Two miniatures

[ted]

Written over forty years ago, these were a conscious, sentimental reminiscence of times spent with my grandfather, fishing at the stopbank on the Northern Wairoa River when I was very young.

[rachfan]

Hi Ted,

Fantastic!  These pieces, efforts of your youth, are effervescent and effective compositions.  The nostalgia definitely comes through too.  I'm glad you kept the scores to these works, relearned them and posted them here.  Both have the unmistakable characteristic of "water music".  The turns of phrase are so fresh!  I wonder if your interpretation of your own compositions is different from your first performances from 40 years ago?  Again, these are wonderful recordings.  In fact, I'm going to listen to them again! 

David

 

[goldentone]

These are wonderful, Ted.   Thanks for sharing.  Your playing reminds me of Gershwin's.

[furtwaengler]

Fantastic, wonderful...a delight! This is music that should immediately make anybody happy, that should brighten everybody's day. Thanks for posting it. 

[ted]

Thank you all for your encouraging comments. I adored the music of Gershwin around that time and Rhapsody In Blue was the reason I recommenced playing after a hiatus of four years, having become tired of it around ten years old. So subconscious influence could be at work. Perhaps, in one sense, fluency in improvisation is a double-edged sword. These days I find myself increasingly able to express this sort of thing spontaneously and do not trouble myself to write it out. Maybe this is a mistake. Maybe, now I have plenty of time, I should write some more of it out. I don't know.

As it happens, David, I know an early recording does exist somewhere of these particular pieces. Once all this Christmas push and shove is over I'll find the tape and extract it out of curiosity.

furtwaengler:

That is all there is to it for me really. I create music because it makes me happy. If it makes other people happy then so much the better. I don't have the right sort of mind for academic theories and serious striving. "Feeling good is good enough for me", as somebody or other said.

[furtwaengler]

"If it sounds good, it is good." - Duke Ellington

[kard]

Great stuff I'd love to learn it. Do you distribute your scores?

[ted]

Hello kard,
                   Send me your email in a private message and I shall scan the scores and send them to you.

Ted.

[kard]

Thanks so much.

[ted]

No bother, I have just sent them this minute. There are a few differences but nothing listening to the recording won't fix.