This short album (technically a 6-track EP) has music for solo piano tending to be tranquil, relaxing, "chill", minimalist, expressive music, for meditation, study, learning, sleeping, relax or praying. The album has 6 tracks but only tree different music pieces. Why? Becase each of these 3 pieces is recorded in two variants: electric piano (Rhodes) and "normal", acoustic piano, a grand piano Steinway.
Solitude is Oneself
1 Never Underestimate the Difficulties of Simple Things (electric piano)
2 Too Much But Still Not Enough (electric piano)
3 Waiting for Perfection is Waiting Forever (electric piano)
4 Never Underestimate the Difficulties of Simple Things (acoustic piano)
5 Too Much But Still Not Enough (acoustic piano)
6 Waiting for Perfection is Waiting Forever (acoustic piano)
The phrase where the title (Solitud is Oneself) comes from belongs to Javier Adúriz (1948-2011), Argentine poet, one of my best teachers and friends ("La soledad es uno mismo"). Don't see any negative aspects in Solitude. In Spanish there is only one word for Solitude and Loneliness (namely "Soledad"). Loneliness is a state of isolation, without dialog, feeling abandoned and without external points of reference. But I conceive Solitude as a highely creative state , in which one is faced to what one actually wants to achieve, with one's thoughts, with one's self.
Never Underestimate the Difficulties of Simple Things. Lots of times I have seen this in several persons - and in myself: when something is simple, easy and uncomplicated, we tend to underestimate it too much and its hidden difficulties end up tackling us. We leave to the last moment a text that seems easy to learn, and we do not assimilate it as we could. Or a chess game that is (really) won, but we feel over-confident, we play with superficiality, we make slight mistakes one after the other and loose control of the situation. This title can be understood as self-referent: this particular piano piece seems to be simple... until you try to perform it really well and and record it.
About the ArtWork / Cover Art of the EP Solitude is Oneself:
It shows a human face (concretely mine) faced simmetrically to its silhouette, in black. This illustration alludes to the title: Solitude is Oneself. Is oneself (the person) facing his own solitude, his internal misterious being. A real human facing his own shadow. It is not a negative shadow: is the shadow of which Shamanism speaks, the own shadow from where one draws strength.
The music is dedicated to Mr. Cadmiel Pérez from República Dominicana.
This album will be released on Friday 17 August 2018. You will find it on Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music, Qobuz, Tidal, Amazon mp3 and nearly all streaming platforms you can imagine. In Spotify it will be here: https://open.spotify.com/album/6KffxzDSVYJqZuNEK3Bj0h (but it isn't available for use until the music content is live.)
Listen a preliminar version on Bandcamp.
Consider following my music on Spotify or even liking my Facebook page
HAND (Have A Nice Day) -
Juan María