#52, Evening Exchanges

Quiet North Shore, North Shore, Oahu, Hawaii, May ‘08, artistic view.


Boat At Sunset, North Shore, Oahu, Hawaii, May ‘08, artistic view.


Evening Exchanges, Santa Clara, California, July ‘08, Piano Solo, Composed by Vatsek.

It has been about a week since I started working on Evening Exchanges, but it is finished now. Decided to introduce some of my conversations with others during recent weeks into this piano tune. Not literally but the essence of them. You should hear that from music. Written in an F minor key, 78 bars, and 3:50 minutes long. Hope you will listen to it more than once. Please leave comments if you do so.
I do leave snippets of information on twitter during composing, not much but a little bit. You can follow me if you care to know how things are moving along. Since I am fairly new to twitter, it's going to take some time to figure out how, when, about what, tone, etc. to tweet. So far things are progressing quite smooth, and are quite fun. Have a good time listening to Evening Exchanges.

Sheet music: Sara Bareilles - Love Song, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Alicia Keys - No One, EMI Music Publishing, Coldplay - Viva La Vida, Universal Music Publishing Group, from http://www.musicnotes.com.

#51, Nights and Piano Solo Piece

It’s Quiet Now, Waikiki, Hawaii, May ‘08, artistic view.

It Wasn’t Me!, Honolulu, Hawaii, May ‘08, artistic view.


Nights and Piano, Santa Clara, California, July ‘08, Piano Solo, Composed by Vatsek.

Just finished this piano solo piece and decided to call it Nights and Piano. Spent many nights working on it, and many days thinking what and how to write it. It is not too heavy; I try to keep it a bit on a romantic side. If you enjoy it, please let me know. In a few moments, I will be thinking about another piece. Did try it with other instruments, in unison only, no attempt to arrange it for several instruments. As it was, sounded quite good, which means that I probably should sit down for few more days and write for those other instruments as well. Let me think about it. The score will be available for download as soon as I get my other web site up and running.
What else? Twitter is getting more and more fun, I hope it does not start to control me in any way, although that could happen, I see it, no kidding.

Dinner: Sushi Boat at a Kobe Japanese Restaurant, http://www.kobesushi.com. $25.57 with tip.

Later in the evening: A glass of a cold Umeshu plum wine, http://www.choya.com.

Books: Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky, Guide To The Practical Study Of Harmony, Dover Publications, Inc, http://www.doverpublications.com, ISBN 0-486-44272-1. Can you imagine the original was published in 1900!

Norah Jones, Come Away With Me, Piano - Vocal - Guitar, Hal Leonard Corp., http://www.halleonard.com, and EMI Music Publishing, ISBN 0-634-95264-0.

#50, How Many Videos Should You Make?

Waikiki Past Midnight, Waikiki, Hawaii, May ‘08, artistic view.


Change In Direction, North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii, May ‘08, artistic view.

A small anniversary today, I managed to write 50 blogs! I definitely should write more often, but actually there would not be enough to write about, I’m afraid. Always try to have something to write about, and avoid writing just for the purpose of writing. So big congratulations to me. The traffic to this blog is slowly picking up, and does depend on how many new things are published. From time to time, I wonder if the subject matter is correct, please tell me what you think. Checking again my YouTube video subscription update as of Sat, July 5, 2008, here are stats and my comments. It appears that there is already a limit of 20 videos imposed by YouTube, very good. Why not ask for quality and not for quantity?

#	USERNAME	COMMENT
20	expertvillage	Many videos on the same subject.
20	katalina2007	Do they have to be so short?
20	tHEnOOSEsWINGS	Classical music is fine, but at this volume?
19	iThinkVideos	I don't think videos!
18	clockworkmeltdown	No doubt some kind of meltdown!
13	Aceswolf	A video per day for the whole year. No, please, no! Stop!
11	lockergnome	Henry Ford of videos is slowing down! Getting older, wiser?

Are you convinced that making lots of videos on YouTube works? There is no sign of that. If you look at the 100 most subscribed list, there are people who made over 500+ videos in the past two years and are moving toward an exit on that list, or already exited it some time ago. This actually is a good sign. I do not have many of those people on my subscription list, although I used to have. As you well know by now, producing good videos, I mean quality videos, takes plenty of time, and can also be quite expensive. After making those videos for a while, you are going to either exhaust your subjects, get bored, start to think that it is just not worth spending so much effort and money. Theoretically being in a YouTube Partner Program, was supposed to take care of some of those issues. But does it?

Dinner: Near vegetarian with some chicken, iced tea, at Fresh Choice, http://www.freshchoice.com. Two large, ripe, and juicy organic peaches later in the evening.

Blog recommendation: How to Change the World by Guy Kawasaki, http://blog.guykawasaki.com/.

Interesting to check: Fifty Most Influential Female Bloggers, http://northxeast.com/.

#49, Going Back Home Music Composed

I'm So Pretty, Oahu, Hawaii, May ‘08, artistic view.


Left Turn, Waikiki, Hawaii, May ‘08, artistic view.

This piano solo was composed for my next YouTube video called Going Back Home. It actually is about returning back home from a nice trip. Spent on it more than two weeks, tweaking it a bit every single day. Hope you like it. The score in PDF format will be available very soon; you can try to play it on your own. As a matter of fact, I would like to hear your opinion about it, along with your inputs for me for the future. Thanks for stopping by. Perhaps making mp3’s available would be cool, I am thinking about it as well, and soon the mp3 button is likely to appear on these blog pages.


Going Back Home, Santa Clara, California, July ‘08, Piano Solo, Composed by Vatsek.

Dinner: Udon soup, teriyaki salmon with brown rice, sesame chicken salad, edamame, iced tea, at Happi House, http://www.happihouse.com. With tax $16.52.

Reading a book: David A. Crowder, Building a Web Site For DUMMIES, 3rd ed, http://www.wiley.com, ISBN 978-0-470-14928-7. Bought at Barnes & Noble, http://www.bn.com.