Ben Tibbetts Studio: Piano Performances and Original Music

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The Nettleton Variations

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As a pianist at the Trinity Church of Austin, in the preludes, I'll take some hymn or collection of hymns from the service, and I will riff on them for a little while to fill up some background space before the church service officially begins.

In this performance, I chose a single hymn from the service and used that as a foundation for a series of variations. I played the hymn in a variety of ways in that ten minutes or so. The variations range from straightforward to difficult improvisation.

For this video, I've paired the audio of that live performance with the sheet music of the hymn (so you can keep that in mind as you listen) and with some explanatory text spelling out what I'm doing.

Table of Contents:
0:00 Introduction
0:51 Part I. Introduction
2:19 Part II. Expanding The Range
3:22 Part III. New Meter (4/4)
4:20 Part IV. Another Meter (6/8)
5:28 Part V. Minor Key
6:42 Part VI. Trying To Play While Having A Conversation
7:36 Part VII. Medium Swing
8:18 Part VIII. Canon and Fugue
9:47 Return To The Theme

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