My friend Chris Bauer always finishes his Sunday Night live chromatic harmonica performance show with the Song Smile. "Smile" is a song based on an instrumental theme used in the soundtrack for Charlie Chaplin's 1936 film Modern Times. Chaplin, who composed the song, was inspired by Puccini's Tosca.[1] John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons added the lyrics and title in 1954.[2] In the lyrics, based on lines and themes from the film, the singer is telling the listener to cheer up and that there is always a bright tomorrow, just as long as they smile.
As recommended by Ross, mastering new songs in each key will help me internalize them. I tried this song in each of the 4 keys I now know and preferred it in the key of F. As mentioned before, I first found the music in Musecore and without looking at the tab, found the melody and rhythm directly from the music notation. It is still very much a note by note process, so I am looking forward to speeding that up to true sight reading.
Note the key of F, requires the note B to be flatted each time it is played. I did that by pressing the slide while playing an A since A# is a B flat.
I tried to get fancy in this recording by jumping up an octave in a portion of the song and had to editing the recording because I missed the note when I jumped down.