Index of Improvisers and Improvisations

Thanks Derek, that is a most useful post.

Wow this is great. I feel motivated to post more improvisations. It is currently my passion.

I vote for setting this sticky!

That's awesome. This is wonderful, thanks Derek.

Thank you for doing this! Grin

I'd like it sticky also! To anyone who has uploaded new improvs or sent me links: I will update the list soon! Been kinda busy what with Christmas and so forth

You must of had a lot of time to do all that Shocked

Heh, It actually took only about an hour. I just clicked "by name" in Audition room, then searched for the word "improv" on each page and listed them in one big post.

I will be updating this list fairly frequently. If you post an improv you can expect to see it on this list within a matter of days. Enjoy!

As you can see, the size of this list has now spilled over the limit. Nils, is it possible to move the second list I began right beneath the first one? If not don't worry about it. Thanks for posting your improv everyone! This is the only place on the internet where you can download so much original piano improvisation that is not necessarily jazz!

As you'll notice I am gradually changing this list so that all the titles themselves are the links, rather than titles followed by links. I finally learned the proper way to present links with BBcode in forums. It should look a lot nicer when I'm done!

I just re did the improviser list. A lot cleaner now don't you think?

Quote from: Derek on May 12, 2007, 02:48:39 AM

I just re did the improviser list. A lot cleaner now don't you think?

Cool, Derek!

I'm going to try to comment on others' improvisations more. Improvisation becomes more and more important to me and I love encouraging others to do it more when I can. It truly is the world's best hobby (my opinion

). I'll keep updating this list and commenting on improvs when I can. Keep posting, all!

Derek, I never thanked you for doing this ! Thanks !

You're quite welcome!

I enjoyed making it. I hope the joy of improvisation can show through in all the people who post here and inspire more people to try it.

Improv rules! Cheesy

I am glad to see that he "club of improvisers" is growing in the audition room Grin

an "Index of Composers and Compositions."

I suggest that someone with enough time and interest create a sister thread called "Index of Composers and Compositions." I believe there are quite a few composed pieces in the audition room as well as improvised ones. To a degree I think it is silly to separate them since some pieces were undoubtedly improvised first, then written down later, or composed first, then emellished upon. In the end it is up to whomever posts their music to decide which thread it belongs in, but....how about it? Anyone up to the task of making an "Index of Composers and Compositions?" You'd have to be a big nerd like me and be willing to update it frequently...haha Grin

Quote from: Derek on December 19, 2006, 08:08:27 PM

In an effort to make classical (that is, anything non-jazz) improvisation more visible/accessible to users

Without trying to be confrontational, why must an improv thread be dubbed "non-jazz", even though the first two items listed are pieces written by Wayne Shorter and Dexter Gordon?!?

A lot of the best improvisors in the world fall into a category commonly dubbed "free improv", which draws equally off of jazz, classical, folk, and whatever else the specific musician could possibly be interested in. Maybe I'm deviating from the point of this thread, but I don't really see how improvisational music needs to be partitioned, in one's mind or in the real world.

It doesn't, really. I don't mind if people post jazz pieces. I should have said "not necessarily jazz." My purpose in creating this thread was because throughout the years since I began endeavoring to learn to improvise, I've always been interested in music that sounds heroic, dark, urgent, passionate, intense etc. I went around the internet searching for people who did this sort of improv, but the only people I could find were improvisers of jazz elevator music, which did not interest me in the slightest. Bar music. You know the kind. That sort of improvisation has ten thousand self-help books and has been beaten into the ground. Eventually I made some friends, mostly on this website, who did improvisation which was not jazz, not classical, but something new entirely. Spontaneous, continuous creation of original music which was melodic and intriguing and had far more impetus than elevator music bar music jazz. This inspired me to do even more with my improv, and I continue to this day. I perceive there are few people who do improv with this sort of internal, obsessive drive to create original music, so that's why I created this thread.

In fact, I think I created the thread for "spontaneous composers" rather than improvisers. It was just my personal preference...if someone else wanted to create a thread devoted to jazz, more power to them.

Quote from: Derek on December 15, 2007, 05:08:35 AM

In fact, I think I created the thread for "spontaneous composers" rather than improvisers. It was just my personal preference...if someone else wanted to create a thread devoted to jazz, more power to them.

I understand your interest but I have to flatly disagree with you that the improv world (or the classical performance world) is stagnant in any way. I would say that the exact opposite is true, and that both realms of music are more active and vivacious than ever before. Both worlds may seem obscure, but that's because they both exist as underground scenes. I can name dozens of amazing improvisors who transcend all the boundaries of jazz and classical. You should look them up. I would suggest you start subscribing EMusic, because that website caters to a lot of non-major labels that provide outlets for these musicians and support their artistic goals.

If you want to hear some amazing piano improv that is not jazz or classical (something in between maybe), check out as many of the following people as possible:

Sten Sandell
Marilyn Crispell
Jim Baker
Myra Melford
Alexander von Shlippenbach
Keith Tippett
Satoko Fujii
Craig Taborn
Jason Moran
Stefano Battaglia
Borah Bergman
Uri Caine
Marc Copland
John Taylor
Michel Wintsch (who draws a lot of influence from Bartok)
Eduard Ferlet
Stephan Oliva
Bill Carrothers
and there are many more...

A lot of these people might have come up in the jazz world, but I assure you they've all transcended playing ii-V-I progressions and bullshiting exclusively on standards (though some of them still put out albums with a standard thrown in). Many of them are stunningly brilliant players who draw a lot from the classical world and produce incredible results consistently and in the most unpretentious and honest ways imaginable. You would realize right away that this is not music for elevators or fine dining. Don't make the mistake of thinking that the improv world in music is weak in any way. It's just not as publicly known as pop music or smooth jazz garbage. If you PM me, maybe I can send some noteworthy MP3s to prove my argument.

Thanks for the names. Perhaps I hadn't made enough of an effort to find such artists...I will look them up. Oh---do many of these artists make solo albums? I tend to prefer solo piano music over trio recordings. Have you heard of "The Bad Plus?" I like their stuff fairly well...its definitely not elevator music but not quite what I need to hear. The only jazz artist in the mainstream who really resonates with me is Keith Jarrett, mainly his newer recordings such as Radiance, and the Carnegie Hall Concert (which I attended, yay!)

I've checked out a few of the artists on amazon.com. Maybe I just got unlucky, but none of the artists I sampled have the sort of intensity I'm looking for. Though they are not on record labels nor are they famous (a big plus as far as I am concerned), my friends here have written music that I really like listening to, and which I would definitely buy if they chose to sell their music. I thank the internet for connecting me with these kindred spirits...it has enriched my life more than I could have possibly imagined.

oh this reminds me, check out Billy Childs.. his band is like a hybrid between a chamber group and a jazz combo..there nothing like it out there as far as I know.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=111498319

Also Brahd Mehldau has two solo piano album out I think.. and Fred Hersch has a duet Album with Norma Winstone called "songs and Lullabys". They both play mainly original pieces.. and its definitely not jazz piano as most people know it.

There are so many out there ..Jean Michel Pilc, Baptiste Trotignon, Aaron Parks, Tigran Hamasyan, David Kikoski, Geri Allen Geoffrey Keezer.. they still play ssome standards but they do a lot of other stuff too.. its funny a lot of old school people don't even consider them jazz.. its kind of exciting for me, seeing these people forge a new kind of music and we get to be part of it somehow.

btw myspace is a good place to look up their music, they have couple of tracks avialable for download.

maybe an update? Huh

this post is a great idea!!!

Quote from: chopinatic on March 17, 2009, 10:48:50 PM

maybe an update? Huh

this post is a great idea!!!

Unfortunately the thread starter seems to have preferred to leave this forum Cry

I'm not sure where to begin if I were to update this index. I had been away for a while, and in the interim the Improvisations board was created. Maybe I'll try to add a few at a time that are not in the index or something. I also have more listening to do, here =)

Does anyone think we should keep this thread updated? It started out to help "sift" the improvisations out of the audition room, but now that we have a thread dedicated to improvisations, I'm not certain it is needed. After all, if one wanted to hear all the works by Quantum for example, one could do an Advanced Search on the Improvisations room by the author Quantum. As for search keywords, I just put "a" since it is a common letter. Works pretty well.

Quote from: Derek on May 29, 2009, 12:10:07 AM

Oh yes update, If it's possible, I love this index. Of course it's quite a bit of work for you, but I wouldn't want to miss it. And if I want for instance to link people from other forums they will find things much easier. I can link them right up to the index and they can look for the respective name. If they would need to search by search funktion they would rather stay away.

Ok...I'll do the best I can. Maybe I should learn how to write my own bot that could do it automatically. Or, I could hire lostinidlewonder, who seems to be able to index things about three thousand times faster than I can Grin

I'm with Wolfi, too, Derek. The index is a great thing. We appreciate the work
you've put into it.

Update complete!

I just wrote a .net app which reads the improv forum and generates BBCode for me and formats it all nice. Fortunately all posts fit quite nicely into the top two posts I had reserved for the index, and there's a third one so there's plenty of room!

Thanks a lot, Derek. You do a really good job, and this is a helpful list.

Alot of my improvs seem to have been removed or missing from the list! sorry, i was just looking for one in peticular!

search button here i come!

The list is always generated by a program I wrote in an hour. It could very well be buggy. If you could tell me the name of the song maybe I can take a lookinto why it didn't get included.

not meaning to complain about it, was just that i was looking for some of my old posts to show a friend. then realised 6 of them had dissapeared from the index, ones that had previously been there:

(new one) Dreaming of nightmares
Eleanors Lullaby
It will all be ok
Melodies of reflection
New improvisation (june 09)
Improvisations (june 09)

....not sure if others had gone missing but these are what are apparent!

Quote from: chopinatic on August 25, 2011, 12:16:16 PM

Hi!

I noticed that it's not all in the same post... it's like it's the first post and there's a list and then there are a few comments and then in the reply #4 there's one more list and there's more of improvisations there:

Quote from: Derek on December 20, 2006, 06:31:55 PM

chopinatic:
Eleanors Lullaby - Improv
It will all be ok - Improv
Wandering - Improv
Flowing Sorrow - Improv
Improv - Melodies of Reflection
New Improvisation
Improvisations
Short Improvisation

I sometimes thought some things had disappeared too and then I found them again and then I noticed that there are two lists (in the first post and then in the reply #4).
I hope this helps!

I think I understand what's confusing people. What the program does is collect as many entries as it can that will fit in a single post. The most recently bumped threads will be in that first entry. Then, when I've exhausted the size of that first post, I get everything else, and these will all be later. Thus, if derek or chopinatic have been posting long enough to be in both, they will have an entry in the first big list and also in the second big list.

However, it may be more straightforward to just collect one big list, where there's only one chopinatic and then everything he has made, and one derek, etc, and then spread it across the multiple posts. Would that be better?

I consider writing a bot to index the improvisations, but would be worried about the forum detecting the bot and blocking my IP. The bot itself is not difficult to create, but as Derek has said, there are too many entries in the list to fit in one post.

If I do a bot, I'd probably host the index list on my own website, then post a link to it here. Again, I think getting permission from the forum owner(s) is paramount. I like this forum, and don't want to get banned!

That's one helluva list you got there, Derek.