A Real Unearthly Voice!?!

[lostinidlewonder]

Here is the story, I do a lot of playing at the local Anglican Church here in my home town as they look after my grand piano and it is a nice large hall to practice in. This improvisation was merely a warm up for my daily practice I liked the patterns that I came up with and it seems to get more interesting the more I loosen up. I was however rudely interrupted by some strange noise while I was playing, I thought I heard it while I was playing before but it was only near the very end of the recording that you hear me actually stopping because I was hearing something and as soon as I stopped a voice spoke! I was not alone in the Church, there where other people but there where quite far away in another part of the church, this voice was rather close. I thought I would just post the whole improv from start to finish and you can hear it for your self at the end.

There is a possibility that there was someone talking from far back at the church maybe they yelled and it carried over into the room and sounded like it threw its voice right near me. I don't know. I can't quite make out what it says, I think it says "I need a hug/home?" what are your opinions?

[littletune]

How cool!!!! It sounds a lot different than the voices from far away... and it doesn't sound like yelling to me. And it does sound like I need a home (or hug or hope... ) Maybe ghosts really like music! Maybe we could talk to them that way!  What if ghosts are "made" of the same thing as music? What if ghosts live inside of the pianos??    what if music can open some kind of wormholes?? and then the ghosts can come through that?? 
And this improvisation reminds me of water... and sometimes rainbows and rainbows in water.... cool!

[lostinidlewonder]

Thanks littletune for listening and you are right it sounds like hope too. I personally don't believe in ghosts as in they are deceased people, but I do believe in spirit entities. Every time I enter the church I never feel alone, there is always a presence even when I am alone. I hear lots of strange sounds while I play over the years I have got used to it, but this example is probably the most profound one so far.

I have cut the mp3 so you those who don't want to download the whole file can hear what I am talking about. There is a squeaking sound after the voice but I am sure that is me releasing a pedal and putting it back down.

[furtwaengler]

Why do I keep hearing subconscious illusions to "Happy Birthday?" And is it my subconscious or yours?

[pianowolfi]

I enjoy listening to your harmonies and passages

It sounds like trying out...trying out until you *get* something.
Maybe (I am not there yet) the "ghostly" voice will be the answer...
But whether it is the answer or not, I hear that "towards-something"...like "towards the flame" "towards the light" "towards....(childhood perhaps?)" and you're getting closer and closer as it's getting lighter...

that voice itself sounds like something "backward played". Of course I don't mean you did backward playing with the recording, it just sounds so. And it started before you stopped playing, I'm sure. There are some strange sounds a few seconds before you stopped.

btw I also hear voices at (among other) 1:49  and 6:38 (female) and 3:20 (male), the female one sounds similar to the one at the end.

Lots of "impressionistic" stuff in there, whole tone scales and such

[lostinidlewonder]

Why do I keep hearing subconscious illusions to "Happy Birthday?" And is it my subconscious or yours?

Lol what do you mean?

It sounds like trying out...trying out until you *get* something.

You are right the first half I tend to repeat passages which interested me. The thought process was like, "that was interesting lets do that again and continue until I am inspired to move from there."

But whether it is the answer or not, I hear that "towards-something"...like "towards the flame" "towards the light" "towards....(childhood perhaps?)" and you're getting closer and closer as it's getting lighter...

Interesting idea, I could imagine it like almost like trying to grab for a hand that is reaching out like Michelangelo's famous "The creation of Adam" where Adam reaches for God. One thing I am trying to do with improvs is being able to repeat what I have just played, sometimes you play and cannot remember what you just did, for more logic to an improv I guess it is nice to be able to repeat so that the listener is not so confused.

that voice itself sounds like something "backward played". Of course I don't mean you did backward playing with the recording, it just sounds so. And it started before you stopped playing, I'm sure. There are some strange sounds a few seconds before you stopped.

btw I also hear voices at (among other) 1:49  and 6:38 (female) and 3:20 (male), the female one sounds similar to the one at the end.

Yes there where a few people in the church and you can hear some of them talking throughout the recording, but the voice at the end to me sounds very different to them at the back room outside of the hall I am in. I am thinking that my recording device perhaps can pick up and amplify loud but distant voices, so I am thinking that perhaps someone talked loudly from far away and the digital recorder amplified it in some way to make it sound a lot closer. That would be the logical conclusion, but even when I have been in the church alone I tend to feel and hear strange things, so there is that microscopic possibility that this sound is not human.

Lots of "impressionistic" stuff in there, whole tone scales and such

Yeah impressionism is just one scale the whole tone right Been studying Ravel/Debussy so some of that stuff did creep in the warm up improv.

[quantum]

Furtwaengler, you are not the only one who picked up Happy Birthday in this 

I too heard voices throughout, not only at the end.

A part in the beginning with all the dark chords sounded like it suits the title of the piece - ghostly and mysterious.  There was a point when the music sounded like late Scriabin. 

[rachfan]

Hi quantum,

Yes, near the end it does sound like "I need a hug".  Earlier in the recording I heard a distant and brief conversation there.  But this utterance at the end seemed closer and more distinct. And there was no audible response to it--it was isolated, perhaps for your ears only.  A bit spooky I guess.  

It's hard to fathom things like that.  Whenever I record in my living room, I am the only person at home. Yet in my current recording here of Catoire's "Etude-fantastique" at 3:12, there is an odd sound that I cannot figure out.  It almost sounds like an owl, but I recorded during daylight hours when owls are inactive.  Perhaps it might be a dog barking.  Or... the disembodied voice of Catoire?    I have two other Catoire recordings with anomalies.  One is a very brief and strange high-pitched whistle.  In the other recording it sounds like there is a voice uttering one word of approval, disapproval, or similar that I cannot make out.  (It might have been a damper just barely touching its string during a pedal change causing a momentary noise in the string, which could occur on any piano--I don't know.)  I don't try to edit out those anomalies or rerecord.  I just consider that stuff to be part of the performance.  

[kobrowsky]

It's definetely god, needing a hug. He's asked that from me too a couple of times. Told him a couple of times that just a voice is not enough, that I need him in a bodily form. Doesn't even want to hear about it. Says he's done that more then once and ended up dead every time.
"A donkey steps on the ice only once", as we say in Slovenia. Don't know the English equivalent. I think it's something about a fool that gets fooled again or something.