Steve Boudreau

I had a huge breakthrough early in my college music studies when I first started practicing for extended periods of time (besides the obvious). 

When I was younger, I would generally practice the stuff I liked to play and avoid the stuff I didn't like (generally longer, involved pieces... that required more of an attention span).  This naturally led to me only being able to play the fun stuff and hating the hard stuff--  a vicious spiral.  When I confronted these issues in college, I went too far the other…Read more

My big project this fall was digging into Bud Powell's "Un Poco Loco". 



It's a song with more than one moment that pushes the envelope of standard jazz language, rhythm and form. The Max Roach drum pattern alone has been elaborated on by many- the 5 over 4 pattern is filled with energy and slightly lopsided, not quite adding up to two bars.At the fast cut time tempo, I feel like it has a falling forward momentum, which feels to me like he was aiming more for whole note triplets across the barline (this was…Read more

I want to congratulate my brother-in-law, Tyler Kealey for sticking to his insane goal of recording a different song every day for 2014.  Here is the final video which includes many of my favourite Ottawa musicians.  Not to leave anyone out but off the top of my head there's Rebecca Noelle, Dave Schroeder, Jeff Rogers, Brian Asselin, Megan Jerome and Peter Voith, plus many familiar faces (including my sisters and our significant others). 

Click here for the link.

While I had made attempts at blogging before, this fall, inspired by my brother-in-law's much more daunting endeavour, I finally started weekly entries.  Even if they are sometimes simple and short, I wanted to have something out there to focus my thoughts on music, life, and practicing.  And here we are, over 40 entries in!  For any of my friends, students, and potentially music fans who don't even know me, thanks for taking the time to check these out.

Here are a few of my favourite entries from this year…Read more

Full time and part time musicians alike are living in an age where it is increasingly hard to put a monetary value on music.  In the 20th century, people in the western world found ways to monetize every aspect of music- performance, recording, royalties from recordings of performances, and even getting paid for royalties of songs other people wrote that substantially sounded like songs you wrote.   Many interesting developments have happened quite recently, from the drastic decrease in costs of home… Read more

One wisdom nugget from Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth that has stuck with me for years is his idea of three states of mind.  When things are at their worst- his example is changing a flat tire in poor weather- at least you can move past negative feelings to a place of acceptance and do what needs to be done.  When what you are doing is better than this you might even experience enjoyment, and above that you can be enthusiastic. 

I try to apply these mentalities to everything, and they work especially well in a…Read more

A show of all original music by the Super Awesome Club was broadcast on CKCU 93.1FM last week-
Here is the link: http://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/112/19721.html

The vibe will be similar, but the ambient noise will be more glasses clanging and the music will be even more jammy on our special Boxing Day show at Irene's Dec. 26th.

Given the swing from -15C to 15C and back that we are having, I'm pretty excited to have a show coming up where we play instrumental arrangements of Beach Boys tunes.  Brian Wilson was heavily influenced by Gershwin, and lush jazzy progressions sneak into the later material, but even on an earlier pop tune like California Girls there is an interesting exploring pattern at work.

Check out the chord progression for the chorus:

The song is in B major with the verses mainly using traditional I, IV and V chords…Read more

In this era of instant access to information, a lot of information doesn't have to be remembered as it used to be.  I know the common complaint is that people have short attention spans and they are always buried in devices instead of in the outside world, but there is something exciting about being able to fact check on the spot, that makes me more careful and confident in the things I'm passing on to my own students. 

I am continually clearing up misinformation that was passed down to me in the past…Read more

Glenn Gould once said the ideal ratio of performer to audience is 1:0.  The meaning I take is that an artist should hold themselves to their own standard.  This quote was during the time when he became fascinated with making recordings of pieces and really crafting a piece through multiple takes and splicing.  He quit performing live because conditions were never ideal. 



At this point in time, a pianist is lucky to have an instrument provided for them, let alone one in an acoustically appropriate room that…Read more