Assignment #4: Passions

What I am most passionate about is music. But what about music? When it comes to music, I enjoy discovering new things that I like that I would incorporate into my own music/ performance habits.

One thing I look for when listening to music are licks.

Yeah, you heard it right. I look for licks in music. The reason I look for these most of all is because by knowing certain licks over certain common chord progressions, you make the art of improvising over those chord progressions a lot easier, and it makes you have to think less about what you’re doing.

In the Jazz space of music, there is a famous lick that is said to be so commonly used, it was named “The Lick.” There is a whole video that just shows examples of the Lick being played in so many songs. It even managed to infiltrate Halo.

So, What Got Me Into This Passion?

I recently got into this passion during the summer of 2023, around August. I didn’t have a piano around since I went on vacation to Barbados. I asked my piano mentor what I should do during that long break since it would be impossible for me to practice, and what he told me was eye opening. He said I should listen to as much music as possible.

While it may seem obvious to most that one should listen to music to get better at music, at the time, I thought that the best thing I could do was practice my instrument. However, after applying this advice during my trip, it become a passion/ hobby that I do often.

During my trip, I listened to a lot of Oscar Peterson, which blew my socks off. He sounded incredible, and, what I liked most of all, his style of performance seemed like something I could try to replicate. His performance was both flashy and simple. The more I listened to him, the more I wanted to practice, but I couldn’t.

Here are some of my favorite performances by Oscar Peterson:

This is my favorite performance by him. Although this performance does not sound like the original song, I feel as if this is how the song was meant to be, and should have been, played when it was first released.

This performance is my second favorite. It shows some of the flashiness of Oscar Peterson’s playing, but also shows how simple, and how often he repeats ideas.

As my family and I were making our way through the airport in order to come back from Barbados, I was shocked to see a public piano waiting to be used. There weren’t many people there too, so I was more inclined to use it, and use it I did. With all the music I listened to on the trip, I was ready to try and replicate at least one thing I heard. Unfortunately for me at the time, I was not able to replicate what I was hearing and sounded horrible trying.

While I did not sound how I thought I would sound after listening to all that music, I was deeply inspired, which fired me up to practice my instrument more. Now, I can replicate what I heard during that summer, and I am eager to continuously look for new things to admire and replicate.