Improvisations

I felt a bit miserable, I hit record and improvised around a theme that suited my mood. Listening back, my ears wanted to hear the rising staccato motif played in counterpoint which would have sounded cool i think. 

The second improv is short and sweet, it sounds familiar somehow and it got me thinking about where in my mind the music comes from. Just as our personalities are a mixing pot of every person we've interacted with, our speech is like a kaleidoscope of all the conversations we've had, our music when played on the fly must be like the twisting of a kaleidoscope where all the colourful pieces are just getting mixed about.

Hi @Papageno,

The first one has some nice harmony and chords! Like the half diminished A#-C#-E-G# which is my favourite! Your counterpoint is great in the improvisation yet very natural and expressive! The staccato reminds me of the 1st movement of Beethoven's op. 27 no.1 with that same staccato scale! Nice work!

The second is more chordal. Maybe the chord is more standardized here so you feel like it comes from somewhere?

Thanks for sharing!

Henry

Thank you very much Henry for taking the time to listen to my music and for your encouraging comments. I decided to play around with the theme of the second improv with a bunch of variations. I sometimes do this to warm up my fingers and its a little noisy. Apologies for my daughter interrupting with crinkle crackly noises in the kitchen.

Hi @Papageno,

Although it's an improvisation there's no randomness in it since the harmonic structure is very clear within each variation. I enjoy your improvisation very much! It's warm and lyrical!

-I like the harmony in 1:13. That flat submediant and suspension is lovely. Another one in 4:29 with lovely appreggios!

-Oh those flourshing broken chords of high register in 1:19!

It keeps reminding me Beethoven Ecossaise in E-flat major being in the same key and 2/4 meter (is it?). 

7 hours ago, Papageno said:

Apologies for my daughter interrupting with crinkle crackly noises in the kitchen.

I like having those "noises" there! It definitely makes the recording more authentic especially this is an improvisation. I have the same thing happen before when the school alarm rang during my recording of the ( ) piece LoL. How does your daughter feel when you were improvising?

Though I am scared at the end (6:47) when you are pressing the buttons of the recording machine? I think you can cut that part out haha!

Thanks for sharing!

Henry

Thank you Henry for taking the time to listen to my music and for your encouraging feedback. It means the world to me to share my odd, niche passion for galant music. 

Lol, my daughter is indifferent to my music, to classical music in general. She has my art talent but never developed her musical talent. My younger daughter however, I gave her one piano lesson and she said, yep, I get it, thank you. I've never taught her anymore and she improvises on piano and guitar except she likes modern music.

You have an amazing ear! Yes, I thought e flat suited the theme better than D. When I play I record it using the record function on my digital piano, and then I will use my phone to record the playback. I found that I can avoid the clunky key mechanism of my piano that way. It's a Yamaha Arius. However because the kitchen and living room are open plan I can't avoid interruptions. Unless I told everyone shut TF up for 10 minutes, I'll try that next time 🙂

It's turning into a morning ritual. Here's another, it sounds like a Mozart theme, probably from an opera but I'm not sure. I experiment when I play and sometimes it's ugly. 

Thank you fo rsharing @Papageno. I just want to inform you that I utilized your improvisation in this video short, where I talk about custom beaming. Thank you for opting in, it is an excellent improvisation.

3 hours ago, chopin said:

Thank you fo rsharing @Papageno. I just want to inform you that I utilized your improvisation in this video short, where I talk about custom beaming. Thank you for opting in, it is an excellent improvisation.

 

Thank you very much for using my music, that's made my day!!

My pleasure! I was perusing through the list of submissions today for my beaming video, and I knew this was the perfect piece for the mood I wanted to portray. Calm, serene, a big solemn, but perfect. I'm amazed at how well you are able to improvise and keep a pretty solid structure and theme.

I get such terrible nightmares, PTSD symptom, they keep me up and I spend the time working on my tattoo art book and now that I have my baby back with me (my piano) I can vent through music.

I was creating a skull and rose silhouette tattoo design and the music suited my mood. Reminds me of Bach, but that's not a self-compliment, more like a fake Rolex that on the surface looks legit except anyone with a modicum of musical knowledge can see through the illusion. I named it this improvisation, 'Cigar commercial' lol. 

Hi @Papageno,

5 minutes ago, Papageno said:

I named it this improvisation, 'Cigar commercial' lol. 

Well this will be too high-classed for a cigar commercial lol! Isn't those commercials boasting the importance of sentiments with loud and high music? Your improvisation is serene and tidy which can never be linked with smoking cigar. For me it's quite like a moment musical, short but capture your feeling, not for grand public listening but personal listening. I love how you maintain a clear ternary structure even though this is an improvisation. It's a little bit sad in C minor but it's just a little bit flavouring like dark chocolate. Thanks for sharing!

Henry

Thank you, Henry.

I was remembering these commercials that were on TV as a kid. They're quite funny. They all feature, air on a G string which is where I got the association. It's been illegal to advertise tobacco products for a while now, even in shops, they are hidden away from young eyes and all branding has been washed away with government health warnings and grotesque pictures of the effects long-term smoking. I miss the 80's, I was born in '81. I love modern technology but miss the simplicity of the pre-internet age.

Happiness is a cigar called, Hamlet.

1 hour ago, Papageno said:

Happiness is a cigar called, Hamlet.

But Hamlet died TRAGICALLY!!!!!!!!!! Even he successfully killed his uncle...

This is very good work! What I particularly like is that you do not derail from your initial tracks, which shows that you have a very good long range memory, as well as a sense for coherence.

I am impressed by the fact that these were (just) improvisations.  To me, they could stand (perhaps after some minor adjustments) on their own as nice small pieces. Why not write them down?

The style is a bit like Beethoven and sometimes there are also  hints of Mozart.

The second improvisation somehow reminds me of the scherzo in Beethoven´s sonata nr 15 (op. 28), what do you think?

Hey, Panta Rei

Im feeling a bit hypermanic so i apologise if this turns into a short book!

Thank you for taking the time to listen to my music and your encouraging feedback, it means the world to me to share my passion for such a niche musical interest and to know there are others out there just like me!

I do have a bit of an odd memory for music. It's not as helpful as it might seem at first because it gets in the way of learning to sight read, once I've played something a couple of times I can't see the notes anymore and my fingers do the work while my mind relaxes. I find that exposing myself to many works at once is kind of helpful to prevent me from memorising instead of sight reading but my brain then adapts so I give up! Lol

I have about 10 compositions to write down, they are in the ether of my mind but when I sit down to write them I just get more ideas and my attention deficit gets in the way and before I know it I'm down a tangent. I don't know if there is an upward limit to what my memory can hold and I'm sure they will degrade in time if I don't write them down. I forgot the ending of a minuet I was composing in another recording on here, although to be fair there were months of not playing at all between composition and me returning to it, so I just got distracted with a fantasy and posted it on here.

When I was a kid I used to see if I could play an entire mozart piano concerto in my head and try not to get distracted. I have a juke box of a brain and I can listen to music even when I have no ear phones in. My wife sometimes would ask me, what are you doing when I'm staring into space. I'd reply, I'm listening to music! Or, I'm composing the rest of my minuet. I'll upload a piece I composed in my minds ear while in the shower. It's not great to be honest but maybe it'll be of interest in the context of this discussion. 

I've got the same problem with my eyes too. My mind collects pictures all day and they can get overwhelming especially when I've been outside and I have to transition from noisy outside environment to a quiet indoor environment. I can see so many pictures of the pavements ive walked on, peoples faces, weird details that are unnecessary and just overwhelm my senses. Also sometimes I can't shake off scary things ive seen which I wish I could because its exasperated my ptsd.

My 4 year old son is even weirder than me! He didn't speak at all until he was 2 and a half and we discovered he taught himself to read at the level of an 8 year old! He learned through watching educational YouTube videos that I put on for him. He now has a strong American accent which is embarrassing because it shows that he watches too much TV. 

I had no idea he was soaking it all up. He approached me one morning while I was relaxing on the sofa and recited the planets to me in the correct order. I never mentioned them before, I then taught him 'and pluto' at the end lol. He memorised hours of TV and would speak along to episodes while not even looking at the screen. He would just stare at me while speaking all the words. It could go on for an hour. It was spooky.

He's autistic like me but his memory is phenomenal. I wish I recorded it back when he first showed me that he could actually talk if you showed him the written words. He's hyperlexic like me but on another level. I'm separated from his mum now but I know if I gave him piano lessons he would really shine musically.

My improvisations are generally second runs, meaning the first run I search for a theme and my playing is less coherent where I'm experimenting and looking for a new sound. Once I've found something I get excited and inspired and hit record to see what happens. When I sit at the piano for the second run I don't know what will come out, I lose myself in the patterns.

These patterns are mostly learned chord sequences and melodic filler words (kind of like common ways of saying things that we all use, such as 'would you pass the salt' rather than coming up with a new way of saying it like, 'may i interupt your dining experience briefly so that you may facilitate me seasoning my food with the salt that is slightly out of reach of my hand'). We learn these common ways of saying things and its true of music too.

When I learn a new piece I pay attention to what the composer is doing and if I see something new and cool I will play with it to see how it works and then it becomes another learned pattern. 

I'm aware of two approaches to learning to compose. The first is what you will learn in college. You'll learn music theory and it's very helpful in solving musical problems but it won't teach you how to express yourself musically. Music is a language and it can be spoken or written just like English. Imagine if your first encounter with English was a grammar book and dictionary; It wouldn't be that useful. 

The second approach is to sit at a piano, learn patterns and sequences that your fingers, eyes and ears can understand and then you play with those patterns and bit by bit musical thoughts appear not unlike how we learn language as children.

We often correct children when they over apply patterns gleaned from generalisations such as putting -ed on the end of every verb to denote a past action. Exceptions to the rules have to be learned and constructions such the, 'ship sink-ed to the bottom of the ocean' is normal for kids developing their first language. This way of learning language, to look for patterns, generalisations and apply them is true of music I believe.

Learning to play the music of others, improvising, and composing are all important parts in learning music as a language I believe. If you ommit any in favour of another you will not fully grasp the language in my opinion. Sure, theory is important just as grammar in English is important but sitting at the piano and playing with patterns is the way Mozart learned to compose as a child and it was the way that the Italians taught music through illucidating the common patterns.

Beethoven when receiving theory lessons remarked that he wasn't learning anything new that he hadn't already discovered himself through playing the music of others. Except for more complex theory of course such as counterpoint and higher SATB theory. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's not as impressive as it seems that I improvise, and I encourage everyone that enjoys composing in the galant style to spend as much time playing with the patterns you learn in theory books and discover the patterns for yourself when you sit down and learn a sonata for example. 

I hope I've made sense. Also, thank you for recommending the Beethoven piece. I knew I had heard something similar but couldn't put my finger on it. The descending octave played staccato is probably taken from that piece but I don't often listen to Beethoven so I don't know for sure.

I'm a Mozart fan but I will admit begrudginly the Eroica symphony is better than the Jupiter symphony but the 4th movement of the Jupiter still gives me goosebumps so I still prefer it. I also prefer Mozart's restraint and orderliness, Beethoven was looking for a new sound because he was bored by the enlightenment and wanted passion to guide the way. My personality prefers the balance and poise of the pre-romantic era but I do like a bit of noise sometimes.

I'll upload my really old composition that I composed in the shower. It's only short.

I was inspired listening to Henry's C minor piece from 2012. It's brilliant. And you wrote that at school? How old were you? It's virtuosic and mature in its expression.

Hi @Papageno,

Wow! I am happy my ( ) piece helps inspire you this lovely improvisation! I mean your piece is more direct and penetrating than mine since mine is more a narrative piece, while yours is more sensitive and direct improvisation. You have real emotion in your improvisation here which I deeply appreciate. I cry during your playing. It's also amazing that every time you can hold a structure clearly even though it's an improvisation. This reminds me Schubert's Diabelli Variation. Direct, cantabile. (Mine is maybe a Beethovanian version of the theme?)

The theme itself comes from Tchaikovsky's Dumka in C minor. The opening G-F-Eb-D-C in that rhythm comes directly from the opening of his piece. I was inspired after listening a concert when a girl played that piece brilliantly.

7 hours ago, Papageno said:

And you wrote that at school? How old were you? It's virtuosic and mature in its expression.

I did write that at school when I was in high grades in secondary school, which should be equivalent to American high school. For me the piece is still naive in some way but it is indeed my first mature work. I played MANY wrong notes too!!!! 😡

Thanks for your sharing and compliments!

Henry

Wow, these are some excellent piano improvisations! I am amazed by how natural and well-structured they are, and the harmonic progressions are well-organized even though they were improvised. Great job!