"For Wolfi" -- Improv

[Mayla]

This is from within the hour and is dedicated to my friend, Wolfi .  In thanks for your patience and support to me, and in best wishes for your upcoming events .

Mayla

[pianowolfi]

What a wonderful surprise I just came here in a practice break and saw your post and now I am listening. 

It's one more profound and original improvisation from you I will listen to this many times tonight. And, you know, it is so much in a row of so very many precious and invaluable things that you said, and played, and posted, and sang, that have become part of my life, feeling and thinking. And are well sheltered in a special "treasure chest" .

*listens intently*

Perhaps I may write more later, now I am just listening and enjoying the beautiful music

Hey I just can't stop listening and coming back here

And, of course I wish you also all the best for your upcoming events!

[davidn]

I like it

It reminds me of Rachmaninoffs Moment musical, Op.16 No.3 (Horowitz), which i also like very much.

[pianowolfi]

Sure, we can always find similarities . But to me it's so much unique and so much Mayla. I just hear so distinctly her own voice in all of her music. It is irreplaceable to me. As is Rachmaninoff. Of course we can find similarities to other composers in his style. But the essence is Rachmaninoff. So here the essence is Mayla, to me.

[opus57]

dammit. My soundcard is dieing jsut in this very moment... but I'll listen it as soon I've fixed it.  why does such things only happen to me?

[goldentone]

That was just impressive, Mayla.    It sounds like you composed it. 

[furtwaengler]

This comment stems from more than recently happening upon a photo of pianowolfi with the great Konstantin Scherbakov...

Mayla, I'd love to hear you play some of Shostakovich's op. 87 preludes and fugues, for which there is an inward hushed coolness, intimacy and simplicity rarely found in anything else, but found in abundance in your improvisational gift to Wolfi...an improvisational gift, indeed. I'd also love to hear you play Rachmaninov's dark op. 39 no. 7 etude tableaux which shares your key.

This is not to say that your improvisation is in any way reminiscent to these Russian masters - it is as Wolfi has said, unique and irreplaceable yours, I voice I've grown accustomed to, paying attention to the glimpses you've posted of your mind  -  This is to say I like the honest, sincere voice I'm hearing and would love to hear this voice in the above mentioned pieces. Actually, play anything you want to play and we'll all happily listen.

I've already started putting my own voice on this improvisation...I hope you don't mind my stealing!

[Mayla]

Woah ... two things.  First of all, I have no idea why I wouldn't have responded to you individuals who took the care and time to respond to me posting this in the first place!  I can't believe I did that!  I can only think I must not have known what to say or how to deal with it, and I'm sorry if that would've put anybody off, as I certainly didn't mean to act as though it doesn't matter, because it most certainly does!  To read these comments now, almost as though I had never read them before, is so very encouraging and I'm very grateful for them .

Secondly, I do find myself wondering how I did this because I'm not quite sure.  I still don't even know what to think of it, exactly, but I do see how it might be helpful for me to explore this a little.  

Thank you so much .

[pianowolfi]

Listening again after almost 4 years...
Yeah that's to me like an excerpt of our friendship, which is still so precious to me
Since your birthday is coming up soon I hope I'll be ready to play something particular for you... I am thinking of one of those pieces that I posted occasionally at hidden places in other threads, and that have been spontaneous reactions in the form of improvs.

[Mayla]

Since your birthday is coming up soon I hope I'll be ready to play something particular for you... I am thinking of one of those pieces that I posted occasionally at hidden places in other threads, and that have been spontaneous reactions in the form of improvs.

Ohhhh ... that is so nice, I will love it .  Thank you .

[Mayla]

Listening again after almost 4 years...
Yeah that's to me like an excerpt of our friendship, which is still so precious to me

And, I would just like to say that I also very much value our friendship!

[pianowolfi]

*klicks on "like" button*  

[Derek]

This is fantastic! Great work Mayla. Now I know for an absolute fact that eventually you'll realize that people who write music theory books and study them excessively do not have the first clue how music is created (maybe you already do realize this)---and the reason is, you have the real spark of creativity in you. There's a reason why we don't have any music theory books by people who actually wrote good music---they were too busy making it =)

[Mayla]

This is fantastic! Great work Mayla.

Thank you, Derek, I do appreciate your encouragement .  I think that, what I hear, is some form of organized musical thinking, at least, and so it makes me want to pay attention to what I was doing.  I think I need to "graduate" from this mindset of ... "I have no idea how I did that and it intimdates me that I did" and start listening instead to what I was actually doing and what happened, and then I would like to begin the process of deciding if what I had is what I ultimately intend to communicate, etc..  At least, that is, if I need it to communicate something.

Now I know for an absolute fact that eventually you'll realize that people who write music theory books and study them excessively do not have the first clue how music is created (maybe you already do realize this)---and the reason is, you have the real spark of creativity in you. There's a reason why we don't have any music theory books by people who actually wrote good music---they were too busy making it =)

I appreciate what I believe is your sentiment, here, in that, it's one thing to make music and then another to write about it.  I do agree!  Your post here got me thinking in the last 24 hours about all of that, and related to my words just above, I more or less decided that The Greats did write books on theory, it's just that theirs were the actual music itself.  That helped me see that "theory" is just some form of organizing one's thoughts about musical ideas, but it's not everything, obviously.  I often find it helpful to have aid from theoretical thinking as found in textbook, even for simple things like identifying chord names and intervals, for example.  But, I see that there is a point in which it isn't everything, or especially that, ultimately, how we personally organize our musical thinking is very individual.  One aspect that a textbook can never fully articulate on its own, nor even just a recording or listening, is the actual physical aspect of technique which in reality is attached to this mental organization of musical thought (not without some kind of knowledge on the act of playing, at least, to accompany it).  Each of The Great composers had some grasp on the act of playing and I suspect, especially with the pianists, that part of their own mental organization of sound very much included and was inseparable from the techniques they employed to make it.

So, I think that part of what I'm trying to say is that, in considering my own works, as I aim to organize them in my own mind, it is starting to include something like ... "ah, I can hear that this idea would include a sweep of the arm" etc..  In a way, that is a form of theory, and the fact that I might include certain aspects of the sound all in one gesture, would actually affect how I may think of something theoretically.  Anyway, I don't know if this is truly making sense to a reader, but the point is, it's got me thinking .

Thanks for your feedback .