by Jabbo » Thu Sep 08, 2005 2:21 pm
You can play A Time and Place on piano, you just can't play it up to midi quality. There's no way you could keep playing the main melody over and over without three hands, but with a little arranging you can make it sound good enough to be a piano piece.
For those who care, what I do is this: with the left hand, I play the basic chord progression (Am, F, C, G). I don't do any of the fancy stuff with the left hand because I'm lazy and don't feel like practicing it up. When the accoustic bass comes in, I play the chords in a rhythm that matches the bass line. Sometimes I do octaves instead of chords because that way I can get in that G-A-G that the accoustic bass does at the end of each progression. Actually, octaves are just a lot easier than chords for everything, and they sound purer (not sure if that's better, though).
With the right hand, I play the main melody 2 or 4 times, then I play the A-G-C-B-A-G-E part once or twice, and then the C-B-C-B-G part once or twice, and then back to the main melody. The main melody sounds fine, but the other two parts might need a few notes added. After you finish that, I just go back through it again, changing tempo, volume, rhythm and/or the improvisations. It's not that hard to make up a few random melody lines to go with it either.
If you play it really soft and slow, it can have some serious emotional effects. And if you want, you can try a jazz rhythm, although I think that actually takes away from it, but it's fun to do. So yeah, it's a simple little arrangement of it, but it still sounds really nice.