1. Stephen Said,

   Hi Alan,

   What you do is amazing. As you’ve mentioned elsewhere, sheet music never sounds anything like the real thing, but the few pieces I’ve listened to of yours seem to sound almost better than the original

   I’d consider myself reasonably good at picking up a tune by ear, and am reasonably confident I could listen to a piece of music and pull out the melody, chords etc, but the improvisation is where I would struggle; I could easily play it so it sounds like the right music, but all the extra notes in between is where your pieces seem to stand out.

   In fact, the piece I first saw (on youtube, Rhythm of the Rain) I enjoyed so much I’ve been studying it myself, and have managed to have about two thirds of the way through memorised now, nearly note for note (it’ll be interesting when I get the point where you transpose everything with a single button push ;))

   I would love to see your actual handwritten notes to go along with some of the songs so that I could try playing some of them too. I understand you don’t like reading music, but as someone who does, if you ever combined with could take your music and actually write it in the normal fashion, that would be incredible. So many times I think ‘I wish there was sheet music for that song’; half the time there isn’t, and half the time its terrible. I wouldn’t be surprised if you could make a bit of money writing sheet music *on request*, like your job. I’d definitely be buying some if you ever took that up.

   Looking forward to listening to more music

2. pianopod Said,

   Hi Stephen
   It’s really great to read your comments, and thanks for being the very first one to write .

   Yes, when hearing songs, you really have to try and listen to the counter melodies ( whether sung by another singer/s, played by an instrument etc.) that come in as ‘gap-fillers’ between sections of the main melody, as they really help enrich the song. At first I was also really puzzled with them, but as I account for these notes in my listening and writing of my own notes, they just lend themselves to other songs, and next thing, you just know how to apply them around toehr songs.

   I’ll be writing about this more later. There’s so much I’d still like to write about and also illustrate with video, but it’s just finding the time.
   I’d like to do a lot of song tutorials, and will perhaps include Rhythm of the Rain one day. I play of the ear on this one, and have no notes.

   I’ll put up a page soon on some of my alpha notes. I recognize the potential of what you mentioned about writing conventional notes; however, there’re probably copyright issues involved when you try and sell those sheet… I mean, what would the publisher say? (haha).

   Alan

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