Octatonic MachineMe

[furtwaengler]

Where all the answers are octatonic.

This has all sorts of rhythmic action and arpeggios and things...I was preparing this when I read m1469's Little Baby Person. Now I'm almost ashamed to post it. It shouldn't be for that though...maybe the recording quality?

(Where are we?)

Ah yes, the OCTATONIC SCALE! It is a staple of the language I have spoken for years. As there has been much discussion on improvisation and knowledge of scales and keys in improvisation, I thought it might be nice to bring this in. It's an 8 note scale sometimes called the diminished scale for good reason. Half step, whole step, half step, whole step...

Messiaen used it quite a bit, as did Scriabin, as did and do many other composers. I love ascending and descending triads in this scale. I love the ever changing tonal gravity the scale produces. Many different things, even astonishingly beautiful things can arise out of this scale, but this upload is not of that variety. It is more one energetic romp with a wash of notes, jagged and jaunty leaps (pianistic swag) and rhythmic gestures showing one side of the scale's possibilities. The MachineMe goes wildly out of control with all its octatonic answers (mixed with a few chromatics to keep it interesting), everybody starts dancing, and it explodes. Probably that's what happened, and so the ending has got to have a moral, and that you can decide.  

 

[utterlysneaky]

this sounded very interesting to my ear..this would sound miles better from a good digital piano+good external soundcard and recording cables, well at least we'd get rid of the hiss.
But it wasn't unlistenable or anything like that, enjoyed your music very much, it was a bit like Scriabin+Messiaen+LSD = guaranteed musical trip

[furtwaengler]

Thanks for listening, Sneaky. It's unfortunate that so much of my life is preserved on a little Olymous voice recorder, and this is what it picked up on September 3rd 2009. It would sound better if it were picked up by good mics and quality recorder meant for music - I don't think a digital piano can come close to what an actual piano can do. Though you will sometimes hear me on a Clavinova or other electronic representation, and though I must occasionally resort to such a product out of necessity (such as I do not own a piano and so do the bulk of my practice away from home), I greatly prefer even a bad piano to electronic representations. Feeling the action and hearing a living tone is so important to me. In this recording, I was playing a Yamaha C7 grand in a recital hall.

Thanks for the kind comments!

Dave

[m1469]

Where all the answers are octatonic.

This has all sorts of rhythmic action and arpeggios and things...I was preparing this when I read m1469's Little Baby Person. Now I'm almost ashamed to post it. It shouldn't be for that though...maybe the recording quality?

(Where are we?)

haha ... well, I certainly didn't mean to suggest that you should feel badly posting it!  I rather feel a little silly for posting something so itty bitty (and enjoying it  ).

Ah yes, the OCTATONIC SCALE! It is a staple of the language I have spoken for years. As there has been much discussion on improvisation and knowledge of scales and keys in improvisation, I thought it might be nice to bring this in. It's an 8 note scale sometimes called the diminished scale for good reason. Half step, whole step, half step, whole step...

Messiaen used it quite a bit, as did Scriabin, as did and do many other composers. I love ascending and descending triads in this scale. I love the ever changing tonal gravity the scale produces. Many different things, even astonishingly beautiful things can arise out of this scale, but this upload is not of that variety. It is more one energetic romp with a wash of notes, jagged and jaunty leaps (pianistic swag) and rhythmic gestures showing one side of the scale's possibilities. The MachineMe goes wildly out of control with all its octatonic answers (mixed with a few chromatics to keep it interesting), everybody starts dancing, and it explodes. Probably that's what happened, and so the ending has got to have a moral, and that you can decide.  

  

haha ... I love this description.  I am listening as I type ... this is actually quite electric .  Honestly, I wish I knew how to give you an improvisational answer to this, but of course this is incredible playing, what can I say?  What I don't understand is the clarity of your playing, the actual technical ability, that you are able to put into your improvs.  Even if I get fast fingers, my concepts don't work that fast yet.  Not on the fly in a musical way.  You obviously have shapes and sounds engrained in you and you can just decide, subconsciously or otherwise, to just go a certain route and you go there.  And, you trust that it will work out.  I don't know exactly how to even start.  Well, that's not entirely true.  I have tried in the past --and even posted-- and I think it comes out as incomprehensible, unlike yours.

[m1469]

ugh, I'm sorry, Dave.  I realize my last reply was from another land of feeling confused between everything I'm reading and listening to lately.  You specifically said you used an octatonic scale.  I don't even know what that is.  I have to look it up!  I guess I will tomorrow.  It's just that, there's more to it than just you deciding to play in an octatonic scale.  Yikes, I'm getting sleepy and not making sense suddenly.

*goes to piano*

[furtwaengler]

No need to apologize! It is all quite good. I was thinking, another thing improvisation can do is make you feel like a superhero for a few minutes, because the notes and the rhythms, they do make sense, and they fit, and they jive, and it all happened in a moment, exerting control over the instrument. Now, if we are to take that recorded moment and fully notate the goings on with the rhythm, the dynamics, the articulation, etc., it would be quite a feat to reproduce it on the instrument. Certainly not impossible, for a recorded moment proved it's possible...but likely very difficult to coordinate. This is a humorous idea to me...play something in a moment in time, just sit down and play it...notate what you played in a moment...and then spend the next 6 weeks learning how to play what you played in a moment, HA! 

[lostinidlewonder]

Restored somewhat.

[pianowolfi]

This is fascinating!Bravo!!

 I know that you have used this scale before, and me too, @m1469, had to look it up, so you're not alone because I could imagine many octatonic scales but didn't know what *thee* octatonic scale is. So it's a scale that goes half step/whole step alternating. Like C-D-E^b-F-G^b-A^b-A-B-C.

[littletune]

That's like being on a rollercoaster and fireworks exploding all around you!!  Oh I guess that's the MachineMe I'm not sure what's first... and then when it explodes we all fly into the space and fall into a black hole and we travel into another universe and land on a strange planet with even stranger beings living on it and those beings are really interested in the MachineMe and they jump and creep around it until they fix it and it starts working again and then it starts spinning and then when it finally stops we all fall back to Earth  ... And then everything starts all over again   
So the moral would be that everything goes in circles and the beginning can also be the end and the end can also be the beginning!   

[furtwaengler]

Thanks for the restoration, lost. It sounds much cleaner.

Wolfi, the octatonic scale is like a dreamland for me...but I cling to it; it creeps into everything - I might well have to willfully go into octatonic withdrawal. 

And littletune, your imagination is a joy for us all. I tell you the truth, I have no idea what a "MachineMe" is. I just stole it from the Fortune MachineMe thread in anything but piano. Whatever it's been, it's been everywhere.