Auntie Em’s waltz

X: 1 - Originally played that low it can also be played up an octave.

X 2 - Being more reasonable, for the woodwinds amongst us, including Em… 😉

C: me!

lovely tune! can you please share the story behind it? also, can you make a simple recording of it so we can all learn what it should sound like please?

Lovely stuff here!

Auntie Em / Ruby Slippers ~ something we could all benefit from to help keep us grounded, to find ourselves, to home in on who we are and where best for our own sanity and nurture we should go. We all get lost now and then, some of us never realizing. We as easily can be deluded, and disillusioned. While music never leaves us, there in the beat of our heart and the circulation of blood and breath that keeps us ticking, sometimes we lose ourselves, distance ourselves for whatever reason or reasons from that beat.

I’ve known a few musicians that have had experiences and misfortunes that have caused them to step back from the music, to distance themselves from it. While I’ve never done that, I have at time been neglectful. For me it is the best medicine and therapy I know and I’d wish that for everyone, to connect and to follow their own melody, to make a good friend with music.

A friend having lost their ruby slippers, and having no Auntie Em immediately at hand to hold and converse with they touched base with me again. While I’m no Auntie Em, and I’m not sure where I last left my ruby slippers, possibly under the bed, I’m chuffed they thought to turn to me. I hope there’s something in my experience and relationship with music and with this other friend that I can reacquaint the two with each other again, so they can again have the pleasure and appreciation of that good company. Maybe I can help them to shed the baggage that has unfortunately gotten in the way.

Considering this and my own quirks and neglects this waltz stumbled out. I had also been re-reading dear brother Peter Reinhart’s works while also in the process of making bread in the kitchen, something influenced by brother Peter’s wild rice and onion bread and my own inspirations. That also had me reminiscing about other musical relationships, including with ‘The Holy Orders of Man’, heathen that I am (though I generally seem to have Buddhist inclinations). The bread turned out lovely and I’m glad this waltz seems to have been well received too. Here’s hoping on other counts I can be a positive influence, including fixing my old desktop PC, 20 years running come 2018. This is being processed on a borrowed laptop with an overly sensitive and cantankerous pad… 😏

Oops! This was originally X: 1 when I first submitted this, then I realized that when farting around with this, in the kitchen in between bread making, I had first played this in B minor, but had also tried other keys, including A minor, and bouncing between low and high versions, and variations in between. So, in truth, I first played it in B minor and that’s the key I was playing it in while preparing dinner tonight, New York deli style pastrami sarnies on rye, with sauerkraut. I only wish we could get those great garlic dill pickles here, or had somewhere like Rosie’s nearby for great pastrami, fabulous pickles, and wonderful potato salad. I recently saw a jar of garlic dill pickles in Marks and Spencer that was advertised as ‘New York’s best’, but £17 for a jar ~ my wife would skin me… 🙁

good man yourself! any chance for a recording of it even a draft? (to get the tempo and style)

Sorry Yooval, no digital means to record here, not even a smart phone, only dumb phones. We’ve a dozen microphones and a sound system, various musical instruments, including a quite nice synth, etc., things for ‘live’, but nothing at present for recording digital. Also, we’ve by choice no other presence in the digital quagmire that is the Internet, and are only here on dear Jeremy’s Sesh by accident, stumbling in when needing a distraction from one of life’s challenges.

My old friend, a self-built desktop PC, its 20th birthday in 2018, is in the kitchen in the company of other computers I’m bringing back to life, in pieces all around the kitchen, on the floor and work surfaces, and on the dining table with the fruit.

I will add a rhythmically simpler take on this later, a ‘first step’ version in e minor that should be easier to access and make sense of. I hadn’t realized there’s no more midi on site here, which while not perfect at least offered some basic guidance for the ears…

you’re living in the past sir! but I mean it in a good way 🙂 another thing which could be useful is a generic BPM mark = is it a realtively relaxed waltz or a more played like an up tempo tune? thanks! oh, maybe a friend in one of those gigs\sessions could record you playing your waltz? that would be the best

EDIT

I decided to go ahead and make a draft recording of it at around 150 BPM, does it sound close to what the composer intended?

https://vocaroo.com/i/s1EpGVjRJZK3

Chuffed!

Love the rhythm box in the background. Sadly a few ceili bands have come to depend on such accompaniments, with the digital having a better hand on keeping rhythm than the live musicians. That internet system/compression doesn’t handle the whistle and the highs well, slight distortion on the shrill side, but nicely done… I was smiling wide through the whole listen. I’ll have to share it with my wife next after a bit of softening with equalization. As to your chosen RPM, great. I’ve played it slow and somber, almost like a lament, and up tempo, even manic. You strike a nice balance, dance-able. Thanks and much appreciated that you took the time and made the effort.

On this side, doing absolutely nothing, I’ve ended up in agony this week with a torn rotator cuff, and I completely forgot that as I listened and smiled, better than Ibuprofen. I saw the doc who agreed with my prognosis and promised to set me up with an appointment with a physio, likely a long wait for that. I’ve self managed carpal tunnel syndrome in both wrists for years now and will one way or another manage with this too until that appointment. I’ve always had problems with my small wrists dislocating, especially when swinging a hatchet, axe, splitting maul, or chainsaw, having to suspend from anywhere until they pop back into place. Here’s hoping this shoulder will soon be sorted. At least I can still make music and I seem to mostly forget about it when dancing, something I need to be wary of. 😀

Pared down as promised…

thank you sir it was worth it for that smile 🙂 wishing you a speedy recovery!

I do think this is good ceolachan, and witty.