This site is about my endeavor to perform, teach, write and sell Boogie Woogie style piano music. I started learning the piano/keyboard in January 2009 with no previous keyboard experience. I have found that playing the Boogie and Blues genre of music is fun, challenging and a great retirement pastime! Send comments and questions to Boogie Beau
I got my first ever camcorder, an Aiptek HD 12, it does it all and the price just $199. I don’t know if this el cheapo will last forever but it came with battery, a case and all the cables and charges with the included AC adapter or while plugged into your PC via USB. There is even HDMI output.
I can capture myself playing and at the same time screen capture the keyboard keys playing. I then take those two video and align them pretty closely as the audio is all in the screen capture video. I build the final video in Adobe Premiere Elements 9 which can upload directly to my YouTube account. I plan to build several of these learn how to play a song video in an attempt to attract subscribers on YouTube.
Well my keyboard rig once again under went a big update the last couple weeks. After I finished producing my latest CD in early December using my Dell laptop computer as my DAW workstation I decided it was time for a change. For two years I have suffered with the laptop on a table next to the Juno Stage keyboard which meant constantly swiveling between the Juno and Dell keys. That setup was just plain not comfortable and didn’t work well for reading music and viewing online lessons.
The solution I came up with was to drill two 1/4″ holes in the riser tier arms and put in 6″ long 1/4″ long bolts which I slipped 1/4″ inside diameter fuel hose over for padding. I placed on the bolt arms a 22″ monitor. When I have paper music the 6″ arms are longer enough to add on a piece of cardboard to protect the screen then the top of a music stand to hold the paper music sheets. An unseen benefit was this moved the music a few inches closer which I’ve found is more in tune with my eye glasses.
BoogieBeau's Rig Jan 2011
The computer keyboard is a wireless Adesso which has a touch pad on the right side of it. On the upper left there are left and right mouse buttons. The touch pad has a scroll feature where moving two fingers up or down it does the scroll wheel thing. The computer keyboard itself sets on a 1/4″ x 15″ x 18″ plywood board that slides between the top of the stand and Juno. It just happens the OnStage table stand is bent in the middle and there is a gap there and that worked out like perfect making it easy to slide the plywood around to position the computer keyboard just where I need it. Being wireless I can easily remove the computer keyboard in a second if I get bugged by it. But so far I’ve found it isn’t in the way at all. I’ve switched to a chair that has side arms on it that allow me to rest my elbows on when I’m using the keyboard.
With this new setup working I signed up with a popular online music lesson site http://www.jazzpianolessons.com/. Most of the practice lesson sheet music is in PDF format and being able to view it on the monitor in perfect position is really nice. Previously I was always printing sheet music out which was a real pain to keep track of and costly in paper and ink. The next few months I aslo plan to spend time experimenting with my DAW software Sonar 8.5 LE before I produce my 3rd CD in December 2011. The monitor and keyboard are talking to a lower end HP Z200 mini tower computer. It’s not a 3D gamer computer as it comes with a standard graphics and audio support but it should be fine for what I need it for. It’s running Windows 7 64bit Pro so at least I’m up to date OS wise .. or at least until Windows 8 comes out.
I’m happy to announce the digital release of my second CD titled “Bluer Than My New Blue Jeans” on December 24th 2010.
Physical CDs will be available January 25th 2011 at CDBABY.com. This is a ten song album with near an hour of music tracks on it. The ideas for the songs I jotted down over the last few months when ever one popped into my head. However all the composing, lyric writing and recording I did over a two week period in early December. The lyrics are a bit corny as usual and my singing goes haywire every few measures but hey it’s all me again! I feel great that I was able to lay down some piano tracks that show what I’ve been practicing on the keyboard this last year. I’m starting to be able to play those blues and pentatonic scales with some feeling in them.
Here is the song list:
1 – Bluer Than My New Blue Jeans – 5:53
2 – Shake That Thing – 5:10
3 – LOL Blues – 5:43
4 – Shut The Curtains – 5:06
5 – Marching Saints – 5:28
6 – Sing The Blues – 5:09
7 – Study Hall Blues – 5:32
8 – It’s Saturday – 5:34
9 – Lunch Time Baby – 5:39
10 – Baby Blues – 3:18
You can preview the songs at CDbaby.com and other digital distributors. Any relatives, friends or windsurfing friends that are interested in hearing my songs send me an email at boogiebeau@boogiebeau.com .
The BoogieBeau is working hard this December creating new songs for my 2nd CD. So far three new songs done! After not using Sonar my DAW software for several months I found I was a bit clumsy using it. But after a few hours I really got into it again. I upgraded from version 6 to 8.5 of Sonar LE a mere $10 download. This 8.5 version really hums along solidly on my Dell Laptop under Vista Windows. I’m just amazed how nice it all works.
Also I keep getting smarter at using Sonar. I’m now using the Lyrics feature in Sonar Staff view to match words up to the lead melody notes. Previously I would transfer the midi track over into the composer program Finale SongWriter and create lyrics there.
A rig problem I really wanted to solve I have. The loud hum issue in my recording rig that occurs when I plug my USB MIDI connections from my drum machine and keyboard is gone. YIPEE YAHOO !!!!! I purchased from Sweetwater.com a Cakewalk UM-3G box which takes up to three MIDI in/out connects and converts them to one MIDI USB connect to the laptop. While making my first CD I was always plugging and unplugging the USB cables which was a real pain. That nasty hum also got into my instruments audio tracks so I’m very pleased to have it gone.
Cakewalk UM 3G
A nice side feature of Sonar LE is “The Publisher”. With it you can upload mp3 tracks to your Web site. It gives you three options of Shockwave Flash players. I’ve been using a WordPress Plugin to play MP3 files and I am hopeful this Sonar Publisher utility is going to be a time saver. Unfortunately the interface is perhaps not quite all there yet for developers and thus it’s a bit easy to mess up your saved publishing settings I’ve found.
“Boggie-Woggie in the Afternoon” was the title of the Ann Arbor Kerrytown Concert House event the wife and I attended last Sunday. Three fine boogie-woogie piano players did there thing over an hour and a half to a packed sold out house. Detriot area musicians Matthew Ball (aka the boogie woogie kid) played first followed by veteran player Bob Seeley and last was Spanish guest Luis Coloma. All three kicked out the jams on a big grand piano.
We had seats in row three close up and really enjoyed watching the guys play. On many songs their left hands were just a blur as they walked bass lines. A couple things I did notice is on most all songs all they really concentrate and their eyes never leave the keyboard. Also I noticed their hands are really playing far apart much of the time with the right hand doing a bunch of work in the last couple octaves. Bob Seeley was a friend of Mead Lux Luis and apparently visited him many times. Bob had a piano stool there he showed us along with a picture of Mead setting on it. I’ve seen that same picture in a couple books and on the internet so it was kinda neat to actually see that stool that support Mead’s frame which was big.
Seeing them play live was good inspiration for me .. I got to work on getting my left hand moving. I think alot of the tunes they played had to be moving along at 146 bpm .. maybe faster.
