TimothyGondola

Kids On The Slope– But Not For Me

My first time transcribing an animated cartoon :) . Japanese pianist Yōko Kanno plays But Not For Me, on the amazing anime Sakamichi No Apollon, or "Kids On The Slope." This is an anime about jazz pianists; what's most remarkable is the animation matches 100% perfectly what is being played, whether it is piano or drums or another instrument!

PDF & MIDI attached below.

Jazz Piano Improvisation Course

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Jesús Molina plays Turkish March

Return of Jesús Molina– blazing through the keys! 

PDF & MIDI attached below. 

Weak| Taylor Eigsti

Jazz giant Taylor Eigsti delivers an incredibly organic cascade of notes in this powerful solo! Playing alongside an amazing jazz singer, Gretchen Parlato. This is one of my favorite piano solos!

I've attached the PDF and MIDI below, enjoy!!

Are big hands really that great for piano?

You might be surprised to hear that there are downsides to having big hands at the piano! Read Mitchell Wooldridge's blogpost in the Gondola Music Music In Motion blog, here. 

Street Fighter III- Sharp Eyes| Terrance Shider

It's been years since I've transcribed Terrance Shider. Here's to the good ol' days~

The PDF & MIDI will remain attached below until November 1st. [After November 1st: Gondola Music Shop]

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The Challenges Of Transcribing– by Piano VI

Our second blogpost was published on September 1st on the website. Great analysis by transcriber, arranger, and YouTuber Piano VI.  Read it over if you haven't yet!

Best,

Timothy

Sea Glass| Joey Calderazzo

Sublime jazz poem from the great Joey Calderazzo. Check out the harmonies, and for your personal jazz training, try transposing some of these chords to different keys. 

The PDF & MIDI are attached below.

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Liberace's Version of Saber Dance

Enjoy my transcription of Saber Dance, with a twist! :) Brought back memories of when I used to play the original version in my younger days. PDF & MIDI attached below! 

Joey Alexander plays Bali

Joey Alexander is a young Indonesian pianist. This is my transcription of his composition "Bali." He began teaching himself jazz piano at age 6 by copying records he listened to, amazing!!

Joey's official website: https://joeyalexandermusic.net/

The PDF & MIDI will remain attached below until October 1st. [After October 1st: Gondola Music Shop]

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Be My Love| Erroll Garner

After all these years, this is my first time transcribing the great Erroll Garner.

The 30% off discount on the course expires September 7th, be sure to take advantage! https://www.gondolamusic.co/jazz-piano-improvisation-welcome 

The PDF & MIDI will remain attached below until October 1st. [After October 1st: Gondola Music Shop]

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Gondola Music and the Jazz Piano Improv Course have launched!

Dear Patreon family, welcome to Gondola Music! For the past year I’ve been working on several big projects:

New official website: https://www.gondolamusic.co/

Jazz Piano Improvisation Course 

29 in-depth video lessons with 100+ pages of supplementary materials. I designed this course to teach you not what to play, but how to play, and equip you with the tools to teach yourself to play jazz (30% off sale until September 7th!)

Notes 

Music theory guides, various scales, modes in all 12 keys, with included fingerings, available at your fingertips. More to come.

Blog 

Learn from music artists themselves about various topics, from transcription to pedagogy, to neuroscience, to philosophy, to the latest happenings in the music world.

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Gondola Music is a music education, research and community platform to support and inspire musicians across the world, teachers, institutes, jazz departments, schools and students.

George Shearing plays It Never Entered My Mind

Some beautiful music from George Shearing, inspired by Erik Satie's Gymnopédie. The opening harmony is simple, but George Shearing expounds upon it later. 

Timothy 

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[Behind The Scenes] Jazz Improvisation Course

As many of you know, for the past 12 months I’ve been developing a ground-breaking jazz piano course. It has taken a long time because I’ve set out to develop a unique learning method accessible to all levels, whether you’re brand new to jazz piano or have a lot of experience. 

I have finished filming and am working on final editing touch-ups. I’ve also been redesigning and rebranding my entire website, which will now include a blog, and extensive free music theory notes and guides. I’m aiming to launch the new website and course by the end of next week. In the meanwhile, you can look forward to:

• 29 in-depth video lessons
• Multiple hours worth of video instruction 
• 142 pages of PDF instructionals, theory guides, and various scales and modes in all 12 keys with included fingering
• Active homework exercises
• Tools and strategies to teach yourself how to play jazz
• A structured, systematic approach to learning jazz piano segmented in 8 weeks
• Instruction covering the following topics: approaches (enclosures), basslines, comping in left hand, comping with both hands, chord outlines, scale shapes, painting palettes, rhythmic figures, basic improvisation methods 1-3, dealing with mistakes, playing "out," stride, rhythmic & melodic patterns, call & response, rhythm, and more...

Stay tuned and you’ll be the first to know when the course and website launches. I want to remind you that the only reason this course has been possible to create is because of your monthly support, whether small or great. Without this income, I would not be in a position to continually transcribe, work on videos, and innovate new projects. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your patronage!

Cheers,

Timothy

Fly Me To The Moon| Brandon Goldberg

Young prodigy Brandon Goldberg dazzled the audience of the JLCO (Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra) several years back. Amazing!

The PDF & MIDI will remain attached below until September 1st. [After September 1st: Gondola Music Shop]

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Hello| David Osbourne

David Osbourne plays his beautiful and soaring take on the Lionel Richie classic! 

PDF & MIDI attached below~

Tadow- FKJ's synth solo

Certified vibe "Tadow" is Masego and FKJ's masterpiece from a few years back. I've taken the liberty to transcribe the synth solo, enjoy and thank you to all patrons for supporting this work!

Ruslan Sirota demonstrates 2-5 improv

Beautiful and baffling chromatic improv skills from Ruslan Sirota, who circles through almost every key! PDF & MIDI attached below.

Summer Sale

Dear patrons, to celebrate summer I am launching a 10% discount on all scores until July 10th. This is in addition to your 20% patron discount through the patron store. 

Warm regards,

Timothy

Strange Chord Contest

Hey everyone, I'm launching a Strange Chord Contest this week. Come up with the strangest, most dissonant chord you can possibly think of and notate it with pen and paper or digitally.

Once you've got it, submit a picture of your chord in the giveaway channel of our Discord (https://discord.gg/uCqnzYmH).

I'll take a look at all submissions and will award the following prizes this Friday 7/1.  

NOTE: the strangeness of the chord is strange in so far that it departs from a traditional chord harmony, so a crazy cluster of notes does not count as strange because it has no harmonic foundation to it. And– the chord must be playable on the piano with 10 fingers!

1st place: 3 free transcriptions of your choice
2nd place: 2 free transcriptions of your choice
3rd place: 1 free transcription of your choice  

Good luck!
Timothy

Someday My Prince Will Come| Zaccai Curtis

Some fantastic and creative improv on one of my go-to jazz standards– "Someday My Prince Will Come." Enjoy!

🎬  Original video: http://y2u.be/ExwCI2inR5E

The PDF & MIDI  will remain attached below until July 1st. [After July 1st: Gondola Music Shop]

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Emily Bear plays Emily

Piano prodigy Emily Bear plays her namesake piece!

PDF & MIDI attached below. Thank you everyone for your support! Wouldn't be able to transcribe these tunes without you guys.

Cory Henry plays NaaNaaNaa

The genius! Transcribed in full here.

Original video from TSF Jazz: http://y2u.be/ZYlSxmfc-tM

The PDF & MIDI  will remain attached below until July 1st. [After July 1st: Gondola Music Shop]

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The Girl From Ipanema| David Becherer

Dave Becherer plays one of my favorite songs, the Girl From Ipanema! "A Garota De Ipanema" in Brazilian Portuguese. Fun fact: Tom Jobim wrote this song about a real girl whom he saw walking the Ipanema beach every week. 

The PDF & MIDI  will remain attached below until July 1st. [After July 1st: Gondola Music Shop]

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PYP Plays Night Train

A presentation snippet of the complete transcription available here.

Enjoy!

What is a transcription?

What purpose does a transcription serve? As sheet music, its intended user is the musician who wants to play. Playing could mean a variety of things for different artists. The college me sought to play note-for-note the jaw-dropping improvisations of Oscar Peterson and Art Tatum, as a shortcut to jazz excellence. But another purpose was to appropriate Tatum and Peterson’s vocabulary through osmosis. The more I played their music, the more I fed my subconscious muscle memory and harmonic mind.

Then, when transcribing Chick Corea in 2018, I discovered that a transcription can be more than sheet music. It is also a historical document: a record of the pianist’s intentions, emotions, approach, and musicality. But how does one distill complex movements, harmonies, and nuanced rhythms into notation? What’s more, transcribing at this level of detail can put your sheet music at odds with the musician who will read it. Sure, 17:12 is the appropriate subdivision Cory Henry played in his rendition of Amazing Grace, but how legible is that for the pianist? In this case, it is fairly legible. The key is to practice playing the notes in that subdivision without regard for tempo, and then reverse engineer your speed to fit within the allotted time in that measure.

So: eccentric subdivisions are still quite playable, but what about ghost notes? Not so much. In my arrangement of How Great Thou Art, I originally used many ghost notes to distinguish between the main melody/harmonic notes and the filler ghost notes. Several viewers commented on how this hindered the playability, and it would be better to simply use regular noteheads all around. This leaves it up to the pianist to try to recreate my style, or interpret into a different style as he pleases. I’ve now sacrificed the historical accuracy of this transcription in order to make the manuscript more playable. Someone who may want to study my transcription from an analytical approach would be unable to detect the nuances of my intonation and approach on the piano.

Another tradeoff is when the pianist is playing quarter notes that are not quite that long, and played more like eighth notes. Should the notes be written accurately as eighth notes, resulting in a clunky array of rests and eighth notes, or should they simply be written as quarter notes? This is one of the many tradeoffs between playability and historical accuracy. As a transcriber, it is my goal to strike a balance between the two, one which may shift depending on the particular transcription and its intended audience.

To learn more about the fascinating intricacies of music notation, I recommend this interview by concert pianist Tiffany Poon with two editors from Henle Urtext, in which they discuss all of the considerations that go into creating sheet music.

~Timothy

Takin' It To The Streets

Michael McDonald, who sings often with Kenny Loggins, also kills it on the keys! 

PDF & MIDI attached below. Thank you dearly for supporting this YouTube channel and my musical endeavours!

~Timothy

Funk Synth Solo| Robi Botos

Crazy funky synth solo from the inimitable Robi Botos! 

PDF & MIDI attached below.

Wouldn't It Be Loverly? | Fred Hersch

This is my fourth installment of Fred Hersch. The other three being Corcovado, Both Sides Now, and Pretty Girl. 

Hersch is an American jazz pianist, educator, and composer. He has a unique temperament on the piano which you will discover!

https://fredhersch.com/

The PDF & MIDI will remain attached below until June 1st. [After June 1st: Gondola Music Shop]

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Fresh Prince Of Bel Air| Armand Hutton

My first a capella transcription! As I was transcribing it dawned on me how inventive Armand is with his rhythms and harmonies. 

To see more of Armand's work and visit his record label- Hutton Records, click here: https://www.youtube.com/user/huttonrecords

The greatest synth solo of all time

Cory Henry plays Skate U, a Snarky Puppy composition. Wait until the synth kicks in at 1:48! 

PDF & MIDI will remain attached to the post until May 1st. Enjoy! [After May 1st: Gondola Music Shop]

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