Sunbeam Waltz

Sometimes people ask how long it takes me to make a mashup for my YouTube channel.

I've had a little trouble answering because there are a few steps. I have to come up with the idea of combining two or three songs with the same theme, throw them together, tweak them, practice them, and then find the time to record them.

But I think I have a minimum answer now of start to finish: one week.

Last week I was thinking about how it would be nice to do a mashup with a nice calm Chopin piece. But then I thought, what if I did it with an upbeat Chopin song instead?

So I started playing the Minute Waltz and realized Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam could possibly work with that. But what if there was one that worked better? I opened up my big Chopin book and right on the first page was his Grand Valse Brilliante, better known as the Flamingo song at our house thanks to Sesame Street.

And bam! They worked together so well! And Joseph and Matthew let me practice! So within a few minutes I had a skeleton of what I wanted. Over the next week I found a few minutes here and there to practice, and by Saturday I figured I ought to just throw the whole thing together (it was hard enough that either I had to do it then or practice it for another month to get all the tricky spots) while everyone was playing outside.

So here you go.

A few interesting side notes;

• It is sort of fitting that I was able to play this piece with my cute Sunbeam and his cute friends in mind, because the first time I really tried to play Grand Valse Brilliante was right before he was born. Over the next almost 4 years, I've practiced it here and there, which was a huge help to me this week.
• I have played the real song through just a handful of times. It takes a lot of stamina for me. The first time I played it through was for our Airbnb hosts in Paris. I'm not sure how that happened, and I still wish I had picked something else to play. Ha.
• This was one of the few times I wish I had a real piano with real action and better dynamics. Someday . . .

Church Music Festival

As I briefly mentioned before, while I was in Utah, I had the opportunity to attend the Church Music Festival on Temple Square.

So, if you recall, way back in November 2014, my ward choir performed a hymn I wrote. I decided to submit a simpler version of it to the church music contest last March. (Why simpler? 1. I had written the choral part and the organ part separately, and at the time it seemed hard to combine them without making a song that was a unwieldy 15 pages long, 2. I had spent so long tweaking the first line that I was burned out from looking at it anymore, and 3. I wanted it to be short and compact enough to maybe end up in the Ensign someday. A girl can dream.)

I submitted it, and on the 4th of July, I found out it had gotten Special Recognition! In November, I received an invitation to hear it performed in the February Church Music Festival. Since we didn't go home for Christmas and it aligned pretty well with Kevin's spring break, we decided to plan a trip at a time that we could attend.

So, on the afternoon of the 26th, we drove up to Salt Lake for a dinner and a concert. After we dropped Joseph and Matthew off with family, Kevin and I headed up to the second floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building for a fancy dinner that consisted half of composers and half of Priesthood and Family employees (most of them in the music department). After the dinner, we headed to the Assembly Hall for the concert. The Salt Lake Institute Singers performed 20 of the winning pieces, including mine. Following the concert, I met up with family and chatted for a bit.

That's the basic version of the evening. There was a lot about the evening that made me really happy, and a lot that I learned.

First, here's what made me happy:

• The choir! Oh, that was a talented, beautiful choir. Twenty songs is a lot to learn, and they had most of them memorized. The accompaniment was incredible, the instrumental solos were lovely, and it was just all around a great concert. Now that I know what a great concert it is, I would go each year even if I had no personal connection to it.
• The songs! There were so many gorgeous, well-crafted songs that night. They were recording the concert so we had no applause between numbers, but there were many, many times when I wanted to. I also wished there was a way to send all the sheet music to all the ward choir directors in the world so they could have this great material to work with.
• They said my name right! There were two times that night when my heart started racing. One was about a minute before my song, and the other was right before the director said my name. I shouldn't have worried too much because they emailed asking how to say it, but it still was a major relief.
• Winning! I mean, I only got an honorable mention of sorts, but it still felt really good (especially when I heard that the number of submissions was somewhere between 600 and 1000 across 8 categories). The members of the music committee did a really good job of making us all feel like winners, which was nice.
• Seeing my family! There are times when I really want to be famous -- when I want real musicians to notice me or lots of people to watch my YouTube channel. But then, seeing siblings and friends and parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles filling up a section of the Assembly Hall to support me (and others saying they'd make it if they could) -- it means a lot more than a few dozen more views on a video. So thanks, everyone!
• My kids were good during the concert! I had asked if they could attend because it would make the babysitting situation easier, and they did great! The joke is, there was another child there that sounded enough like Matthew to make me fret from the beginning of my song til the end of the concert, but once I found out it wasn't him, it was such a relief. It was neat to share this experience with them, even if they don't remember it.

There was also a lot I learned both over the course of the evening and in the days since. A lot of what I learned was articulated by Sally DeFord, who was one of the composers with winning pieces and the keynote speaker. (As a side note, when I first submitted songs to the contest, I said, "I will probably lose to either Janice Kapp Perry or Sally DeFord" . . . and I was right! I had also submitted my arrangement of "Come, Ye Disconsolate" in the Relief Society Category, and it hadn't placed, but hers had. No hard feelings.) (As another side note, on the drive to Salt Lake, I said, "I bet Sally DeFord is tired of going to these dinners, so she probably won't make the trip" . . . and I was wrong! So, I was 1 for 2.) I was able to obtain a copy of her talk, so I'll quote some of it here.

One thing that has been hard with sharing my music is sharing imperfections with so many people. On the drive to Salt Lake, I said to Kevin, "You know what? I still don't like the title." There are lines in the hymn that aren't quite right. There are words that don't fit just right. The whole process made me feel incredibly vulnerable.

So I liked what Sally said about that. "[I]f your hands and your heart are willing, the Lord will lead you to the right places and the right people—the ones who will be blessed as you use the gifts He has given you, and it won't matter that your creations aren't perfect. His grace is certainly sufficient for
that."

Another thing she spoke about was criticism. She asked, "Isn't it amazing how one critical voice can drown out all the others?"

I think I know why that's the case. For some reason, criticism is seen as something that only the elite can do. The uneducated masses, they're the ones who have the audacity to enjoy food, music, or movies. But those of us who know better can find everything wrong. When critics clearly have such superior intellect, who wouldn't respect the opinion of a critic more than the opinion of a fan?

But there's a flaw in this argument. We live in the "age of the gifted pickle sucker," to quote President Gordon B. Hinckley. It is a lot easier to tear down than lift up, as anyone who has read YouTube comments can testify. Thus, the voice of a critic really isn't as enlightened as we might fool ourselves into thinking. We can, and must believe the voices who see the good rather than the flaws. They are the ones with a proper perspective.

And of course, the one with the best perspective is the Lord Himself. And He's going to be the kindest, most validating audience of all! As Sally said, "The Lord said that He delights in the song of the heart. He didn't say the flawless song of the heart. You take paper and ink and you write your heart into the lines, and the Lord delights in it. That is, perhaps, the best reward of all—to know that what you do not only teaches and inspires and uplifts His children, but delights His very soul. What a wonderful gift to give back to the Creator who has given us all we have."

Overall, this has been a humbling, enlightening experience. I am grateful for this chance I've had to share a bit of my soul with others, and grateful for the kindness I've received in return.

Behind the scenes of a super famous YouTube artist

Have I talked much yet about my mashup hobby?

I started doing it sometime when I was in high school -- putting a few songs together on the spot for a crowd. Every now and then, if I can think of a way to relate two songs, I refine the mashup and put it on YouTube. (Right here.)

Although I started the YouTube channel back in 2010, I have relatively few videos. There are lots of reasons for that -- dealing with the ebb and flow of creativity, understanding that these are clever and gimmicky but not life-changing, having to practice, not wanting to promote myself (basically, don't count on me ever saying "please subscribe!" at the end of a video), etc.

But the main reason I don't make many these days is that I only have so many hands, and if two of them are at the piano, then they are not holding little kids and babies. And that always leads to adventures.

I really did want to make a video this afternoon, though. It had been a long time coming. I had come up with the idea to combine "I See the Light" from Tangled with "Whole New World" from Aladdin way back in January 2013, but it never came together well. When my sister Jennie asked me to play a musical number at her wedding luncheon in August, I finally figured out what the song needed. I thought I would be able to make a recording of it to put on YouTube by the end of September.

 Clearly, it got put off until now. I finally set a firm deadline that I had to do it by Valentine's, and before the weekend even. Today it was.

So when I put Matthew down for an early afternoon nap, I got to work. I gathered up my crew of makeup and hair artists, costume specialists, videographers, and babysitters, and got to work!

(All of those were me. Except that Toy Story was the babysitter since it was too cold outside for me to find a real one.)

Short version: I made the video. And you will probably like it (at least after the first minute).

Long version: Here are the steps I took. Feel free to follow them at your own leisure if you want to create your own in-home YouTube piano series:

• Give your son headphones while he watches a movie
• Clean the living room, or at least mow what shows. (There's no time to really declutter, just to relocate the toys.) 
  
• Decide that you want to allude to Rapunzel in your hair and clothes. Which probably means you should have some flowers in your hair.
• Make a flower out of fabric held together with Scotch tape. It may or may not look like a flower when it's actually in your hair. 
• Calm the baby who has woken up to the sound of the heater turning on. Make a mental note to turn the heater off while you are playing piano.
• Set up a tripod with a high chair and books. Experiment with various angles.
  
• Dust the piano. That part you can't hide from the camera.
• Retrieve the baby, who has now woken up for good. Cuddle him for a bit, then set him down with a pacifier to contentedly look around and listen to you play.
• Start recording, only to notice the battery that claimed to have 66% power 10 minutes ago is now blinking low battery. It's okay. Toy Story is still going.
• Charge the battery and nurse the baby.
• After nursing and changing the baby, put him with quieter toys like stuffed animals instead of blocks. Hope that you can finish recording before he decides to jabber.
• Put makeup on after all. It might show depending where the camera is positioned.
• Turn the heater off.
• Put the partially-charged battery back in the camera. Move the high chair tripod around a few times to try and get a good angle. It may turn out that you didn't need makeup after all since they can only see your back.
• Do a few test runs with the camera. Change your clothes as necessary.
• Since the baby is antsy now, take him up to his brother (who no longer wants to use headphones). Scout the room for small objects that he can reach from his sitting position. Coast is clear. Tell them to sit and watch the movie for 5 more minutes.
• 30 seconds into recording, hear a lot of squeaking right above you.  Go into the room and discover your older son standing next to a wiggling pile of blankets. "He liked it when I dumped blankets on him," he says as you pull them off your flustered but smiling baby. Explain that when they move at all it squeaks. Toy Story is about done, so turn on a short show for them. Don't berate yourself for all the screen time.
• Start recording again. Play the song with as much musicality and emotion as you can muster. When you make mistakes, don't think about your adviser saying, "No one could tell you made mistakes" when you played for graduation 5 years ago. No, don't do that! Focus on the music at hand! Don't mind the little bit of squeaking upstairs now! You're so close to the end! Don't mess up don't mess up you don't want to start this over . . . you didn't mess up! 
• You did it! You made another video! Go rescue your children.
• . . . When you get cold, turn the heater back on.

And there you have it. Your guide to becoming a super famous YouTube artist.

I'm going to share this video again, just for good measure.

March madness

Our digital piano has 50 built-in pieces, and one of them is Beethoven's Turkish March. I think Joseph likes it.

While we were in the Turkish March mood, I decided to see what he'd do with Mozart's. I didn't know he was tall enough to do this.

Makes me tempted to start playing Sousa marches, too.