Alright, I confess—maybe it was that sojourn at the Coffee Bean last week that triggered the sentimentalist in me. After listening to them playing all those Christmas songs sung by the likes of Bing Crosby, Doris Day, Judy Garland, Nat King Cole, etc. I emerged feeling a wee bit woozy, but it was a nice, warm feeling inside me (and yeah, maybe the Ice Blended Coffee contributed to it too) Anyways, what better way to express it or let it out but through music, and so here’s my own personal recording and arrangement of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. This song was first sung by Judy Garland in the 1944 MGM musical Meet Me in St. Louis. The lyrics were criticized as being too depressing in its original draft, so songwriter Hugh Martin made several changes. Here are the tweaked lyrics, in case you want to sing along with my playing:

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Let your heart be light
From now on,
our troubles will be out of sight
Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Make the Yuletide gay,
From now on, 
our troubles will be miles away.
Here we are as in olden days,
Happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more.
Through the years 
We all will be together,
If the Fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.
And have yourself A merry little Christmas now.

 

I recorded all the backing tracks myself, putting in a sad muted trumpet first, followed by another solo trumpet. And I have another confession to make—I had actually wanted to modulate a half-step higher near the end, from C major to C sharp major. But as I was recording it, I detoured to A flat major instead. It sounded different but I liked it, so I left it in. Hope you enjoy this performance of mine.

If you’d like to listen to my piano-only version, it’s online here.

May the coming Christmas season fill all our hearts with love, peace, and joy.

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There comes a point in one’s life (mine) where consuming leftovers day in and day out results in an astounding “Enough!” emanating from my lips. Not surprisingly, the MO shared the same sentiments so we decided to go out for lunch. I decided on a place called Mizi’s Bistro in town. I felt this was the place to take said MO for lunch, knowing that they served big-sized portions (I did some advanced research scouring the local food blogs)

Mizi’s isn’t a big place, but they have a set lunch going for the princely sum of $6USD per head. You have your choice of soup, main course, a soft drink, and you can eat all the ice cream you want for dessert (that’s right). I chose the mushroom soup (don’t blech, Miss Miller) and it was delicious, thick and creamy and doesn’t give the impression of coming from a can.

The MO chose a grilled chicken smothered with mushroom sauce, and when it appeared even he was startled with the generous portions. He finished it, by the way.

As for myself, I ordered a club sandwich. I think they should have renamed it the Windows 7 club sandwich, the thing was just so darn big. It made the Windows 7 Whopper pale by comparison.

Last but not least, we helped ourselves to some overflowing portions of wonderful ice cream (I didn’t want to take pictures of the ice cream that we guzzled because it would reinforce the image that we were piggish) All in all, it was a very nice lunch, but I am just so full (burp!)

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In contrast to my blogging episode at Starbucks a few weeks ago (the latte was watered down, Internet connectivity was poor, and lots of children were running around) I decided tonight to cross over to the Coffee Bean for some web surfing away from home. And what a difference! I ordered a nice Ice Blended Hazelnut coffee with cream (very nice aroma and thick), I was alone in the air-conditioned section and the wireless connectivity’s excellent. And LOL, they’re already playing Christmas tunes in the background.

Speaking of Christmas, I can hardly believe that 2009 will be drawing to a close in a month or so. I’ll be accompanying the E & O Nightingales when they sing Christmas carols for the lighting of the Christmas Tree in the hotel lobby on December 1. This will be my 5th time doing it—I still get an adrenaline rush on the actual day…will post some pictures if I can remember.

Awww, Bing Crosby’s singing “White Christmas” as I’m typing this—that song always gets to me when I hear him sing it (yeah I’m such a softie) No more Christmas presents for me, since I’ve already acquired my Dell Studio 15 laptop and my Canon PowerShot SX120IS digital camera. And dang someone’s singing “The Christmas Song” over the speakers—I like these tunes when they’re done in a mellow style.

Right now a close friend of mine is celebrating her birthday, while another friend should be expecting her baby daughter anytime now (edit: she has given birth to a healthy baby girl). It’s so nice to have Windows Live Messenger to keep in touch with my close friends—I feel as if the miles don’t matter any more. I’m sitting back and chuckling at how difficult it was to keep in touch with my parents, for example, when I was studying in Arizona in the early ‘80’s. Snail mail (aka air mail) used to take roughly 10 days, and the only other forms of communication were the Western Union telegram and/or calling them on IDD. If only we had email and instant messaging then!

Okies, time to pack it up and head back home. And if you’re a Starbucks fan, I apologize…each to his/her own tastes, right?

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November 23 marks the birthday of a wonderful friend I’ve managed to reconnect with recently. Rather than presenting the birthday song here, I’ve decided to rustle up Somewhere Over the Rainbow instead. No flashy licks or wild runs, because this song doesn’t need it. It’s just one of those melodies that speaks for itself.

Happy birthday, my dear friend. I’ll meet you somewhere over the rainbow, someday

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I’ve thought and toyed with the idea of creating another blog just for my musical ramblings; I think about this most often when I’m in the pool, in-between laps. And the mind (at least my mind) sure is funny, it tries to cook up excuses…so I was saying to myself something like “Nah, it’s too difficult, I have no idea how to create a new self-hosted blog…” This went on for a couple of days and then I decided I had to do something. I IMed a friend or two, picked their brains, and scoured the web. And good grief, it’s so easy to create a new blog when you already have a web host. All I had to do was go to Fantastico in my control panel, select WordPress, fill in some details, and before I could even make a cup of java my new WordPress blog had been installed and was ready to go. Yay!

No flourish of trumpets, no drum rolls, no swank parties at the Ritz-Carlton…well maybe someday. Anyway, I hope you’ll check out my new blog and see what you think. I’m gonna chronicle my musical teaching career and my cocktail piano stints throughout the past 25 years. Yeah it’ll do wonders for the old grey matter. It will also keep me out of the devil’s paws, muahaha! Read it and please let me know what you think. I thrive on comments. And leftovers too.

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Yup, that’s the title of a Pet Shop Boy’s song (and very nice it is too) and that’s precisely what I did today—I just slipped into a state of vegetation. Well I still had to log on the Net (this is like oxygen to me), I folded my clothes (but did absolutely no ironing—I am not permitting that sordid torture on myself today), I did my usual morning walk and swim, cooked the rice and leftovers…but aside from that, did nothing else. And I don’t feel a single strand of guilt coursing through my veins. Nope, in fact I feel good, hee hee.

The only bit of work I did was thinking (only thinking, mind you) about moving or consolidating my website into a brand new blog. Nothing concrete yet, just throwing some ideas back and forth; thinking, thinking. This was a day where my mind just flatly refused to do anything much. It always happens like that to me on Mondays, and the reason is because on Sundays I do some intense teaching. Don’t believe me? Go ask the victims, LOL I mean my students. Lest anybody thinks that teaching piano is kid’s stuff, it is most definitely not!! Perhaps I’ll expound about this further in my new blog.

Typing this out on my Dell laptop as usual Love Windows 7, it’s working great so far. Maybe I’ll upgrade my desktop after the New Year…OK, that’s enough work on this blog post, let me go bore myself—only 4 more hours before Monday ends and then it’s back to a normal state for me.

P/S Just stumbled on this article in realage.com: Happy and Healthy: Go Ahead, Goof Off Today. I feel even better now!

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Yes, why not? After all when we wake up every morning we have a choice: we can either say it’s going to be a good day or it’s going to be a bad day. Guess which one I always focus on…anyways, some small but happy nuggets were tossed my way recently, probably by my guardian angel.

First off I had a talk last week with the administrator of the music school I teach in. Turns out that there was this parent who was adamant that his son learn under me. The administrator said that the parents didn’t want any other teacher, ever since they saw me judging at the recent Piano Idol. And um…I was very flattered, and touched. No I wasn’t turning peacockish, but sometimes when you give your all to your music students and don’t find any gratitude returning, it can be pretty disconcerting. This was a nice change. Anyway, the parents pleaded with me for the whole of last month to please, please find a slot to fit their son in, and I eventually relented…I just couldn’t turn them down. So now I’m teaching their 9 year-old son, who is already preparing for his ABRSM Grade 6 practical exam next year. One happy pair of parents, and one happy teacher.

Another thing that made me smile recently was reconnecting with my MO (male offspring). Last week we went for a very nice lunch at one of the shopping malls here, and then we both hit the bookstore. It was nice, bearing in mind that teenagers normally don’t want to talk with their folks. I guess it’s sort of tuning in to each other’s wavebands or frequencies—just finding that sweet spot. So that was nice for me. And I hope it was nice for him too.

On top of that, I had another surprise coming from him. A few days ago he unplugged his Linksys wireless USB adapter and told me to keep it, since his final exams for the year were just around the corner and he wanted to focus on studying instead of browsing the web. I felt like the dad in Zits (the comic strip), my mouth was wide open and I was totally speechless–all I can say is, this MO does possess some responsibility after all (smiles).

Right now I’m typing this in Starbucks—muahaha!! My Dell Studio 15 is great, but be warned—the thing is heavy (around 5.5 lbs or 2.5 kg). Using a backpack (recommended!) instead of a shoulder bag makes it better, but still it did cause my shoulders to ache, or is that a sign of old age, LOL. Then again, it’s super to get out of the confines of home and blog elsewhere…just have to filter the other customers out. And mein gott, the coffee isn’t what I’d call cheap; no I won’t be doing this too often. However, I gotta admit, it is enjoyable.

The only drawback is that I believe my desktop is shedding tears. A friend said that I’d definitely be abandoning my desktop for this girl…and it looks like she’s right. But don’t worry, my dear desktop—I won’t leave you, hee hee!

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