Derek Andrews - June 13th improvisation - Romantic stuff and Boogie Woogie stuff

[Derek]

Here's some stuff I recorded today. Enjoy

[lostinidlewonder]

Great work Derek. I like how you keep resolving towards traditional keys and keep the dissonance down. Although sometimes you have a more modern idea they still resolve eventually to traditional chords. My favorite part would have to be the Blues that comes around 10:37, I think the amount of listening you've done in this style has done you good.

[Nightscape]

Derek, this is probably my favorite of what you've done so far.  I have to say I really enjoyed the Boogie Woogie part (about 11 minutes into it).  I also for some reason liked how you held the bass note after your romantic improvisation for a very long time.  It gave me time to relax and think about what had just happened, I guess.  The last melody in your romantic part was very beautiful as well, it seemed tinged with melancholy.

My only criticism is that is seems as though you rely on moving flowing lines too much (like arpeggios, and flowing, wandering melodies).  This is something I do also.  You might try doing something completely different - for example, take the Rachmaninoff prelude in G minor op. 23 no. 5.  The first and last sections have very little "flowing" quality, more of a spiky, jumpy march with staccato and such.  In contast, the middle section does have this flowing quality.  This is a good thing to do, to have contast - something as simple as 'non-flowing', 'flowing', 'non-flowing'.  I just had a thought.  You could try putting some of the "Boogie Woogie" figurations and articulations the context of a romanticized, classical improvisation.  Might be interesting!

[Derek]

Hey thanks. Yeah---I'll admit to habitually returning to various textures that I feel most comfortable with. It would do me good to "play out of the box" as it were!

::edit:: I think we were talking about different things now that I've listened to it again....hahaha. Oh well. (I had something here about the melody you liked and thought it was a different  part

Anyway thanks for the helpful comments!