Jan. 26th, 2018

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The original Challenge for today was titled "A Song You Can Play On An Instrument." And with my music acumen, I have to say, posting something like that would have been unpleasant, at best. Though I could play a bunch of cartoon theme songs on the "Big" Keyboard and even played some of the Hanna-Barbera theme songs on it when Hanna and Barbera came in for a book signing. But I'm not that big a fan of those tunes OR those toons, so let's not go there.

I actually did make some progress with normal piano playing, and showed off the Casio keyboard that had 200 different settings for sounds, being sold at my place of business. My particular favorite was setting it to "Pipe Organ" and then playing the opening to Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" If it were a little more compact, I could have carried it around the store! I probably should have bought one for myself to practice at home. Maybe I would have been a more accomplished musician, instead of a frustrated one!

But yeah, Instrumentals are a big part of my collection, if only because a lot of film soundtracks have them, a lot of Broadway shows have Overtures, a lot of recording stars aren't singers and a lot of TV shows don't have lyrics to their themes.

So far, on the challenge, of the 24 songs previously listed, FIVE SONGS SELECTED WERE INSTRUMENTALS, so just more than twenty percent.

Instrumentals are fascinating because they leave room for you to insert some meaning to them. A song tells you what it's about with the lyrics. But you have a bit of leeway when it's just the music and that's where an element of creativity can be permitted.

When I was quite young, and was curious about the whole process of making music, there was a song on a radio station my mom favored that got a good amount of airplay. And this song made me want to learn how to play piano so I could learn how to play this particular song! I'd say this song was even money to having got played on "The Lawrence Welk Show," the bane of my younger self's existence. Still, even that didn't dissuade me from it!

I'm not quite sure why this song was (and still is) so attractive to me. Maybe it was the keyboard and strings arrangement, the bouncy tempo, the sense that there was an element of adventure to it? It has an almost storybook quality to it. It's a fantasy come true.

My pick for Day 25 is Horst Jankowski - "A Walk In The Black Forest"

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