Auntie Annie's Elliptic Pendulum

[ted]

Something to contrast with my previous one (second half).

[ronde_des_sylphes]

I think your improvisations exist more in a search for the fleeting than mine do, and thus they're slightly stylistically antithetical to my aesthetics, but who would want everyone to improvise in the same way? I found some nice harmonic sensibilities in the passages around
16.30, 18.50 and the ascent from 21.10.

[ted]

Thanks for listening in such detail Andrew, I'm pleased some parts take your fancy. I rarely improvise to imitate anybody past or present and I constantly try to expand my aesthetic using the spontaneous and the transient, you're certainly right about that. Transience and permanence are rather deeply tangled properties for me, with some features moving from one state to the other over time. I did amass quite a heap of written compositions in earlier years, a few of which I have posted here but with age I felt them to be too derivative and wanted something different. One certain thing about improvising is that we must be completely ourselves. We can assimilate as many features and techniques from as much music as we like but we absorb them, they ought never to absorb us. Almost all improvisation tutorials seem to assume the opposite premise which extrapolated to its conclusion really would have everybody playing the same way, a result which, I agree with you, would be bad for us and bad for music. 

[ronde_des_sylphes]

I somewhat feel that you, consciously or subconsciously, explore the transient with an eye on the possibility that the permanent may emerge, which is a different approach to mine, where I'm attempting to compose in realtime and I definitely view improvisation as a branch of composition. I fully agree that improvisation is an area where someone really should be themselves rather than an ersatz *insert composer they like*: if creative music isn't about exploring your artistic persona then I don't know what it's about.

[ranjit]

I find this quite a bit more conventional than several other improvisations you post here. I find it to remind me of a quaint evening in the backyard of a house, or maybe a picnic. The ending gets a bit more energetic but nevertheless it's still fairly pleasant sounding. The music doesn't change direction as much or as rapidly as I've often heard in your playing, but maybe that's just me getting used to it!

A lot of the improvisation feels like the score to a film. For some reason, this reminded me of the evening, which further reminded me of d'un Soir Triste by Lili Boulanger which I've recently taken a liking to -- and somewhat ironic because that's the complete opposite, a bleak, sinister evening as opposed to the fairly cheery one here. I'll probably listen to them side by side to see if there's something behind my mind making that association.

[ted]

Thanks for listening and for some very interesting associations. I listened to the Boulanger piece just now and did not spot any obvious similarity but any images in a listener's mind are totally valid by definition. I have always maintained that music does not transmit anything at all and says whatever the listening mind chooses to impose on it, with such commonality of reaction as exists being the result of social and historical considerations we are told we ought to feel. Fantasia 2000 showed that Donald Duck is as good an image for Pomp and Circumstance as the jingoism of the British Empire. It isn't a popular notion, everyone I know disagrees with it, but I've never seen a convincing argument against it and I see plenty of evidence for it. It is why, with a few exceptions, I use titles mostly as mnemonics for myself and triggers for the imagination in others. For the last two I wouldn't expect listeners to force themselves to imagine factories and elderly spinsters playing with chaotic toys and I rejoice when they come up with something meaningful to them, possibly to them alone, as you have here.

[ranjit]

I have always maintained that music does not transmit anything at all and says whatever the listening mind chooses to impose on it, with such commonality of reaction as exists being the result of social and historical considerations we are told we ought to feel.

This is pretty much exactly what I think as well. I find it surprising that people think otherwise, but maybe it also stems from me seeing consistently how bad people are at judging music from another culture. That said, I feel I can usually understand where a piece of music is coming from but that's probably overconfidence -- nevertheless of a good kind to have as a musician.

I think there are commonalities between how people perceive music, but more of the bouba-kiki kind. And while I think any images that result are subjective, that in itself doesn't mean there isn't any commonality between how people interpret music. But what exactly it is is far from obvious.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect

[ted]

Getting off topic but thanks for that link, it appears to lend a very interesting perspective on Joyce's "Finnegans Wake", a book I have always enjoyed very much.