An Evening of Slow Songs

Music is timeless. Old songs can become new songs and new songs can become classics. Classics are remade over and over and each generation comes to appreciate the art in music that has not been loved for a long time.

Every once in a while I get to sing for a retirement home, and what we get to play is music that was beloved in the 1920s, 1950s, 1960s, etc... I have the privilege of combining my love for learning new tunes while also going back and learning classics. The music is new for me and yet completely loved by many people who grew up enjoying those tunes.

Some of the songs in our set list include Tennessee Waltz, Autumn Leaves, Tea for Two, Moon River, etc...

Tonight, armed with my 'hug in a mug' peppermint tea, my keyboard, and a tablet, I finally put up a few new covers of songs.

I had previously done a cover of The Scientist by Coldplay, but I have been wanting to update it, so I changed the key and did a new cover.

I did a very slow, kind of acoustic version of Paint It Black by the Rolling Stones. The difficulty with performing covers like this is that it is important to keep the integrity of the song. With all of my covers, the reason I am doing a cover is because I love the song and want to perform it, not because I want to improve upon it. I am simply performing a different take on an amazing song - changing the arrangement and bringing attention to the mastery of the lyrics. Hopefully it will get a good reception.

Then the new country tune Every Little Thing by Carly Pearce has been on my list since I first heard it. What an amazing song. Tragically beautiful.

Last, but surely not least, is a JAZZ tune!! I am not very familiar with jazz. From the piano to the vocals, jazz is new territory. The beauty of tunes like My Funny Valentine is its dissonance. The melody that the vocals sing are often not even in the chords that the accompaniment is playing. The tempo is free, there is a structure but it is completely open to interpretation, and (if you have the talent and the experience), you can completely change it up in every sense without losing its stunning qualities. Being a novice in this genre, I have stuck to how it was originally written, with some subtle changes here and there, but I really look forward to experimenting with songs like this in the future. I definitely found it difficult to learn the proper dissonant notes in the melody during one particular section, and needed to download the sheet music in order to be certain I was singing the 'correct' notes, but I loved the process all the same.

What a beautiful set of songs to learn.
I love #MyMusicalLife