My New Old Friend - Alan Pasqua (COVER)

Piano Solo cover of Alan Pasqua's masterful 'My New Old Friend.'
-Played by Nick

I fell in love with this piece immediately after hearing it. After playing the first 4 chords cold from sheet music, I was hooked. The complexity of Pasqua's harmony and his nuanced voicing had the rest of the piece relegated to the realm of impossibility in my mind, but after months of trying, it began to fall under my fingers.

Each chord stands as a tree. Varied in height and foliage, asymmetric and organic. We pass a few sparse groves and then move into the forest. You can hear the leaves fluttering, and the creak of tall oaken pride around you. You can smell the earth in these chords. It's like a childhood wood, where you know every branch and bramble, and the true mysteries they hold. Just like a kid I act as a guide through the trees, but can't help but to run off in excitement as we approach my favorite spots.

...

When I first was able to play the piece down, roughly in tempo, there was one very special person I was elated to share it with. The same person I've shared so many of my best musical, and really any other, moments with. Now, she becomes someone who can only be an old friend, to myself and many, but never again a new friend to anyone. I challenged myself to see good could I get a one-take-wonder of playing something on piano. It was only natural I play one of my now most cherished tunes that I associate with her.

This time and forever after, when I play this piece, it's in dedication to my new, old friend. You never would have believed how much you are missed.