embedded it to the blog post, “Matthew Monday: Sleeping Lotus.”  Now you can go back and hear it, if you tried last week.  But I’ll make it easy.  Here is Matthew’s piano performance of “Sleeping Lotus” once again but you will need to go back to the original post to get the details of the musical piece.

 

 

Isn’t that beautiful.  I’m so proud of him.

Matthew Monday: Sleeping Lotus

In the past I’ve posted on Matthew’s learning to play the piano.  He was so cute at his first recital when he was six years old.  And then when he was learning on his own I posted his playing of Für Elise.  Since the summer however he has been taking lessons and has gotten good. 

His piano teacher recorded him playing this piece, “Sleeping Louts” by a Dutch composer, Joep Beving.   Here is Matthew playing, but you will catch his piano teacher’s voice at the beginning and end.

 

Not bad!  The piece has such a contemplative feel to it.  Matthew selected it himself to learn.  He seems drawn to contemplative music.  This is going to count as both a Matthew Monday and a Music Tuesday entry!

Matthew Monday: Für Elise

I have not had a Matthew Monday is a while.  He’s always had a love of music and he really loves the piano.  Six years ago I posted how he had his first piano recital at the age of six.  He was taking young kiddy lessons then but unfortunately we couldn’t continue because of one thing or another.  But he has been learning on his own.

He recorded himself with my phone playing the Beethoven piano piece, Für Elise.  Well, the first minute of the piece.  Mind you he is not reading off a music score.  This is pure memorizing from someone who teaches this on the internet.  Here is Matthew playing Fur Elise.

 

Not bad.  I really want to get him lessons.  Covid really threw a wrench in that but now that it has died down I will start looking for a piano teacher. 

Now here is a professional playing the entire piece.

 

I think Matthew captured it pretty well.  But I am his loving father.  ;)

Matthew Monday: First Piano Recital

Ever since Matthew could pick things up and play with musical toys, I seemed to see musical talent in him.  He always seemed to love to sing.  I gave him musical toys which he seemed to enjoy making coordinated sounds.  I gave him my harmonica, which he seemed make songs with.  I gave him a recorder, and though he hasn’t learned the notes yet, he seems to play like he knows what he’s doing.  I bought him a ukulele from a yard sale, and he loves strumming it.  Of course I got him a key board and we tried learning on our own, but that’s rather difficult, mostly because I can’t play.  However, he loved to make believe he was a pianist and playing concerts for me.  With all that I was intent to get him into a music class.

I finally found a music lesson place for children, a class where children and parents interact as the child learns.  It’s at the local JCC, but the unfortunate thing was that a beginner’s class ran after school when I was at work.  There was one that I could just make but it was for a stage above beginners, and they allowed Matthew to join since he seemed to be bright.

After six months, the children had a mini recital.  Besides singing and dancing for the guests, they had to play a song on the piano.  Here is Matthew playing a song out of his music book called “Dinosaur Dreams.”  The woman is Leah (I don’t know her last name) his music teacher, who I have to say is remarkable in her patience with the children.

The thing of it is that he played it flawlessly at home earlier that afternoon.  Still considering he’s playing with both hands and shifting chords, it’s not bad for just six months of lessons.