Joanna Garcia; Andrea Jin; “You’ve Really Got a Hold On Me.”
@joannagarciapiano
I’m stealing the conceit of this new? New Yorker column on obsessions. It’s called “Pick Three.” Here’s the idea: a staffer writes quick summaries of three things they’re currently devouring. For example, this week’s installment features: an Instagram account called @lastnightatthemet which “documents peacocking at Lincoln Center;” a “jasmine and orange blossom” Dior “scent” called J’adore L’or, “an elegant, full-fat perfume” that “smells like pulling yourself together;” and the new album from Laufey, Bewitched, which is supposedly “a cross between Snow White and Astrud Gilberto—ideal background music for lingering into the night.”
Well, here are my three obsessions for the week 10/16/23:
1) I kill a lot of time on TikTok.
And though I unfortunately still get a lot of Boomer-centric guitar players and ladies in bikinis, I have been able to nudge my algorithm toward pretty adagio piano clips.
My favorite Tik-Tokker is piano teacher Joanna Garcia. Playing piano with wild eyes and revelations, she shares her unabashed passion for things like “the supernatural darkness of d minor” and the “exploratory reverie and painful depths” of Mozart’s The Fantasia, explaining the chords and melodies as she has at the keyboard.
She’ll often play a short phrase from a piece, rising from the piano bench in slight ecstasy as she does, before pausing to ask, “where do you imagine it might go next?” She’ll plunk out a few notes (“maybe here?”) and then, wagging her finger, “no, it doesn’t do that. Listen to what it does do.” She then proceeds to close her eyes, lean into the music and sway to the “crazed chords” as she narrates music theory and communes with the spirit.
(I also love going to sleep to this piano guy’s YouTube videos: Complete Piano Theory Course: Chords, Intervals, Scales & More! )
2) Speaking of TikTok, which is maybe the larger obsession here, I’m currently riveted by comedian Andrea Jin. I can’t get enough of her droll disbelief at the dumb world around her.
3) Still, after a month of practicing this song, I remain obsessed with playing Smokey Robinson’s 1962 hit ”You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me” on piano. I’m still smoothing out the second “you’ve really got a ho-old on me” in the call & response chorus, making sure I land the combination G# (in the left hand) with the F# in (in the right hand) before segueing into the climactic 3rd “you really got a Ho-oh-old on me.”