Elegy-Improv from Dec. 23 2006

[pianowolfi]

This is one of my main pieces and seems to follow me everywhere since weeks, It seems to be like a sort of arc above everything. This is the first rendition, I have edited it since then, but only slightly.

[rob47]

very hypnotic and peaceful; disturbing and very tragic and moving.

i have to ask you, when improvising are the notes you are making ben marcato necessarily voice-led in a structurally sound way (don't know if this is answerable, or if it even makes sense) or is it just the improvisatory and natural musical flow from your mind to fingers so to speak?  I would guess the latter, but given your lifelong improvisation experiences perhaps with the first note you have a vision of where you will end and what will happen along the way; more importantly how to execute the big picture in real-time?

(not even sure if this is pedantic rambling or a question ) i will rephrase what im trying to say maybe tommorow if it's confusing and unintelligible.

ANyway i like it a lot! listening for a 2nd time

respec

[pianowolfi]

cool you like it Thank you for your thoughtful comment and your interesting question.
I'll try to answer. It's rather what you call "the natural musical flow from the mind to fingers". But this piece is something that surprised myself when I played it. It's one of those pieces that feel like they have been in me for my whole lifetime and just waiting for the right time spot, (or mood) to come out. It's like that day, December 23, I felt like being in an intense "dominant"(V7) chord feeling as a whole person and I could only resolve that tension into the "tonic" by sitting down and playing exactly this 
If I find a better way of describing this I will come back to it.

Thank you very much for listening and posting in, I see: yeah man, you got it

[Derek]

hi pianowolfi, really enjoyed this one!

[pianowolfi]

hi pianowolfi, really enjoyed this one!

Thank you Derek

[rachfan]

Hi wolfi,

This piece has a lovely sound, but what also interested me is how this piece is structured.  Often it seems like two-voice polyphonic music with a RH quasi-ostinato with some shifting variations as background, and the mournful LH melody in the foreground.  Sometimes the voices harmonize in counterpoint, and sometimes they are strictly independent, avoiding counterpoint by playing in vacant beats.  And yet either way, there is always a sense of full integration.  It's quite different.  Do your write these pieces down, or use realization software to do so?

[pianowolfi]

Hi wolfi,

This piece has a lovely sound, but what also interested me is how this piece is structured.  Often it seems like two-voice polyphonic music with a RH quasi-ostinato with some shifting variations as background, and the mournful LH melody in the foreground.  Sometimes the voices harmonize in counterpoint, and sometimes they are strictly independent, avoiding counterpoint by playing in vacant beats.  And yet either way, there is always a sense of full integration.  It's quite different.  Do your write these pieces down, or use realization software to do so?

Thank you rachfan Your description is really interesting to me. I think of it as a three-layer piece, with the two elements that you described plus the occasionally appearing bass, which is very important to me. In the edited version I use a bit more bass. The key E^b minor is something very special to me, it represents a certain "mystical" darkness and distance. I might write "lontano" above certain parts.

What is realization software? I use Finale to write them down plus a proggy tht's called "Amazing Slowdowner" which I bought over the internet. This slows down without changing the pitch and I am very grateful to have found it, otherwise I would be lost

[pianowolfi]

While listening again to this piece I had somehow the idea to add a picture and a sort of poem to it, not as a program but as another "message" from the same far away land or time. Since this comes from a huge idea that is deep and not yet fully graspable to me, I am always looking for new ways to express it. This might be very imperfect though, at the time Anyway, I am searching...





In this light beyond time and space
Where the river of life
Rises from unknown sources
You were with me
In the arms of god.

We had to part
Slowly awakens my remembrance
Where are you now?
I see you but...
So far away...

A little firefly has told me
That the light has not extinguished
But...
Will we ever get there again?

[rachfan]

Hi wolfi,,

Yes, I should have commented on the bass line as well.  Too, I should have added that the ostinato figure is very raindrop like, supporting the melancholy character of the elergy.  The picture and poem below add a lot too--suggestive of lost love. 

[pianowolfi]

Hi wolfi,,

Yes, I should have commented on the bass line as well.  Too, I should have added that the ostinato figure is very raindrop like, supporting the melancholy character of the elergy.  The picture and poem below add a lot too--suggestive of lost love. 

Hey there is no "should"  Thank you for your comments, I like your descriptions

[rachfan]

Hi wolfi,

Forgot to mention, by a "realization" I meant an electronic mode (software) of auditing, capturing, visibly notating and displaying an audio track (like an improv) as a PC-generated electronic file and/or paper score.  I guess there are quite a few options out there now for doing just that.  Hmmm... whatever became of the stereotypic image of the composer sitting at the piano or a table slaving with pencil and lined score paper?  It's the march of progress, I guess    From the sounds of it, you've found a workable method to capture all your improvs.  That's the important thing.

[pianowolfi]

Hi wolfi,

Forgot to mention, by a "realization" I meant an electronic mode (software) of auditing, capturing, visibly notating and displaying an audio track (like an improv) as a PC-generated electronic file and/or paper score.  I guess there are quite a few options out there now for doing just that.  Hmmm... whatever became of the stereotypic image of the composer sitting at the piano or a table slaving with pencil and lined score paper?  It's the march of progress, I guess    From the sounds of it, you've found a workable method to capture all your improvs.  That's the important thing.

Okay I have looked for something like "realization" I guess, and so far I found nothing that really works. Anyway, "the composer sitting at the piano or a table slaving with pencil and lined score paper" was my dream when I was a child. I used to listen to Schubert, played by my father, and secretly I dreamt of being able to write my musical ideas (intuitively, like Schubert) on a lined score paper. Lined score paper was so fascinating to me (and is still) I think I actually went to a music store back then just to buy some lined score paper and even wrote a few notes on it. But all this kind of knowledge you need to actually realise your ideas...that was like a huge unclimbable mountain Well now it isn't unclimbable anymore . But, strangely, I am actually not able to sit down in front of a blank sheet and just write something. I need to play and play...







and play

best

Wolfi

[rachfan]

. But, strangely, I am actually not able to sit down in front of a blank sheet and just write something. I need to play and play... /quote]

I don't think that's too unusual.  Despite the stories of Mozart conceiving of an entire piano concerto in his head in a matter of seconds and feverishly committing it to score, probably many composers work like you from the tangible to the abstract (ideas worked out at the instrument then notated into a score).  Almost all of Poulenc's piano music, for example, started as improvisatory pieces.  If one intrigued him, he'd work on it more intensively, polish it up, then invite friends over to hear his "improvisation" (that was actually more formalized in his head by then).  If the reaction was positive, he'd take the trouble to write it out and submit it to his publisher.  A composer who comes to mind though who could work very much in the abstract seemingly was Prokofiev.  He was reputed to usually have a half a dozen scores in progress on his work table at any one time, and he would actually move from one to another, pencil in hand, multitasking in furthering each one on any given day.  Of course, he was a fabulous virtuoso pianist as well, so maybe he really spent more time testing things out at the piano than we'll ever know.   

[pianowolfi]

Is it my fate? Restraint?
Do I have just these pathetic 88 keys?
Do I really have only a pathetic mp3 file to say this?
I want to express *everything*.
It's just a very small part.
It's just a tiny percentage of what I really feel, of what I really see, of what I really want to play.
I scream, I cry, I fume.
Nothing is enough. Nothing.
But perhaps "restraint" is the most intense way?