One from last Monday

[ted]

I haven't contributed anything for a while so here's a big fat one from Monday. These days I just play until the tape runs out. Thanks to Derek for suggesting I reduce the bit rate.

[pianistimo]

ted, you are one of a kind.  i sense some kind of infiniteness with this, too.  forget pi - it's all here.  random elements that seem to make some kind of sense. 

[Mayla]

Ted, well I am listening to this as I type and I am not very far into it yet, but I already feel like commenting  .

Sometimes I feel like I am completely starting over with my piano playing, and this is one of those times, and it seems that when I go through these phases I am hungry for specific kinds of informations that I don't necessarily know what it is until I find it.  For some reason listening to this improv of your's seems to be exactly what I am needing right now -- Thanks for posting this !!  And, I am finding myself to be feeling *so* grateful that you are willing to just be yourself -- it is really a very good example to me and to others, and it is encouraging.

Other than that, I just feel like soaking what you are doing right in !

*is a sponge*

Thanks !
Mayla

[ted]

I am pleased it is of interest. That is a nice compliment, Susan, because determined but unpredictable organic form is exactly what I am after. There is really no point in being anybody except yourself with this sort of thing, Mayla. I used to compare my playing to all sorts of music. Of course I never "measured up". How can anybody "measure up" when the goal is to completely emulate somebody else, great or not so great ?  You can absorb whatever you fancy of their piano languages, that usually happens unconsciously to a certain extent  anyhow, but in the end we have to just get rid of our personas, dive in and let things happen.

[pianowolfi]

I probably can't comment a lot on this, but I at least want you to know that I listen with great interest, I like your "minimalistic" repetitive changing patterns (or cells, as you probably would say) there are really great polyrhythms in it. I am a fan of polyrhythms. Something in this reminds me very remotely of Nancarrow, but I like your's much more than Nancarrow because your's is more "alive", so to say, to me. Cool stuff, keep posting!

[Derek]

That was a real adventure, Ted! I listened to the whole thing last night while working on creating a role playing video game. Sounds really good (recording wise) despite the lower bitrate! I bet piano sound compresses well since there are undoubtedly various commonalities in the resulting waves in all registers of the piano.

[ted]

You have one over me there, Wolfi. I am ashamed to admit I have never heard any Nancarrow. The last thing I would want though is to inadvertently, by inventing new terminology, start a sort of arcane "theory" which makes people afraid to voice opinions. Just react to the sound itself and comment as you see fit. As far as I know, this particular improvisational form I have given the name cellular transition has its origins deep in events of my past. The polyrhythms occur as natural byproducts of orchestral finger sequences and are not thought of in advance. As a child I was very preoccupied with rhythmic finger sequences. Later on I used to frequently listen to two different pieces, or the same one displaced in time, through two speakers while lying on the floor between them. I grew very fond of this effect. Many years later still I became fascinated with code, which my father and I developed for the Amiga, wherein constantly changing, discrete intervals of moving algebraic pattern were displayed simultaneously with a different algorithmic fugue playing for each one. The form has a type of hypnotic compulsion because you never know what the next bit will be like and you are propelled by a desire to find out.

In very recent years, I have found ways of translating these sensations into my piano music and the result is cellular improvisational form. It is invariant over style in the sense that a cell can be in any known idiom, be of any length, any internal structure and contain any material. Two years ago I thought the idea would probably run out of steam, but it has not done so.

Of course, it is to be hoped that I am not slowly degenerating into some sort of mental miasma like Louis Wain and his cat paintings.