New Thing #343: Play Me I'm Yours

I had written off Boston's version of 'Play Me I'm Yours' a while ago. It seemed like it could be a great New Thing, but it was only going to be around Boston through early October.

I knew it would be hard for me to get into Boston just to play a public piano at that time of year.

(If you don't know, 'Play Me I'm Yours' is a public art installation featuring pianos left around a number of cities. This edition had them in Boston and Cambridge in September and October.)

Turns out, though, that while the Boston and Cambridge pianos still in good condition were given to charities, two remained: one at Logan Airport and the other at Quincy Market.

Turns out, I ran into that Quincy Market piano last week when I went to the Bodies exhibit at Faneuil Hall.

I'll be honest with you: one of these last few Music Mondays I was going to publish a video of myself singing a song at the piano. That would be a very New Thing.

I tried a test run one morning on a recent weekend, recording myself singing, and it had been a while since I saw myself sing. It's not great. It always sounds good when I belt something out for the girls - they seem to love it. My wife seems to have grown indifferent to it.

But - and I'm not writing myself off forever as a casual singer…it could have just been a bad morning for my voice, and I'm convinced that certain songs are entirely within my singing ability (the holidays are always a good time - I think Christmas songs fall within that category) - I don't think I'm ready to put out a video of me singing and playing the piano.

Just playing the piano, though? I'm better at that. So that's what I'm doing today.

A couple of things I need to say about the following video: I went with Billy Joel's Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel). It's my go-to when I need to play something from memory. (This is the first time I've ever needed to play something from memory for an audience, unwitting though they were.) Over the years, though, I've lost some piano-playing memory. You might notice a couple of  spots in the video where I just forget the notes. It's not as egregious on video than it felt, though, when it was happening. (I think it frustrates my brother that I rely on note-reading so much when I play the piano. But I just don't have the ear for it. I'm getting a little better, I can kind of sense the appropriate chord in certain situations, but as you can see in the video it doesn't always happen that I play the appropriate chord or note. I admire those who can hear something and then re-create it with no notes on a musical instrument.)

Also, I went with the American Idol arrangement of the song - you know, I didn't feel like you needed to sit through two of the exact same verses, so I jumped from verse one to the bridge to the ending of the song.

I think that's about all you need to know. I was with my co-teacher for the exhibit, so she graciously took the video...and helped talk me into playing. So thanks to her for that. (And for cheering at the end.)

I'm kind of proud of myself for doing it - Quincy Market wasn't crowded, but it certainly wasn't empty. I got quite a rush, too, from playing in public. I hope you enjoy.

New Thing #341: A YouTube Account

Here's a terrible thing that's happening more and more lately: I keep forgetting certain passwords.

Not like e-mail or Facebook passwords - ones I use often.

The ones I use more rarely are the ones that don't stay in my head.

Two factors contribute to this - one being that I always log out of a site when I leave it, and the other is that I use different passwords for most sites.

I think I might have to change my approach, because it's preventing me from signing up for new online accounts.

But I tell you all this because I have yet another account to keep track of.

Last week I tried a New Thing with video attached to it.

And I figured the easiest way to share it with you (coming soon!) would be to put it on YouTube rather than upload it right here.

But in order to do that, I needed to have a YouTube account.

Now, you know I'm no stranger to YouTube - I've embedded plenty of videos from it on this site over the course of this year.

It's just that I've never had an actual YouTube account before.

Except I have, apparently. Sometime in the past couple of months I started to get YouTube e-mails on my gmail account. I don't remember signing up for them, but when I clicked onto YouTube to sign up for an account, it brought me to gmail.

So I signed in with my gmail account, and automatically I was on my YouTube account, where I could apparently set up video stations and all manner of things.

And I could upload video…which I'll do sometime this weekend, and then I'll post on Monday here a link to what I uploaded over there.

The best part of this whole YouTube thing?

Since it's the same as my gmail account, I don't have to think up another new password.

New Thing #334: Voting For A Friend's Video

Have you seen these commercials during NFL games about why people love football? I know I have, but they didn't make huge impressions on me at the time.

There was some woman who was a Jets fan who battled breast cancer, there was some little girl who participated in Punt, Pass, and Kick I think, and if I'm not mistaken there was one with Condoleeza Rice.

Well, apparently, people submitted their videos in the hopes of winning a trip to the Super Bowl.

And now the contest is down to ten finalists.

And I have a suggestion for which one you should vote for.

Please.

I have a friend named Rob who currently works at NFL Films.

We met more than a decade ago when we worked together at a Boston TV station, spending countless dinner times together watching and talking sports before frantically slapping together highlights before our respective 10pm and 11pm sports broadcasts. (Countless might be an exaggeration. We didn't work together for all that long. It was probably something like a couple of hundred. If that.)

We became fast friends, and even though we didn't work together for a terribly long time, we've stayed in pretty close touch in the years since we last worked together.

It's notable, because I'm not too great about keeping in touch with people. But Rob is one of the nicest people I know.

It helps, too, that we have a ton in common, and so whenever we text or talk on the phone, even if something seems to come out of nowhere we're pretty much on the same page.

I tell you all this because the last time I talked to Rob was a couple of weeks ago as he was driving to Harlem. (I think that's what he said - the phone connection was terrible, and we wasted the good connection talking about Andy Dalton's completed Hail Mary to A.J. Green. It's what we do.) He was working on a piece for this NFL promotion, and you can see the work he and other producers did at togetherwemakefootball.com.

And then while you're there you can vote for Rob's piece, on Khordae, because he asked me to spread the word about it, and he never asks for anything, so I'm glad to help him out.

It's easy - I voted already, and all you have to do is submit an e-mail address when you click on 'Vote'.

Rob pointed out that Khordae's story might not have been the most compelling on the site. But I watched a few of the others. They're all well done…but none of them are terribly inspiring. (I liked the 74-year-old football player…but with all due respect, I'm sure he can pay his own way to the Super Bowl.)

All I needed to know was whether or not Khordae was as good a kid as he seems in the video. Rob confirmed that the boys and their dad were good people, and great for him to work with.

Rob - a good person who was great to work with - knows what he's talking about in that department.

So do me - and Rob - a favor and vote for Khordae.

Thank you.

New Thing #243: My First Vine

I've heard people say that since Instagram came out with its video feature, Vine was going to become obsolete. (This happened, incidentally, immediately after I decided to download Vine and give it a shot.)

Seems to me Vine has hung in there OK...but even if it hasn't (I guess I don't quite have my finger on that pulse) I still think it has great potential.

I like the idea of telling a story through 6 seconds of looping video.

And I guess I was just waiting for that perfect storytelling opportunity for my first Vine.

Instead...

I took a sideways videos of some turkeys walking outside my classroom window where you can barely see the turkeys.

There were three other opportunities I missed for a good Vine:

1) Remember when I saw that baby bunny? I recorded it scratching its ear (SO CUTE!) and sitting for about 3 or 4 more seconds. That was the first time I tried to save a Vine and I accidentally deleted it.

2) When I saw Matt Harvey pitch in July at Citi Field, my wife and I were seated right behind the bullpen. I was going to record him warming up - it was going to be awesome. I tested out how to do the Vine and everything. Then it started raining and we went to our seats - far away from the bullpens - to sit out the rain delay. No other Vine opportunity presented itself that night.

3) When I was at the Rays game, I was ready with the still camera for the game-winning hit in the bottom of the 9th inning and snapped a picture. But had I been thinking that would have been the best baseball Vine ever. Hit. Celebration. Crowd Noise. Loop.

Instead, I have an archive of sideways turkeys.

But that's OK. I'll be adding to that archive for sure.

It'll get better.

Provided I remember which way to hold the camera.