"My Favorite Melody" -- improv

[m1469]

So this is one from last December.  It contains a few lines that I have actually come to love and take comfort in now.  Unfortunately, the recorder ran out of room so the recording is cut off at 5:54 - but, as I said to a friend of mine, the most important stuff had already been said by then .


Cheers and thanks for listening !
m1469

[pianowolfi]

Well, you know of course, I know this one for a long time already and hoped that you will post it one day And now I can't resist to comment it I have just posted a link in my "most consolatory piece" thread because it is also very comforting to me. And it makes me happy that your favorite melody is also one of my favorite melodies. Okay now I won't say too much because this is just more beatiful and wonderful than I ever am able to describe with words. I just want to listen and listen and listen and when I stop listening I hear it in my mind.  and now I stop soon  because if I go on like this people will think I am crazy and biased. I am perhaps. But I have also my reason for writing like this. I sense something special in your music and I am somehow convinced that if you go on on your path and keep it up your music will be in more and more people's hearts and will find it's way. And hopefully get more well-known. Okay I'm off practicing 

edit on June 4: I have had another thought about it this morning: It's like life and death would go hand in hand...peacefully.

[m19834]

Hi Wolfi,

Thank you for your comment here and for linking to this post.  I have always appreciated your willingness to be open and accepting towards me.  I had actually very much forgotten about this little tune.  I have a few of my own things on my mp3 player which I listen to, and this is not one of them.  Upon a first listen I actually couldn't stand it and then, yes, I heard some melodic material that helped me realize why I had wanted to "share" this.  I think what "frustrates" me most about listening to many of these improvs of mine is that I hear only skeletons.  Oftentimes there is really very little real direction and not any true shape.  The concepts are not complete, or if somewhere within me they are, they are not actually expressed.  

Yes, there is something 'to' just letting oneself explore the dark but I think there is also something 'to' exploring the light.  Yes, a keen ear can hear a "voice" in there, but it's not necessarily vivid and it doesn't necessarily have the understanding to actually say things completely.  Even with something like "journey" (one that I actually do listen to quite a bit in phases) the actual expression is somehow still missing so much.  The best attributes, I feel, of my music is/has been mainly what it points to and/or hints at.  While something like Beethoven's 9th seems to point to something and hint at something beyond the sound itself, somehow the expression is actually very vivid and full.  He knew more about the actual craft than I do.  In that sense, his world was more lit.  

I realize I haven't improvised in awhile.  In some way I'm working on it still, but quietly .  While I do quite enjoy improvisation and I think there are many things entirely worthwhile about it, I mainly reached a point of dissatisfaction with what I could do and so I am on another journey.  I want to be capable of much more and ultimately would like to be actually composing (and, I don't mean I would rather compose than play or sing, but that I would prefer to express these musical ideas in a much more complete and meaty fashion).

Well, once again, I am ignoring the red warning about posting in this old thread.  Don't hate me, Nils .

[pianowolfi]

Yeah I have also experienced that the relation to one's own works changes with the time. There are improvs I posted here that I would actually rather delete And some of them stayed with me during the years. A third category are the ones that I didn't like when I just played them, but after 2-3 years I hear a direction in them.

I am dissatisfied with some things I did but then I hear from some listeners that they *love* just exactly these ones...

Of course my comment above was written three years ago and I would write it differently now but I still love this melody

[m19834]

Yeah, strangely enough, the last melody in this improv has stuck with me over the course of the day ... haha.  I guess I can see what you mean about hearing things in an improv years later.  Not that I have thought about this one so much, but it could be interesting to go back and see what there may be in others.  My feeling at the time is that one day I would like to restructure a few of them and make actual compositions.  Journey is definitely one, Prelude to Life, and perhaps some others.  And, actually, I could see doing something with this melody, too .  My entire concept of music is changing at the time and that is helping to give structure to my musical thoughts .  There's still some hump for me to get over though ... I guess there's always some kind of next step (at least hopefully there is )!

[furtwaengler]

Classic m1469 I did not know existed. There are treasures, and I have hunters and diggers for friends, of whom is Pianowolfi who never forgets about these things K did as K or as m1469. And they are treasures, and I hate to think the well's been capped. I hope you do still improvise and explore, Karli, if only for yourself. Your expectations are high, I know...but I'm under the impression that improvisation and composition can and should be separate art forms even if the basic goal is for one to emulate the other. It is then in some sense cruel to place compositional standards on improvisation and improvisational standards on composition....and sometimes our own high standards can suffer those who have come to greatly love the spontaneity of the moment in us a great loss. (I have this problem that I am often woefully unable to view myself objectively.)

But then there's a separate thing going...I am afraid in my case I will never be a composer. I had tried to be the composer on occasions in the past, and dilly and dally on it now...but in improvisation, though it pains me to say it, I was able to achieve the expressive goals I could not achieve in struggles for composition...and the improvisation, unlike Wolfi, never really could translate over well to composition. So woe, it was, be it woe no more (WOAH!)...separate art forms I say (and it's good to keep a recorder on hand )

If that's decipherable...I'd love it if you were free again, and gave more glimpses of this freedom. Old posts like this is like a new revelation.

(Compose, too. I *love* your F minor prelude. Your voice is yours only in a large world of many voices. And I dearly love your voice.)

Dave

[m19834]

Dave, thank you very much for your beautiful thoughts and for taking the time to post them.  It has actually been truly helpful for me and has inspired me to go ahead and be doing some things.  The past several months of my life have been ... very challenging, but also beautifully intense.  In the last week I have realized some very important things to overcome, and the ability to do that involves actually utilizing the tools at hand that I have.  An aspect of that has been to take one of the melodies in this thread and just play it again and to 'own' it a bit.  It even woke me up last night around 3am .  

I actually suspect that the bits in this improv which I wish to keep belong to a much bigger concept, and in the past 24 hours, I have realized the need to be willing to really take on the challenge of discovering how to see these bigger concepts actually manifest.  I have spent a long time feeling like I don't know how, that I don't even know where to start, and just feeling stuck.  There is definitely something 'to' having an education that is fitting for the demands, and part of that has been the piano study I have been doing for the past couple of years.  The Universe is still so enormous though and I have a deep hunger to continue projects that have been kind of stuck in the swamp with me.  I have realized that, if I wish to actually not just let myself rot in a swamp, I simply must take on what are actually very positive challenges and be patient with the fact that, even if I can already somehow feel the entire concept being already alive, I may not see its full manifestation overnight.  It's going to be a process.

One thing that I admire about Wolfi and his work is that I can see he is very brave and courageous to be in this process.  It takes quite a bit of both of those qualities, amongst others.

One of my current projects is to be re-structuring and re-writing Prelude to Life.  Thank you very much to both of you .

[ted]

The relative frequency and importance of composition and improvisation over a given player's life would probably make a study in its own right. In around forty-five years I have changed from regarding written composition as the ultimate objective of my piano music to almost a total embracing of improvisation as ends, means and everything in between. In my twenties and thirties I wrote dozens (possibly hundreds, I haven't counted) of piano pieces and recorded improvisation once every few months. At sixty-three, I have written out nothing for ten years and my present recorded improvisation frequency is about a CD every two weeks and accelerating.

What is gained and lost by writing things out ? By not writing things out ? I think we can dismiss the permanence of pen and paper in the electronic, digital age; that is no longer relevant to the central question. Could a composition perhaps be simply defined as a piece wherein I play pretty much the same notes, the same way each time ? I think so. Whether or not I actually make a visual approximation of the sounds on paper is irrelevant.

In the end I can only comment meaningfully on my own position. Both processes are so intrinsically personal, so woven into my own psyche, that anything I try to say stands a good chance of seeming strange, or even ridiculous, to another player.

My first and main practical problem with composition is rhythm - I cannot write out the spontaneous rhythms which deeply move me in easily transmissible form. I have tried and I don't think it can be done. From what little I have seen and heard of other creators and their activities I doubt they can either. In fact the better known they are the less capable they seem of grasping that a problem even exists; such is the power of two or three centuries of notational tyranny.

The second problem is that everything takes too long. To write out even a  fumbling, halfway decent approximation of things I like playing takes on average about a thousand times as long as it takes, not just to play it, but to create it. Taken in conjunction with the average lifespan this fact is a pretty formidable case for improvisation.

Now those two reasons still do not exclude composition in the sense of a more or less permanent, repeated piece crystallising from my playing - whether written out or not. This does not happen like it used to with me. Why not ? I think the reason is the sheer volume of spontaneous ideas. Virtually every musical thought these days is a springboard to another. At every turn there is change, delight and surprise. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Do I not then possess this drive for final structure, a consolidated epitome of some deep-seated psychic state in the form of the polished gems which K implicitly describes as the ultimate creative end ? Yes, of course I do, but with me the "end" is the whole evolving organism itself - my mind, life and its colossal panoply of thousands of hours of piano sound spread over forty-five years (and hopefully a few more). Form exists but after the manner of a collection of organisms, species forever evolving, reproducing, cross-pollinating, according to the chaotic impulses of their environment, not of a static cathedral designed by even an architect of genius. To steal a brilliant allusion from Bronowski, talking about his grandchild in the Ascent of Man, an Easter Island statue is in the end not worth anything compared to a baby's face.

When I asked an old friend about these things many years ago he replied that people crave some embodiment of stasis to offset the truth of their own transience in a dynamic system - so they create things to "make a desperate mark on the wall - I WAS HERE !" I disagreed with him then and I disagree with him now - for myself - but I rather think he wasn't too far off the truth  generally.      

[m19834]

Ted, this is really quite an amazing post and I thank you very much.  It's actually affected me quite a bit, but in a way that I haven't quite had words for.  Thank you again, Ted, this is extremely generous of you and I appreciate it very much.  I'll probably be back .

[furtwaengler]

I'll probably be back .

Whether or not I'm correctly interpreting the meaning and weight of these words, I do not know...but it sure seems to call for a smiley. 

 

[goldentone]

Classic m1469 I did not know existed.

It's all classic.

[pianowolfi]

One thing that I admire about Wolfi and his work is that I can see he is very brave and courageous to be in this process.  It takes quite a bit of both of those qualities, amongst others.

One of my current projects is to be re-structuring and re-writing Prelude to Life.  Thank you very much to both of you .

Seems like I'm a bit in a " K. phase" these days, I came back to some of your improvs, this one, Inner circle and Stampede especially. And it turns out that they have lost nothing of their fascination to me during the years, quite the contrary. I am looking forward to more

To be brave and courageous in the context of creating my work seems easy to me once I reach a certain state of really accepting myself, reaching that in myself which might be an equivalent of what you call your Monsty. In that state I can see so clearly the "necessity" (though this is not really the exact word) of doing what I do. And I get fully determined to do so, feeling distinctly that nothing can stop me (although things may be progressing tediously slow at times).

[chopinatic]

This is a beautiful and soul touching improvisation! very reflective and although much of it is simple, its very deep and meaningful. Wonderful work and thanks for sharing

[m19834]

Seems like I'm a bit in a " K. phase" these days, I came back to some of your improvs, this one, Inner circle and Stampede especially. And it turns out that they have lost nothing of their fascination to me during the years, quite the contrary. I am looking forward to more

To be brave and courageous in the context of creating my work seems easy to me once I reach a certain state of really accepting myself, reaching that in myself which might be an equivalent of what you call your Monsty. In that state I can see so clearly the "necessity" (though this is not really the exact word) of doing what I do. And I get fully determined to do so, feeling distinctly that nothing can stop me (although things may be progressing tediously slow at times).

Wolfi, Thanks for your post here.  I have recently again listened to Inner Circle, as well.  Have yet to want to return to something like Stampede  :-.  There will be more at some point.

I'm not going to lie, accepting oneself is sometimes strangely difficult, but something that I have indeed struggled with for my entire life.  It seems it can be hard on others in my life.  I know though that this isn't a reason enough to withold one's truest nature, but there's a lot to me and much of it is very intense.  Recently, somebody wonderful has helped me to make a gain though and I see that with piano playing anyway, I have had some wires crossed.  I have thought that anything good that happens, anything right that I do is somehow the accident or the "error" while anything bad and not up to par is the fact or the real me (yes, there are some deeper things to that) -- I am spending my day today reversing that way of thinking.  I have even written out 10 piano commandments .  It's a step.

This is a beautiful and soul touching improvisation! very reflective and although much of it is simple, its very deep and meaningful. Wonderful work and thanks for sharing

Thank you for listening, chopinatic, and for your comment.  I am in the moment of accepting even the simple .

[birba]

The relative frequency and importance of composition and improvisation over a given player's life would probably make a study in its own right. In around forty-five years I have changed from regarding written composition as the ultimate objective of my piano music to almost a total embracing of improvisation as ends, means and everything in between. In my twenties and thirties I wrote dozens (possibly hundreds, I haven't counted) of piano pieces and recorded improvisation once every few months. At sixty-three, I have written out nothing for ten years and my present recorded improvisation frequency is about a CD every two weeks and accelerating.

What is gained and lost by writing things out ? By not writing things out ? I think we can dismiss the permanence of pen and paper in the electronic, digital age; that is no longer relevant to the central question. Could a composition perhaps be simply defined as a piece wherein I play pretty much the same notes, the same way each time ? I think so. Whether or not I actually make a visual approximation of the sounds on paper is irrelevant.

In the end I can only comment meaningfully on my own position. Both processes are so intrinsically personal, so woven into my own psyche, that anything I try to say stands a good chance of seeming strange, or even ridiculous, to another player.

My first and main practical problem with composition is rhythm - I cannot write out the spontaneous rhythms which deeply move me in easily transmissible form. I have tried and I don't think it can be done. From what little I have seen and heard of other creators and their activities I doubt they can either. In fact the better known they are the less capable they seem of grasping that a problem even exists; such is the power of two or three centuries of notational tyranny.

The second problem is that everything takes too long. To write out even a  fumbling, halfway decent approximation of things I like playing takes on average about a thousand times as long as it takes, not just to play it, but to create it. Taken in conjunction with the average lifespan this fact is a pretty formidable case for improvisation.

Now those two reasons still do not exclude composition in the sense of a more or less permanent, repeated piece crystallising from my playing - whether written out or not. This does not happen like it used to with me. Why not ? I think the reason is the sheer volume of spontaneous ideas. Virtually every musical thought these days is a springboard to another. At every turn there is change, delight and surprise. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Do I not then possess this drive for final structure, a consolidated epitome of some deep-seated psychic state in the form of the polished gems which K implicitly describes as the ultimate creative end ? Yes, of course I do, but with me the "end" is the whole evolving organism itself - my mind, life and its colossal panoply of thousands of hours of piano sound spread over forty-five years (and hopefully a few more). Form exists but after the manner of a collection of organisms, species forever evolving, reproducing, cross-pollinating, according to the chaotic impulses of their environment, not of a static cathedral designed by even an architect of genius. To steal a brilliant allusion from Bronowski, talking about his grandchild in the Ascent of Man, an Easter Island statue is in the end not worth anything compared to a baby's face.

When I asked an old friend about these things many years ago he replied that people crave some embodiment of stasis to offset the truth of their own transience in a dynamic system - so they create things to "make a desperate mark on the wall - I WAS HERE !" I disagreed with him then and I disagree with him now - for myself - but I rather think he wasn't too far off the truth  generally.      

So what you're saying, ultimately, is that we should all be playing our own improvisations?  What if I liked yours and I wanted to play it, too?  I also think messiaen did quite well in putting into the archaic notation system,  the rythms and sounds he heard in his head.  His rythms are infectious.  I would be curious to hear one of your improvisations.  Have you posted them?  I heard you play some Debussy, I think it was.  Very fine playing.  Also, I would have guessed you to be 40 years old at the most!

[ted]

So what you're saying, ultimately, is that we should all be playing our own improvisations?

No, of course not, what is right for me might not be right for anybody else. My post only applies to me personally and my own views on improvisation, which are probably unusual.

What if I liked yours and I wanted to play it, too?

Excellent point. I hadn't remotely considered that anybody would want to play my improvisations precisely. If a sufficient number of people did I suppose the only practical course would be to record on a digital instrument. That would at least provide all the pitches.

I also think messiaen did quite well in putting into the archaic notation system,  the rythms and sounds he heard in his head.

Quite right, he certainly did.

I would be curious to hear one of your improvisations.  Have you posted them?

Quite a few. A search on the Audition Room should find them.

I heard you play some Debussy, I think it was.

I have never played any Debussy. Either it was one of my own pieces in the Audition Room or it was Debussy played by somebody else.

Also, I would have guessed you to be 40 years old at the most!

I don't think I have posted a photo here for ages. Thanks for the compliment but the image in the mirror is closer to reality.


 

[birba]

Sorry, I realized I confused ted with tds.