Postcard from the Bright Land

[ted]

Unabashed wallowing in sound for the joy of it. I haven't posted in six months because I became fed up, not with this forum particularly, but with the internet in general. The collection of my improvisations, however, grows at an ever increasing rate and it seems a pity not to share one or two occasionally. I had to degrade the quality to fit the size restriction of course.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Some interesting harmonies and textures. As often, I get the impression your prevailing concern is with creating soundscapes, and the structure is more nebulous, which is a different approach to mine... but who wants homogeneity of approach? That wouldn't be very interesting.

[ted]

Thanks for listening Andrew, and your observations are quite accurate. I am more preoccupied with special moments and transience than overall effect and by association more with biology than architecture. I am glad you heard something to like in the harmony and texture though, both of which features I consciously try to expand with every recording. Music is just so big and time so brief; as the old image has it it's like being in a huge sweet shop with twopence to spend.

[ranjit]

Wonderful improvisation, as always, Ted! I found this piece to be pleasantly late romantic, really nice and ambient in a rather meditative manner. You paint really beautiful sounscapes -- for some reason, I was reminded of Scriabin at various points, probably due to a certain kind of lushness to the sound.

[ted]

Thanks for listening Ranjit, pleased you found something to enjoy. I still find spontaneous creation the best medium for me and I sometimes wish I had spent more time on it in my youth and less time on repertoire. Then again I defy anybody to know at sixteen how they are likely to feel or play at seventy-six, and the musical ambiance back then was so very different in both technology and influence. The people who did improvise did so with the objective of imitating traditional forms of composition. By way of example, my teacher, a prominent professional, was so afraid of reactions to his private, free improvisation that he wouldn't let me hear the tapes and instructed his wife to give them to me after his death. These days that seems completely silly so some things have changed for the better I suppose.

[pianistavt]

I tried to download this but it didn't work, even after a few tries.  It's 41mb I see.

Do you post your mp3 files to a site?  Soundcloud?

[ted]

I tried it myself and it worked for me on my iMac. I right-clicked on the file and took the option to download, which operation took about ten seconds. Therefore it has to be some setting on your computer or browser. No, I tried Soundcloud once but wasn't impressed with it. I have never had any trouble uploading anything directly onto Pianostreet.