I actually had the opportunity to spend Family Day exclusively with the family today. Last year I was on ICU, a rotation which I have resigned from, but they still ask me to do call from time to time. I have to learn to say no.
After lunch, we went over to Heritage Ranch to look at some of the horse on sleigh rides. Everett is too restless to be able to sit through the ride so instead we play in the playground for a bit. He’s not the most stable toddler on uneven packed snow, but the snow suit kept him toasty!
We went to Walmart for some supplies and purchase our first first-hand toy for Everett (the others have been gifts for hand-me-downs). It is an inflatable ball tent. Everett’s favorite things are balls and this he loved. Here’s a photo of him reading a few books with mommy before going nigh-nigh.
We watched some Vancouver friends of our on Love It or List It Vancouver. Then instead of subjecting Shannon to my commentary while she watched The Bachelor, I worked on a few piano piece.
I took some jazz piano lessons last year, but honestly it’s probably not for me. I would like to be able to improvise and learn the theory that comes with jazz, progressions and familiarity with chords and keys, but ultimately, I don’t really like jazz enough to want to play it all the time. I took a break this year to do work on some rock / pop. I’m almost finished learning the PianoGuys’ version of A Thousand Years, a beautiful song arranged into a cello and piano duet. The piano part on its own if good enough to solo. It starts off with crystal clear chords becoming more intricate as the chords break apart with the melody floating on top of it. The second piece I just downloaded a few weeks ago. Jarrod Radnich’s virtuoso piano version of Journey is really hard. After I bought the sheets, I wasn’t even sure I would be able to play it. I took out some embellishing notes and started learning half a bar at a time, and am actually making some progress. Journey is actually an easy song to improvise and not too difficult to make sound good because it’s such a powerful rock song with famous melody. The problem is one usually plays the accompaniment and sings melody, but not play both at the same time on the piano. Radnich manages to merge three voices (two handed accompaniment, one melody) into two hands, and takes it to the next level filling out the addictive base chord motif with octaves and patterns that even tests my hand span. It is slow progress but already it’s starting to sounds great!
