Improvs from long ago.

[lontano]

I would appreciate feedback on these posts, regardless of what you think of them. Or me.  
I simply love the instrument and the music that goes into and out of it. So be gentle.

The first of these was recorded on a Tandberg R2R in a small chapel. The audio quality is somewhat muffled from being a 4th or 5th generation copy. I call it "Unconscious Flight", because that's how my mind felt as my fingers graced the keys. I never played like this before or since.
Lontano

[lontano]

The next improvisation was performed in the same small chapel, 10 years after the first. This one was done with a professional DAT (digital) recorder and PZM microphones and is reasonably clear.

The music goes all over the place, reflecting the scattered nature of my mind at the time. 

I call this one "UntitledImprove" from around 1992.

Lontano

[lontano]

There is not much music here. It is a dry lake. There was not much left for me to express at the time, so I call it "Out of Mind"...

L.

[lontano]

This last piece is only an improvisation in that it was sketched out in 1977, derived from a 12-tone matrix by Anton Webern, purely as a lark, never expecting to hear it performed. 20 years later a young pianist friend was preparing a recital and asked if I had written anything he might add to the program, so... I sat down and worked that crazy, unplayable bit of nonsense from 1977 into something playable, which he did. And playable is about all that it is. On his recital he also played the Kabalevsky 3rd sonata, Beethoven op 109 (I believe), Ichyanagi's "Piano Media" and a sonata of his own.

This is what my sketch turned into: "Misericorde (Dagger of Mercy)"

Lontano

[chopinatic]

I liked them all, the structure and the development. the melodies etc. it was nice work

[lontano]

Thank's for listening. I'm glad (some of) you enjoyed them.
Eventually I will find the older tapes of my really intense works, even if they don't strictly qualify as "solo piano improvisations". It's on my "bucket list" of things I'd like to do before...

Lontano

Improvisation need be nothing more than doing your best at forcing the keys to render your intentions, for better or worse; heard by nothing but the objects in the space around you.

[furtwaengler]

I'm sorry it took me so long to hear these. I finally downloaded them, burned them to CD and took them along on my 50 mile commute into work.

...

You are NOT a pianist NOR a composer? Is this a statement on the present or on even the past? But you mention the very end of your career in discussing Out of Mind. Is this referring to the piano, music, or an entirely different career? Also, does one have to be a professional to be a pianist or a composer?

I don't mean to intrude with rude questions...I'm just a bit shaken by this, what with the immediate kinship and sympathy I feel towards the MUSIC which was preserved on those tapes, and so kindly transferred and revealed to us. I don't know what to say. How did you leave the piano, and will I leave it in the same way? I am rattled and perplexed!

These are good. They communicate effectively...even Out of Mind is a caricature of itself, and I do identify with the language. Misericorde would naturally be the most organized, and you had a nice soloist on hand...what is he doing these days? Misericorde and your untitled improv reveal something of a personality intense, surreal, and serious (I'm thinking of an expression of vinegar in the blood, but I can't remember it perfectly). The single "pitch center" expressed by the reoccurring octave daggers is effective...the piece being thicker than Webern, (maybe not early Webern, op. 6 etc.) I imagine it thicker still, an expansion to many pianos spaced out in a large room, not quite in tune with each other, and being alone walking around the room as dissonance floats from differing directions. Unconscious Flight seems like middle Scriabin speaking in an different tongue...maybe an impressionistic tongue.

You can take it with a grain of salt (if you're prone to think negatively ), but I LIKE these A LOT, and I sincerely hope you dig up some more tapes, or even sit down at a piano to see if you have some left.

THANK YOU for posting them!

Dave

[lontano]

Thank you very much for your kind reflections on my improves, Dave. I realize there is a certain ambiguity in my remarks on the works. I can attempt to make things maybe a little clearer.

When I say I am not pianist nor a composer I mean just that. I took piano lessons as a child for about 3 years or so, and they were short lessons (1/2 hour, twice a month as it was all my parents could afford), and I was told I had talent. Unfortunately - and one of my greatest laments - I hated practicing. When I was 12 I was starting to rebel (in those early twinkling ways children do as they approach adolescence) and I really let my piano practice slide, to the point my mother had me on my knees praying to God for the motivation to keep going. Sadly, God must have been listening to some other kid's prayers those days, and I finally declared I wanted to quite lessons, breaking my mother's heart, and changing my life forever.

From then on, my only instruction in performing came from episodic periods between 1978 and 1992. I never developed any real discipline, and rarely practiced in a proper way. I've always had a problem with short-term memory and with memorization in general, so I was "a slave to the score". Oddly, my little sister was very quick to hear a tune and sit down and begin harmonizing and memorizing it with ease and no lessons! (Something I wished I could do, but never got it  .)

As far as composing, the story is not much different. I played around just a little with ideas on paper, as well as attempting arrangements of piano works of Scriabin for string quintet (one of his preludes) and a really strange attempt at orchestrating "Vers la flamme", with a string quartet playing the quiet, condensed beginning, adding more instruments as the music expanded.

In 1977 I took a job at a local liberal arts college with a well-regarded music program, as a "music librarian" (though I had no credentials). My first task was to completely catalog (Dewey Decimal) all their scores. I was also given a "blank check" to go out and buy some very good audio recording equipment in order to tape all the student and faculty recitals (and there were many of those). As an employee of the college I took advantage of free piano and composition lessons for a few years, and I became involved with the electronic and "New Music by College students and teachers" programs. I spent many hours developing and recording wild and crazy (and very good! ) electro-acoustic improvisations in our lab; some of it made it into the "New Music" concerts we had once or twice a year. But again, all this was done mostly on my own, with very little instruction. In fact, the rather conservative faculty in the department, the REAL musicians, considered me an unqualified, undisciplined maverick who, God-forbid, enjoyed rock music! 

This all came to an end in the early 90's when my old nemesis finally brought my world crumbling to a pile of dust: Chronic Major Depression that I had been struggling with for most of my life ended me up in the hospital for a while, and when I returned to work I found I was unable to continue, and resigned. I've been on disability ever since. Between then and last year I was without a piano. That changed when I inherited the old Yamaha studio from my mother, and while I had hopped I would once again become active in playing,  it has been a slow process. Whatever technique I may have had seemed to be long gone (and I still hate practicing). I also live in an apartment building, and I wouldn't want to disturb the neighbors with too much banging  !

But I'm working at it. I still love the piano and the music. And I enjoy PianoStreet and discovering music. I still love reading scores, even though I can't play most of it.

If you really enjoy these works I've posted, let your friends know so that they might comment as well. I'm my own worst critic, so I had some trepidation just posting them.

Lontano

PS: The work "Misericorde" that I suggested was based on a Webern tone-row is as far removed from any actual music of Webern as a neutrino is from a galaxy! My use of the Webern tone row was something with no precedent and is mostly a private joke!

[furtwaengler]

Wow. Thanks for taking the time to write this.

If you can access any of those wild and crazy (and which I fully believe would be very good!) electro-acoustic improvisations...consider it a personal request. I'd love to here them (even if they don't involve a piano...I once met the Quantum of the electric violin, lol. [Here Quantum's improvisations on this site to gain insight.])

I was once forced to be treated for depression, which was not serious depression, because of blatant lack of discipline. Self discipline is kind of like chicken pox. Every person must go through chicken pox, but the earlier the better. If a child grows up without mastering his own will, a *hard* life awaits. But we learn as we go sometimes. I know my depression was not serious...one of my closest friends has suffered from something like serious chronic depression (I say "like" because I don't know what it is exactly), and is constantly medicated. When the storm hits, its like the living dead...nevertheless, he makes his life preaching the gospel, which is kind of a paradox (but not really, if you think about it). But, no health insurance do to the "preexisting condition."

I'm sorry you've had to endure this.

Haha on the Webern thing. You may consider my reaction to Misericorde a more public joke.   

Thanks for sharing yourself.

[lontano]

I will have to get some help from a friend to access my vast, unorganized collection of tapes from those years, and see if I can find anything that might be suitable. Some of what I did was primarily made for me alone, and running at up to 90 min in length would hardly be of much interest, practical or otherwise, in this forum. So don't hold your breath. But I appreciate the interest, and your comments.  

Lontano