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JOSIE * MAY

Composer, Arranger, Percussionist

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Transcription * 05/31/24

Bill Evans on "My Funny Valentine"

So I'm thinking this would be a good place to put transcriptions when I do them. Could be solos, could be big band solis, or whatever I feel like doing. This week I transcribed a chorus of Bill Evans' solo on My Funny Valentine, off of the record Undercurrent, with Jim Hall on guitar. I find this version of MFV so fun: The pair take it up in tempo, and at least in the head, forego traditional comping for a bouncy interplay between melody and countermelody, played by Evans and Hall respectively. There're good textural changes during the solos too, like after Evans' first chorus when Hall starts filling out every quarter note with palm-muted chords. It's pretty impressive to have a duo with no bass or drums sound this dynamic and rhythmic. All this to say, I highly recommend listening to the full recording and the full album if you like what you hear.

Moving onto the section I actually transcribed. Some things to note here are: This is a piano transcription, so the slurs are purely my interpretation of the phrasing, particularly in dense eighth note runs that might look indistinguishable otherwise. Also, most of the accents in this solo are fairly subtle. Because of that, I treated them like classical accents, marking any notes I feel are emphasized and using them kind of to show phrasing as well. If I made any mistakes, let me know through my contacts! I'm trying to get a better ear for dense runs without relying on slowing down the recording, so I didn't use speed manipulation while transcribing this solo.


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Test Blog * 03/27/24

VGM Jams and Dragon Quest

Hiya! A year later, and I'm finally coming back to work on this website! So, here's another test blog, mostly to see if I can even manage multiple entries with my lackluster HTML skills. :P I will say, my foundation seems pretty good. Even coming back a year later, it feels easy to add new things to this framework. Not that it's at all an impressive website, but it is surprisingly functional so far!

So, I'm a drummer, and recently I've been going to video game jam sessions in my area. It's a pretty active scene these days, and I'm glad it is as a fan of improvisational music and video game music! I will say though, that my taste in VGM tends to skew niche and I do wish that I could call tunes from the soundtracks *I* love. With Akira Toriyama's death this past month, I've been replaying the work of his closest to my heart: Dragon Quest IX on the DS. I used to play this game all the time as a kid, and even just hearing this music again has been very emotional for me. I don't know many people who played this or any Dragon Quest game, and it's a weird feeling to be so alone in that rediscovery of something. If you want to listen to the OST, the Observatory theme "Heaven's Prayer" is a nice track. It's DS hardware but Koichi Sugiyama does some truly outstanding work with it.


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Test Blog * 04/16/23

This'll be a quick test blog while I work on my website :0. I just want to see if this is something I can and would like to keep up with doing since the site is mostly just a place to host my music and whatever else I may need to link to. But I also enjoy talking when no one is listening, and this appeals to that urge, lol.

...So I don't know about you but I've been really getting into Ace Attorney recently; I used to play Dual Destinies as a wee one and am going back to play the DS games. Haven't gotten to Ema's case but I hear it's quite good. I know all of the story beats of the first game except for that case, so no spoilers, you imaginary rascal! I've got my eye on you. ;)