David J. Hahn » Piano Only

Nearness of You

Dave — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 02:39:00 +0000

This is a track from an album I released in 2006 called Straight Ahead.

This recording was featured in the Sony/Screen Gems movie, Takers. The song is played by Hayden Christensen’s character, “AJ”, as his friend Jake (Michael Ealy) proposes to his girlfriend (Zoe Saldana).

To purchase this recording, visit the iTunes Music Store.

Alone at Home

Dave — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 15:17:55 +0000

Here is a great song for everyone – intermediate pianists or even ambitious beginners. You can purchase and download the music directly through PayPal ($10), or if you’d prefer, I can mail you (or the pianist on your gift list) a signed copy.

If you need a little help getting it under your fingers, I’d also be happy to give you a mini lesson over the phone or skype with your purchase.

Thank you so much, I’m very grateful for your support.

The Cascades by Scott Joplin

Dave — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 23:05:52 +0000

You have to practice ragtime music S-L-O-W. Imagine this S-L-O-W. No, S-L-O-W-E-R. It’s a terribly tedious thing. But if you don’t do that it’ll be totally sloppy when you play it at speed, and you’re left hand will be locked up and tense while it jumps around. S-L-O-W.

It’s a long process to work up a Joplin piece, but here! You can have the beginning of this one for now. Take two doses with a shot of brandy. Wear your top hat.

Invention #8 on piano

Dave — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 21:12:37 +0000

When I play Invention #8 on piano I like to play the long notes short and the short notes long. Maybe it’s a little adolescent of me, and Bach experts would probably roll their eyes, but I don’t care.

I also like to play it fast.

What would be comparable song from our time?

“Schooooool’s out for summer! Schooooool’s out for ever!!”

One Day (Argentina)

Dave — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 22:39:34 +0000

This is a sketch of something I wrote a few months ago. But I wonder if I actually wrote it. Doesn’t it sound familiar? Sometimes that happens.

I can never understand why people name songs with one part of the name in parentheses and the other part not in parentheses. Why do they do that? So I thought I’d try it and see how it feels – One Day (Argentina). It feels (pretty good).

This song is in Chopin’s favorite key, C#. I prefer to call it Db, though.

Sheet Music

Download PDF

A few songs transposed to “A”

Dave — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 05:20:51 +0000

Alone at Home in “A”

Someday in “A”

I’m going to have a jam tomorrow morning with my friend R., only I won’t be there. He’s way over there and I’m way over here. But he’s going to play along with some of my recordings. Jam!

He’s got a harmonica in A, and these songs were in the wrong key, so here they are in A so he can play along.

Someday by Otis Spann

Dave — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:20:08 +0000

When we were kids we used to listen to a lot of Paul Simon, James Taylor, the Beatles. My parents had a record player and a little collection of records. One of my favorites was the album “Legends of Chicago Blues” that had Junior Wells, Muddy Waters, Otis Spann and others. I learned this song from playing along with the record when I was a teenager. On the original recording Otis sings a few choruses really meloncoly-like, then his wife gets on the mic and yells at him for a few more choruses. Well, she’s singing, but it sounds like she’s yelling at him.

Traumerei by Robert Schumann

Dave — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 01:57:03 +0000

When I play this song I try to think about a big field of grass in the late summer. But nobody’s there. No, not even you, so don’t picture it. We don’t even know where it is. It’s far away.

Are you still peeking? Me too. There’s an oak tree. There’s a breeze on the long, tall, dry grass, and in the leaves of the tree. The breeze starts and stops. The notes play when the breeze comes and blows around the grass.

It makes it a little easier to play this song. Schumann himself said that nobody but his wife, Clara, could play his songs right. He’d probably tell me the same thing. He was crazy, you know. They locked him up and threw away the key.

Whoosh. Summer breeze.

Italian Song by Peter Tchaikovsky

Dave — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 15:34:06 +0000

Tchaikovsky was a married man, but gay, and threw himself in the Moscow River when life had become too unbearable. But he didn’t die, it just made the next few decades a little more uncomfortable. Complicated man.

But look! He wrote a little polka-waltz. La da dee da da dee da dum da.

Elegie Melodie Op. 10 by Jules Massenet

Dave — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 19:44:21 +0000

This song makes me think of this, even if it’s not in D minor:

“It’s part of a trilogy, a musical trilogy I’m working on in D minor which is the saddest of all keys, I find. People weep instantly when they hear it, and I don’t know why.”

- Nigel Tufnel, This Is Spinal Tap