Project Birthday

[furtwaengler]

Pour you gifts into this thread. Monday is my bbbbbbbbbbirthday. I've been in Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafrica without a pppppppppppppppppppiano. But now I'm bbbbbbbbbbbbback. 

Today was another someone's birthday, for whom a send a recording every year as if I am s l o w l y counting. I thought...hmm, when has anybody played for MY birthday? Selfish? Awe...

Anyway, this was the thrown together medley from my small window of time today (the rest of which I was learning how to play the piano.).

And come Monday...play ME a song. Improvise wildly!

Dave

[ted]

Windows of time won't appear for me until well after Monday, but I have many hundreds of recorded pieces so I'm in little danger of repeating a post. Wild ? Enjoy a stiff brandy for your birthday and try the finale of this one I found. Dystonia material.

[pianowolfi]

Haha, happy birthday Dave! I planned to play something but it didn't work out. I'm in a bit of a slump and running out of energy and I am happy if I can manage to practice my two Rachmaninoff pieces for two hours a day.
But anyway, happy birthday, enjoy your being back home and getting back to
piano playing!

[quantum]

Happy birthday Dave!    Hope you enjoyed your time in Africa.

I didn't have time to set up a recording, so here is a piece from last year. 

[m1469]

Belated Happy Birthday, Dave!  I am so impressed that you were in Africa, wow!  I don't have an improv for you "yet" ... but, I still wanted to wish you Happy Birthday and it's nice to have you stop by .

[furtwaengler]

Thank you all for the birthdays and the treats. I love the improvisations, and am wanting to attempt something "Tedish" which would require finding a super conscious lostness in such a constantly moving stream...not just stream of conscious, but something resembling an eternal stream of water, in the sense that there's no ground to say when it began and were it breaks off. Ted is like the Nile. But for me, I can't even talk that way. I think too much and breath to much to be in such a Tedish flow. Nice to experiment, though!

And Quantum! Fluid disjunction! I know the piece. I have listened to it multiple times in awe of its jagged terrain...as Arnold Bax had Conlon Nancarrow's mind or the raw crashing of the waves on the rocks... I really cannot believe I never commented on this. (I have this problem where I think if I've given something some thought, I've probably vocalized it, where in actuality that's rarely the case.)

Wolfi, thanks for the wishes. Sorry to hear about the slump. I know they come and go, but I admire your discipline in the matter. Which Rachmaninoff are practicing? op. 28? I have taken a bit of a tumble myself recently, hardly touch a piano this summer, and even now practicing only about 2 days a week. This should pick up soon, however.

Thanks m1469, I don't mind tardiness if I know I get to hear your music! I must confess I've not been on pianostreet in sometime...less and less...and have missed quite a lot, though I have seen you in Vienna from a distance. Africa was kind of like my Vienna. Except, I wondered while staying in Bo, Sierra Leone if I could never touch a piano again...what would happen? How much would I think (dream) about it? It was the oddest feeling knowing how much music I've put inside me through the years. Questions like, if I was here in 20 years without touching a piano, hearing a recording, writing a piece (now that's been about 7 years anyway) etc, what would still be stuck in my head? Bruckner? Mahler? Would I be able to mentally get through the first movement of the 9th Symphony? Would it matter? I don't know if anybody else here has experienced such thoughts. In someways it may be healthy for anyone, discovering music is not the "choose bit." In this way I feel like I am free to explore and enjoy music!

[m1469]

Thanks m1469, I don't mind tardiness if I know I get to hear your music! I must confess I've not been on pianostreet in sometime...less and less...and have missed quite a lot, though I have seen you in Vienna from a distance. Africa was kind of like my Vienna. Except, I wondered while staying in Bo, Sierra Leone if I could never touch a piano again...what would happen? How much would I think (dream) about it? It was the oddest feeling knowing how much music I've put inside me through the years. Questions like, if I was here in 20 years without touching a piano, hearing a recording, writing a piece (now that's been about 7 years anyway) etc, what would still be stuck in my head? Bruckner? Mahler? Would I be able to mentally get through the first movement of the 9th Symphony? Would it matter? I don't know if anybody else here has experienced such thoughts. In someways it may be healthy for anyone, discovering music is not the "choose bit." In this way I feel like I am free to explore and enjoy music!

Well, I haven't had thoughts exactly like that perhaps, but my own form I think.  Sometimes I wonder if it's possible for me to go so deeply into my psyche that I can somehow recall some of the music I made up as a small child.  I have countless memories of sitting at the piano, but I remember at a quite young age trying to form my own notation system and writing a piece of music ... sometimes I still wonder what that sounded like? I have an extremely clear memory of doing that for the first time and feeling the need to write it out, but I can't remember the tune ... yet it seems like I should!  :-  Anyway, thanks for sharing some thoughts .

[furtwaengler]

That would be neat to hear, and neat to explore, but in some ways it must come out in much that you do today, although a tree does not look like a seed. I have practically no childhood memories, even as I do know I was once a child. I didn't know anything back then, either. I started playing at 11 out of my own exploration and nobody's prodding. There is still this sense, though that I've always been a symphony and had a symphony, and it only started to manifest itself at 11. As for you here, I feel the child's wonder has always been apparent.

[pianowolfi]

Wolfi, thanks for the wishes. Sorry to hear about the slump. I know they come and go, but I admire your discipline in the matter. Which Rachmaninoff are practicing? op. 28? I have taken a bit of a tumble myself recently, hardly touch a piano this summer, and even now practicing only about 2 days a week. This should pick up soon, however.

I'm learning MM 4 and 6. No. 6 is certainly one of the most glorious pieces I can think of, and I can't think of playing anything else at the time, except my own stuff of course.

[pankrpec]

I recorded the bithday present as soon as I read this post.
I find it difficult to describe what I felt during the improvisation, so let's just say it is a kind of 'echo' of your music in me. A little piece of my musical experience labeled Furtwaengler, which for me means completely free, unbounded, raw.

Happy Birthday

[furtwaengler]

Thanks Pankrpec. This is a very cool gift. You've got some daring splashes of sound, and then you really hit your zone going into the 4 minute mark and onward. I which I could hit a good zone again.

[m1469]

That would be neat to hear, and neat to explore, but in some ways it must come out in much that you do today, although a tree does not look like a seed. I have practically no childhood memories, even as I do know I was once a child. I didn't know anything back then, either. I started playing at 11 out of my own exploration and nobody's prodding. There is still this sense, though that I've always been a symphony and had a symphony, and it only started to manifest itself at 11. As for you here, I feel the child's wonder has always been apparent.

Well, first of all, this is beautiful, and I felt so when you wrote it.  Second of all, I feel like a poop-head that I can't improvise/play you something.  Now I am getting into that state of wondering something like this conversation came out of ... what if I never improvise again?  I don't understand how I can set it (or anything that actually matters so much to me) so far aside that it doesn't feel possible or like part of me anymore.  It just doesn't make sense!  I want to say that I still will bring you something, but I just can't promise a thing!

[edit]No, No, NO, no.  As of today I've had a new mantra and I'm not going to just sit by and accept this.  I scratch it out with all my might (but I left the poop-head bit)!  I can do whatever I put my mind to!

[furtwaengler]

I will not push you! Would it be a tragedy if one of the world's most meaningful voices stopped speaking except in other peoples languages? I don't know. Part of this is that I have felt less and less ABLE to really improvise meaningfully. Maybe recordings are to blame? I just don't know. But I should push myself now.

[ted]

I wouldn't worry too much m1469. It is probably only a matter of time before you need to express something which does not exist in other people's works. But if not, then that's all right. Only a very small minority of musicians improvise as an end in itself at the best of times anyway, and only a handful are loonies about it like me. You are a bit different as far as trained musicians go though, so my bet is that it will return sooner or later. "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law"

[m1469]

I will not push you! Would it be a tragedy if one of the world's most meaningful voices stopped speaking except in other peoples languages? I don't know. Part of this is that I have felt less and less ABLE to really improvise meaningfully. Maybe recordings are to blame? I just don't know. But I should push myself now.

Yeah, it's tricky business with the recording bit.  Growing up I never recorded I just played.  But, I want to share now, too, hence the desire to capture something in a way which allows it to be shared.

I am listening now to yours.  I can't always listen to things right away and go long spurts sometimes without being able to listen to very much, but lately I can take quite a lot in.  Dave, this seems a little sad - am I wrong?  You also do sound like you are having fun playing around, too, and I can't help but enjoy all of the variations.

[m1469]

I wouldn't worry too much m1469. It is probably only a matter of time before you need to express something which does not exist in other people's works. But if not, then that's all right. Only a very small minority of musicians improvise as an end in itself at the best of times anyway, and only a handful are loonies about it like me. You are a bit different as far as trained musicians go though, so my bet is that it will return sooner or later. "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law"

Thanks, Ted .

[m1469]

 - -
____

[chopin2015]

Alright, you're on. I have 'till monday? I will improvise you a jam. Or do you prefer jelly?

[furtwaengler]

- -
____

Thanks! I've listen once, and it is that voice I love. In the next few days I will comment further (possible with snails if I'm feeling creative). It's way past my bedtime.

[chopin2015]

...

[m1469]

Happy birthday!

I just listened to this ... are you, by chance, a cat or a kitten?  I'm just wondering    I liked it

I can't listen to any others because MachineMe is forcing me to go sing ... if you'd like to be offended, by all means, be offended by the Machine.

[chopin2015]

haha yes I could be resembling a kitten here! funnily enough, my cat was sitting right under piano while I was doing this, I bet she was waiting for something big and fast...meow

[chopin2015]

one of the first ones were really good, you should listen to ted's. Duh.

[m1469]

Yeah, I know I should, DUH!    I want to listen to *everybody's*

But, serially, I can't   (Happy Birthday, still, Dave!!!  I promise)  Because, once I start procrastinating singing, not only is it unhealthy for singing, my entire life goes down the drain because I can't justify doing anything else, either ... haha.  It's really not good  .  And, I *really* shouldn't be here right now (that's not a joke at all), DUH!

[m1469]

...

aww, Chopin, put it back!  I'm sorry, is it because of my kitty thing?  I was just being silly and that's just what my imagination did by itself but it was in a good way and I wasn't meaning to make you self-conscious!  Put it back, please?  I sincerely liked it!  PLEASE put it back!    It's really a nice Birthday present!

[furtwaengler]

What?! It looks like I have missed my present. On the other hand, this has been the longest birthday I can remember!