May 30, 2013

[furtwaengler]

Last night I was back on the Baldwin I broke on May 18th. This is also the only real piano I've had to practice on in the summer, so that gap May 18 - May 30...well just not great for the big summer plans. Ah well, a couple hours practice, a nursing home performance (not including any of the music I'd just been practicing), and then back to the Baldwin for some more practice, and than at the very end, let's improvise a bit for the tape. That is the day's structure.

Three selections here:

A short Fanfare/Promo/Prelude announces the program. This is based on four notes lodged in the mental encyclopedia, the files of which I hope are not wrong.

The second is resonance that resolves upward.

The last is one of these attempts at getting lost, which at exactly 7:40 fizzles over into a bad representation of the day's other music...feasting on cues in a similar way did this session on the Szymanowki 2nd which I will say was successful in conjuring up a portion of a beastly inspiration I enjoy listening to every once in a while.

You know, enjoy the selections, you know?

[ted]

I am reminded appropriately that there as many approaches to improvisation as there are players, both in the matter of cell detail and in external association. Quotes are extremely rare, in fact they might be totally absent, in my own improvisation, although I cannot say for certain. Your first two are as uncompromising as the algebraic landscapes produced by the code I wrote to produce abstract art. Ideas come and go in fractured fragments like rocks in space, folded in on themselves and defying simple parallel with those reassuring internal landscapes I churn out for hours. In the third, there is something of the spirit of Ives but I wouldn't know if precise quotes are involved. And do you actually play the "beastly inspiration"? It sounds as though you would have an interesting interpretation of it if you do.   

[furtwaengler]

I am reminded appropriately that there as many approaches to improvisation as there are players, both in the matter of cell detail and in external association. Quotes are extremely rare, in fact they might be totally absent, in my own improvisation, although I cannot say for certain. Your first two are as uncompromising as the algebraic landscapes produced by the code I wrote to produce abstract art. Ideas come and go in fractured fragments like rocks in space, folded in on themselves and defying simple parallel with those reassuring internal landscapes I churn out for hours. In the third, there is something of the spirit of Ives but I wouldn't know if precise quotes are involved. And do you actually play the "beastly inspiration"? It sounds as though you would have an interesting interpretation of it if you do.   

I'm kind of spell bound by this. My approach to improvisation is my approach to playing in general. The only quotes in this trio is after the 7th minute in the third, as Aklan's Le festin d'Ésope which I was exploring earlier that day was still sitting on my stand, copies four sheets to a page. A left hand portion of one variation mingles with the right hand's continuing improvisation, and then the right hand of an earlier variation took off over the left hand's continuation and away we go...no looking back. Le festin d'Ésope was swallowed into the present world of improvisation.

Your remarks on the first two are overwhelming...where you seek reassuring internal landscapes, I am wowed but the seemly uncontainable forces of the universe (and thus in complete awe of the one who does contain them all!).

Beastly inspiration is not really found here. I will give a new thread with a truncated version of a previous excursion. Rather than quotes, there were large blocks of Szymanowski's 2nd Sonata. And interacting with them produced a beastly inspiration - I truncate the blocks. Thanks for keeping the board alive!

[ted]

Thanks for keeping the board alive!

Yes, well we can but try. The present doldrums here are disconcerting to say the least. Of course I could post hundreds more hours of my own thoughts and improvisation and reply to every single offering from other players, but it scarcely seems appropriate for what should be a community endeavour and a shared exchange of ideas. Having said that though, I concede that the lack of activity is simply a reflection of the lamentably low opinion of free improvisation still held by musicians and the musical population at large. Against that, I care less and less for musical society and its traditions, and shall continue to improvise and record in ever increasing quantity, intensity and pleasure until I peg out.