"Blues Etude #2"

A little more fun today ... not like yesterday!

Today's piece? "Blues Etude #2."

I got so much feedback from the first "Blues Etude," that I knew I had to do another.

Here's the setting: it is a chilly early (early!) morning here in Portsmouth, Virginia. (Yeah, I know - what did I think? February? I'm wondering if Al Gore needs to give his Nobel Prize in Global Warming back?) We've recently moved and re-built the studios in an elegant (but needy!) 1854 former Vaudeville theater. It is a truly glorious place - needs lots of work, attention and care, but - it is glorious.

It is also wonderful for recording. The large theater is about 50 feet wide, 120 feet long and 30 feet high. Everything sounds good on this stage!

This has been just the type of project I have needed to re-ignite my creative juices. My goal? Create 28 pieces in twenty-eight days. Nothing extensive - short, miniaturist works that explore what I want to explore that day. (Pieces are written, recorded and blogged that day.)

So, of course, strange topics sometimes come through, like, "Like Water Flowing From My Ceiling," or "TC - the Theater Cat!"

A 'Blues Etude' is exactly that - a combination form piece that puts the technical ferocity and demands of a Chopin 'Etude' with the immediately accessible elements of a 'Blues' pattern.

Technical demands are the name of the game in this piece - lots of them sound a lot harder than they really are - arpeggiated chords, walking bass lines in octave, off-kilter rhythms, etc. I love this kind of stuff!

So, for pure fun and calisthenics - "Blues Etude #2." This one is for my friend Cathy.

Tomorrow? A little change of pace - "Fantasy for Flute, Piano & Chamber Orchestra"

Robert Ian Winstin

www.robertianwinstin.com
www.numusicdirect.com

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You can grab the FREE sheet music to most of the music in this blog series at www.numsicdirect.com/28intwentyeight.html