Performer: rsl12 (USA). Piano has been a hobby for decades. First half of my piano life was focused on classical, but now I'm into jazz.
Piece: C. C. Rider — Traditional, arr. by Dr. John
Comment Policy: All comments; anything goes!
Source of music: My own transcription
Recording method: Phone
Additional info: This recital entry is half-baked. Maybe even quarter-baked. (But that's ok for a quarterly recital...?) "C.C. Rider" comes from the video Dr. John Teaches New Orleans Piano, through which I'm slowly making my way. I'd love to get this barrelhouse blues under my fingers! It sounds both pretty and big. Also, it's a pretty big pain in the butt, because I have to get my left hand to stretch to tenths. But I've been wanting to work on my tenths for a long time, so I'm treating this as an etude, almost strictly a technical exercise. I've only transcribed a small snippet (which I repeated twice for this recording), and I'll work on the rest once my left hand is more adept. When I started this, I painfully struggled to reach. And though I've only worked on this for a little while (in between all the PIYWs), I've improved quite a bit. The pain is gone, and now it feels like a comfortable stretch. My reach has improved slightly, but I think more than that, I've gotten better at finding those tiny corners of the key edge with the tip-top tips of my thumb and pinky. I know I my reach has improved because when I try to do the left hand part with my right hand, I can't manage at all!
The piece is forgiving in that, more often than not, the tenths are played one note before the other, and even when they are not, rolling sounds good as a workaround (though eventually I'd like to do it without rolling). Still a long way to go, but I'm seeing progress!
PS. Is this really C.C. Rider?? Other than the fact that it's a blues, I hear very little in common with the other versions I've listened to!