(This is a repost, with repaired URL's for the correct mp3. Take another listen!)
I felt like I needed something firmly in a minor mode. How much more minor could I get than C# minor? The answer is none. None more minor.
Spinal Tap references aside, this piece is interesting mostly because I played it all with my left hand, partly as an exercise, and partly because my right was exhausted. You can hear the one-handedness in the deliberate feel. My left fingers are definitely not as dexterous or gentle as my right. Also (obviously) there is a little pause in the treble whenever I have to jump down to play a bass note. The melody, when there is one, is quite fractured because of this. It makes for a unique texture.
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Recorded on February 11th, 2008, at Peace Church of the Brethren, in Portland, OR, with a Zoom H4 Digital Recorder. Edited with Audacity music software.
After the tango, I stick with a Latin feel (with a little Mario thrown into the intro). Unlike most of my improvs, this has very traditional phrase lengths and harmonic structure. It sounds like I'm playing from a chart.
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Recorded on February 11th, 2008, at Peace Church of the Brethren, in Portland, OR, with a Zoom H4 Digital Recorder. Edited with Audacity music software.
After a herky jerky start, I fall into a little tango number. I realized after the fact that it is a reimagining, one half step down, of a previous improv ("Beatrice," from the January 7th group). Compare the two – it's interesting to see the similarities.
This is for all my good friends who like to dance a fine tango now and then. You know who you are – can you dance to this?
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Recorded on February 11th, 2008, at Peace Church of the Brethren, in Portland, OR, with a Zoom H4 Digital Recorder. Edited with Audacity music software.
I find this to be Satie-esque, with little modules barely tied together.
#5b. "Ira Flatow"(to download: option-click for Mac users, right-click and save for PC users)
Recorded on February 11th, 2008, at Peace Church of the Brethren, in Portland, OR, with a Zoom H4 Digital Recorder. Edited with Audacity music software.
This is another attempt to play only chords takes me two minutes in, where I find a tonality to explore, and leave the chords behind for melody. And what comes out? A Christmas carol! It sounds very New Englandy to me, with a little Writer's Almanac thrown in (in keeping with the NPR theme, though I didn't know it at the time!).
I have to break up the saccharine nature, and start with a Lydian idea, and keep moving my hands apart (harmonically) until I get to a very interesting C major against A flat major. That is explored for a while, and then I drop into a bit of a groove in A flat, with a few (purposefully) wrong notes. Again, I follow the wrong notes away with my right hand, keeping a serene ostinato in A flat in my left.
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I am playing the strings with two pens, with the dampers lifted. At 1:46 I drop a pen onto the strings, and use the keys to bounce the pen around the piano, introducing an element of randomness, as the pen flops unpredictably along the strings. At the end, the pen falls through the strings onto the soundboard, and I call it quits.
Warning: at the 40-second mark, there is a loud noise.
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In this improv, I take my obsession with the Lydian mode to an interesting place. My left hand is playing a very simple line in A, and my right hand is a fifth away, in E. That in itself would be like playing in A Lydian. But in fact, I am playing in E Lydian (and B Lydian when the harmony changes). This yields a lot of A against A#. It doesn't sound quite as dissonant as it might, however, since both notes make perfect sense in their respective lines.
I apologize to the readers who didn't understand that. Listen and tell me whether you find the dissonance unsettling or pleasing, or perhaps not dissonant at all.
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Recorded on February 11th, 2008, at Peace Church of the Brethren, in Portland, OR, with a Zoom H4 Digital Recorder. Edited with Audacity music software.
Another modal piece, in C major, based on the four-note, appoggiatura riff. A pretty standard blues progression at first, and then a standard vi-V/V-V-I progression. Finally, in the last twenty seconds of the 7-minute piece, I play a blue note, a B flat.
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Recorded on February 11th, 2008, at Peace Church of the Brethren, in Portland, OR, with a Zoom H4 Digital Recorder. Edited with Audacity music software.
It's been far too long since I posted last, and I am sincerely sorry for that. Here, then, is an improv of almost 14 minutes to make up for it, and I will post new improvs every day for a week as penance.
This piece is the first of my most recent session ("recent" is, of course, relative - it was recorded in February). Of all of the sessions, I think that this one shows the most Keith Jarrett influence, specifically his Köln Concert. (If you are still not familiar with that recording, I highly recommend it.) I can hear him all over these improvs; I'm okay with that.
So, on to the first piece, entitled "Robert Siegel"*. I like this piece a lot. Here are some of the reasons I like it, in the order in which they occur:
- the regular phrase lengths, tempo, and meter of the first section, yet irregular ostinato and accents. - the strict modality of D major. Yet notice which note I don't play at all? C#. And yet almost every phrase ends, harmonically, in V (A major). They're ALL suspensions, but they sound really natural. I don't introduce a C# until I've wound my way into B minor (actually B Dorian). - the seamless transformation of the 3/2 meter into a 12/8 - the unrelenting yet delicate ostinato of the arpeggiated B minor (first inversion) chord in the left hand - the unpredictable accents and wrong notes in the right hand against said ostinato - the obvious return to D major in the right while the left stubbornly continues to insert the B minor - the triumphant "return" by both hands to D Lydian. It sounds like the piece finally found its home. - the open, probing ending
This piece is 14 minutes long, the longest that I have posted, and it doesn't feel too long.
* The suggestion to name these pieces after NPR personalities came from my brother. It was good one, I think.
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Recorded on February 11th, 2008, at Peace Church of the Brethren, in Portland, OR, with a Zoom H4 Digital Recorder. Edited with Audacity music software.
The goal of this blog is to post, on a semi-regular basis (I try to update it weekly), recordings of piano improvisation sessions, for people to listen to, and possibly comment on. These pieces are free improvs – stream-of-consciousness creations. Each improv session yields multiple pieces. A new piece starts when I sit down to play, and ends when I get up. Some pieces are split into movements, based on significant shifts in musical direction, usually with a complete stop. For more info, please read the introduction.
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