A little experiment...

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Always wanted to try this...

[ranjit]

I've read that Cziffra anecdote before! Man, what a story.

I really liked your improv, very dark sounding. It's interesting to me that that was what came to your mind when you thought of the darkness. I have improvised in the dark before, often in a bid to improve my playing facility without looking at my hands, and I find it surprising looking back that none of my darkest improvs came from that. Usually, I would come up with something lyrical, rather like a nocturne perhaps. Your piece sounds like a night terror! Okay, not quite, but decidedly darker than most of your other improvisations.

You've got some command of the instrument to be able to execute all of those arpeggios and jumps in the dark!

That reminded me of Cziffra's improv at the 0:58 mark.
https://youtu.be/pf2accwGEaU?t=58

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Whether it's an especially good improvisation I'm not so sure, and I think of it more as agitato than as dark per se. It is very definitely different circumstances though  It's quite an interesting technical exercise in the sense that it really forces you to keep close to the keys in passagework and it tests your innate sense of keyboard geography in leaps. Thanks for listening!
.

[quantum]

I think it gives you another aspect of improvisation to explore.  It can encourage you to focus on things that you otherwise do not normally direct your attention. 

During my university days as a student, I began to do a lot of practising repertoire in the dark and I found it to be a useful technique in preparing music for performances.  It eventually worked its way into my improvising, though I do not have many recordings from that time period. 

Nice improv, and I like how you used the light to just give a short glimpse of the keys. 

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Yes, I think I'll try another one soon (probably less overtly technical in nature). I felt there was a slightly different tactile relationship between my hands and the keys. Not something I've really played around with before, tbh.

I wanted to give a little visual indication that I was actually doing what I claimed, and not just over dubbing audio onto darkness or a minimal light source.