art

I wonder if someone told this girl she could do anything she wanted. If they did, she seems to have come up with something completely new - and amazing! Moving, too... enjoy.

worth the wait

My "birthday present" from my parents - a note-by-note keyboard Billy Joel book - arrived in the mail today. (My birthday was months ago, but that's a whole other story, right Mom?) :-)

In it, there were a couple of songs I hadn't heard before. Presumably they were all hits at some point, but let's face it, I was pretty little when most of his stuff was REALLY big. At any rate, this is the song that nearly brought me to tears while I was playing & singing it through for the first time... It's been a while since a song did that to me, so I had to share it.

And as I played through it on the piano for about the 10th time tonight, I thought two things mainly - how beautiful it is to open ourselves up to the risk of loving someone (as per the lyrics), and that I think I "do music" in my life because it opens me up - to new ideas, new melodies, new richness. Incidentally, the guest speaker at the high school grad I attended today spoke of music's power - so a little "synchronicity" happening for me today, I suppose.

At any rate, two things I want to be grateful for tonight - among many others. 1) For Billy Joel for doing what he does so well. 2) For my parents, and the generations of family before them, for sharing the gift of music...

Doggie's Delight

So I came across this video today. Apparently this is how one engineer has chosen to keep his very active dog occupied... Brilliant if you ask me. :-)

In the Presence of Greatness...

I have been a fan of Elton John and Billy Joel for almost as long as I can remember. To see them in concert this past weekend was nothing short of a dream come true. And with 2 full months from the time of the purchase of the tickets to the time of the concert to anticipate, I was a little worried they wouldn't live up to my expectations. I was right. They exceeded my expectations. Four hours straight of their biggest hits mixed in with some very impressive improvisation, and a few witty remarks on the part of Billy Joel makes for a VERY entertaining evening!! (And I think the 25000 or so other people there that night would agree!)

One of the friends I went with put it like this: Everyone knows they're famous. Everyone can hum along with a few of their songs. And they're good songs. But then you see them perform live and you realize WHY they're so famous. It's because they're geniuses. I sat listening, soaking it in, and trying to absorb the fact that it was all really happening. That I really was lucky enough to be there. And that they've been playing some of these songs for longer than I've been alive!!

Here are a few samples of what we heard - the light show was the same, so I'm thinking this was just elsewhere on the same tour.

Pianoman (the finale to the 9-song encore)... Sorry - the videographer insisted on singing along... :-(



My Life - approximately the same distance from the stage that we were.

Genuine Genius

Ben Folds is my latest hero. I read somewhere that he describes his music as, "punk rock for sissies," so I guess I'm a sissy. This guy can do anything when you put a piano in front of him - including making me cry with his perfect lyrics, and the amazing images he has in his videos. This guy should be a lot more famous than he his. Check it out...