Sunday, May 11, 2008

23 April 2008, #1. "Melissa Block" - 11m57s

The first effort of the day. Sometimes, when I sit down completely blank, I just try to get a harmonic feeling ringing in the piano and in my head. I start in E Lydian, a comfortable place for me. At 2:23 it settles into A major, with some borrowed chords from A minor. Actually, it's more like A minor with what I'll call the Picardy tonic, in that all the chords other than the I are from A minor. And that facilitates an easy transition (at 4:19) into C major.

This C major section is the first really interesting development, for me. The left hand plays an ostinato of f-g-a, and it feels like a rippling pedal point that flutters between the dominant and the subdominant; it is a pleasing discovery. I'm also quite happy with the tune I find in the right hand, and how I embellish it and eventually transpose it (for a few seconds at 7:08) into E flat major, before returning it back to C major and losing all semblance of the sub-dominant pedal – the left hand drops an octave and loses the f; the ostinato also changes from a triplet to a quadruplet, which solidifies the meter.

(At 9:39, you will hear something that, probably, you have never heard before: a piano string breaking. It was certainly a first for me. I didn't hit the key very hard, but apparently it had had enough, and the second strike broke the string in two. It is lucky that the note high enough that it is rarely played - as far as I know it is still unrepaired.)

The dominant pedal builds for a very long time (I count it at almost four minutes), building up the excitement, and when it finally resolves (11:20), it's C7, not a C major triad. This chord sequence suddenly struck me as familiar, and I couldn't resist the tongue-in-cheek quotation (more like a paraphrasing). Besides, how else was I going to end it? It had been going for so long, and had such momentum, I didn't know how to stop.

This piece runs the gamut of texture and emotion as much as any I have yet posted, and I think the chords at 10:26 are quite exciting and new to me. All in all, more than a few things to be happy about in this one.




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Recorded on April 23rd, 2008, at Peace Church of the Brethren, in Portland, OR, with a Zoom H4 Digital Recorder. Edited with Audacity music software.

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