Desert Island Music

[saundersbp]

Anyone up for a challenge?

If you were given three years alone on a desert island, ample food and comfort and an accordion plus the challenge of learning 3 pieces of music - what would you take?
You aren't allowed to compose your own ditties or take a Roland/electronic gadgets (no electricity on the island) in this game.

My choices:
1. One of the Bach Partita's from Clavierubung - because I'd never get bored of it and it would keep my brain going with it's difficulty!
2. Dick Hyman's Indiana Variations - because its got so many Jazz styles.
3. Quartet no.5 by Philip Glass - because I like his music and there wouldn't be anyone else to drive mad apart from me and the seagulls with the endless repetitions.

Anyone else like to play?

 

[Tom]

Hmmmm, my ideas of "what to learn next" change daily, but since we're talking about a longer learning process, I'm going with a free bass, ok:

1. Something classical, probably Bach. I don't know enough to pick one, but something melodic, not pyrotechnic.

2. Jazz, gonna go with Take Five. Putting the head over the bass line has always been a challenge. A few years on the island should do it.

3. Gotta work on the singing. How about The Boxer, by Simon and Garfunkel?

 

[saundersbp]

Love the Boxer!!

 

[Tom]

Love the Boxer!!

Might need that Roland for the chorus though, the "cannons."

 

[Johnny]

This was tough.

1. Transcription of a very long solo by Sonny Rollins or John Coltrane. I'm leaning towards Chasin' The Trane because..why not?

2. Some brain-bending Bach piece that I'd only attempt alone in the middle of an ocean, like The Art of the Fugue or Goldberg Variations. Three years is enough to figure out the Stradella fingering, right?

3. A choral thingy with simple, pristine, & calming changes: maybe The Blue Bird (Villier Stanford) or Kedrov's setting of Otche Nash/Our Father.

 

[Ventura]

days when i wanted to numb my brain into forgetting how many years
i had been stranded in this godforsaken place

Ravel's Bolero

days when i want to disappear into memories of Beauty and Grace

an American in Paris

days when i want to drive the accordion player on the other side of the island nuts

hours and hours of
Take Five

 

[Siegmund]

I know I want one of my three to be the Zolotarev Rondo capriccioso.

I daresay I may need the whole three years for that one alone, unless I am magically blessed with some superpowers from the tropical sunshine.

I'll take the Bach Passacaglia and Fugue in c minor for my second.

I'm gonna have to go hunting for a good transcription of something Romantic-period for my third.

 

[saundersbp]

Really interesting replies - thank you - a lot of Bach and Dave Brubeck is now taking 10 !

 

[Chrisrayner]

1. The theme from Cinema Paradiso

2. As much as I can manage of The Well-Tempered Clavier

3. 4’33” so as to give me time for 1 & 2.

 

[Jim2010]

Here are couple of a Bach suites that might be satisfying to transcribe and play for the gulls and coconuts. If you can bring out the lyrical potential of these pieces, I wouldn't be surprised if some dolphins show up.
Lute Suite BWV 998
Lute Suite BWV 997

 

[losthobos]

I've just spent the last couple of days listening to Keith Jarrett's Koln Concert, what a magnificent piece of piano improvisation....
Already I've found myself lost having hopped down the rabbit hole of gospel music which is why I haven't really had time or inclination to be posting on here of late... anyways the greatest discovery for me is that none of these gospel pieces were written down and remain 'variations on a theme' and more emphasise seems to be on the myriad of choices one could make moving from one chord to another...
So, armed with this concept, I think I enjoy my three years most on the island if I had a simple theme/progression..
1,4,7,3,6,2,5,1 and the freedom to learn how to walk around this framework of a playground and see if I come up with a sound that is as uniquely my own as Keith Jarrett's is his.... obviously that level of mastery would not be reached...but that level of 'spirituality' would be an aspirable destination with which to while away solitude.

 

[saundersbp]

My dad's got the CD of the Koln concert and I remember him playing it pretty non stop to us in the car as children, amazing stuff!

 

[losthobos]

I've been considering my abilities a little deeper and come to the conclusion that it would be better to take three chords to the desert island instead....one for each year.... however between the four, major, minor, dominant and diminished I can't decide who to leave behind...

 

[vivdunstan]

I’m stuck for my third at the moment, but I do have 2.

I’d like to arrange a version of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor that isn’t necessarily strictly authentically classical, but would suit the way I prefer to arrange and play, with rich right hand harmonies and chords on the left.

My second choice is Jamie Smith Mabon’s Accordionist‘s Despair. Crumbs.



My third would probably be something French Musette that is ridiculously hard. And by that I mean far beyond Flambée Montalbanaise. Not sure what yet!

 

[NickC]

I would probably bring:
- Anna with all the ornamentation a la Carlo Venturi.
-Olive Blossoms--Frosini
-Would Hannon, or a method book count? I should really spend a few years working on technique.

I've just spent the last couple of days listening to Keith Jarrett's Koln Concert, what a magnificent piece of piano improvisation....

I found a complete transcription in a sheet music store about 20 years ago. I always loved his solo recordings.