Notes on "Wheat Field Under Threatening Skies"

A few notes about my musical interpretation of Vincent Van Gogh's painting, "Wheat Field Under Threatening Skies," (posted last week here):

- This was my first attempt of the day, and I started in a literal fashion — the opening chord, an upward glissando, represents the path that runs up the middle of the field. All of the repeated figures of half- and whole-step relationships are the crows, which look on the canvas much like musical ornaments.

- I have recently been taken with playing more chords out of root position; that is to say, leaving the root of the chord off (e.g. an F major triad with an A in the bass). You might notice a preponderance of these types of chords in many of the recordings from this session. When they are not part of a conventional cadence, they can sound ungrounded, but calmingly so.

- I was more aware than ever during this session of the length of my improvs. More often than not, the first piece of a session has stretched to over ten minutes, but I was consciously trying to be more succinct, and not continually quest for new ideas. I'm sure this has to do with the fact that my inspiration was concrete and limited. It certainly worked.