This song is The joy of life by Kenny G.
A couple of day ago, also on the same sunday afternoon, I got a call from a friend.
He asked if I would be able to perform for the next saturday for a cultural night, I hesitated for a split second. I had known about this event a few days before, but had no clue as to what to play if I am going to do it.
In my mind, I started to look for excuse, time constraint, will be busy, no pieces to play, too lousy to play etc, although, I really want to play. I was told the rehearsal would be on tuesday.
I began to search for playable music the next day. “Playable” because I was actually considering playing piazzolla’s bordel 1900 with a friend which would be next to impossible in two days. Another friend suggested that I do some chinese pop song with karaoke accompaniment. Definitely a good idea, this will be the easy way out I guess.. Playing classical music to them just doesn’t seem right..
Youtube is certainly my source of inspiration! After an hour, I have several candidate, girl from ipanema, desafinado, gary’s 背叛. Well I listened and listened, it certainly will be hard to come out with improvisation in a night (I had school the next day), but playing pop song always have a pause in the middle which I would not know what to do.
And so I searched even more, some how, from bossa nova flute, I was looking at Jazz flute then jazz saxophone. So what if I played another instrument’s part? Not too sure if it would destroy the song. Then, Kenny G’s “breathless and forever love” caught my eye. The problem was if it would fit the occassion. It would fine if I am driving home on the expressway listening to kenny g, not too sure about a mini concert though.
Anyway, I dug up more of kenny g performing and other videos, it seems that Kenny G is a really great guy like all other musicians. I opened almost all his available youtube videos, and listened to them one after another. Well, come up tops is actually “The Joy of Life”, which fits the theme of positive energy, value creation and happiness, I think.
Now the real problem starts, had I chosen pop music, I would have gotten the backing music really easily, but I don’t see Kenny’s lying around. I spent about an hour figuring how the hell I was going to have my accompaniments. I tried muting the saxophone part from his mp3 by restricting the frequency of the mp3, but it just did not turn out so good. Or should i have a duet with kenny g? Might be really fun. Well the worst was playing by ear, I could not get the difficult parts right, or count how many notes was there when he runs..
Then it dawn upon me that, I might be able to get a midi file version of his solo. Indeed, I manage to get some from ringtone or midi websites. Deleting just the saxophone part from the midi and you get your own minus one!! I think this is such a great idea, I will be able to play any songs now!! haha!!
The next step was getting the notes. After a thorough search, I found a software which is shareware, and converted the saxophone midi into sheet music! How cool is that?!?! Suddenly I am able to play with the cool Kenny G.
This entire process allowed me to respect musicians or artists even more. More often than not, the audience only view the finished product of many hours of practice, effort and thought. Its easy to take them for granted as they appear on the stage, music “flows through” and you think, “what talent this guy has!” Well, he must have worked his ass out!
For me, I am only feeling the tip of the iceberg of what most musicians out there are experiencing. We all want to play the best for the music that we can. I was surprised by myself when I was actually editing the sheet music here and there, thinking would it sound better if I did this and that?
The entire “journey” although lasted a couple of days, but this feeling would definitely be helpful in the coming days. Its a pity there wasn’t much time to duet or trio with another person..
