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An improvisation in two parts due to Youtube restrictions at the time of upload (a few years ago):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g22DEKWEDC0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-G_C6WQGYU

I first posted this in the composer's lounge part of the forums, but I guess that was a mistake and it belongs here. Anyway, there seems to be more traffic here so I might as well post it here as well.

You may have to endure some less than sublime music now and then to experience the really good stuff, which is scattered here and there. I'd say the basic theme is pretty incredible though.

(Sorry, I felt like I had to sell this piece since I got no responses on the composer's lounge, and apparently no one even clicked the links. So much for humility. And I really do think you guys should give it a listen or two. It's a chance of a lifetime basically. I think I may have improvised this after Beethoven's ghost descended upon me one evening and took control of my body. I don't usually reach heights like these. Seriously.)

Neither of them play for me. I tried clicking on them several times.

You could try a different web browser. It works for me with internet explorer 9, even with what I think was an American proxy server now that I tried. It certainly works. Could also have been a temporary error at their end.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention, but I'd be shocked if it affected many others as well.

You have to be more patient with the composers' forum. It's only been up there for less than 24 hours - give it time! Sometimes days go by before someone comes along and listens, but generally those that do listen respond in a helpful way.

I tried it again, I'm on a Mac using Chrome. The Youtube page would load but it wouldn't play the music. I tried it in Safari and it worked, so maybe Mac users will want to try this if they have the same problem.

Listening to this, I think it would be best now if you take those "great" moments that you feel are best and work them separately, develop the ideas more, and get rid of the doodling that you did to get there. They may be separate ideas that can fit into one piece, but they also might be better in separate pieces.

I like around 4:05 or so, for example, sounds very impressionistic. It would be cool to hear what you could do with a piece based on that figure alone.

I almost completely lack the ability to read and recollect music, so as you intimate I'm a doodler. Occasionally I feel I'm almost controlled to play something that I think is great but shouldn't be able to come up with on my level of musicality.

Anyway, I can't transcend my own preferences (I like this piece as a whole), so I'll leave what you suggest to others. In fact, that was part of the reason why I posted this on the composer's lounge: I wanted to see if someone might be interested in doing something with this material, take some of it and work it into a serious composition. That would be great. I'm not a composer, so it's beyond my means.

Well, just because you haven't honed the skills to compose doesn't mean you're a composer. The greatest composers in classical music have also been great improvisers. I think the two skills are linked, but composition takes an improved idea and develops it using certain techniques. This is something that can be learned, if you wish to learn it.

I daresay also that developing your skills as a composer will help your improvising as well.

I think the greatest obstacle to my becoming a composer would be my poor musical memory. I can barely notate a simple melody, I'm completely worthless when it comes to harmony. I believe this is because I didn't listen to music as a child. I think I'm probably too old to develop my musical memory now, to the extent that would be necessary to achieve a level of skill where I wouldn't have to endure a head-ache every time I wanted to note down a short passage.

As for the link between composing and improvisation, I'm a believer in inspiration, inspiration that can disconnect those two fields of musical endeavour. Clear structures are nice, but they're no substitute for inspiration. If someone can do both, that's the best of all.

As you say : "So much for humility."

As I listen, with respect, I'm still waiting for that Beethoven's ghost "experience" I am supposed to have.

2:08 to 2:50, for example. But tastes are subjective and all that.

Anyway, can you seriously say there is nothing worth hearing in all those 12 minutes of music? If you can, then your criticism is valid, because the whole point, as I've admitted, was to get a few people to at least listen to that music instead of just reading my message and moving on with their lives without even clicking through the links.

I'm aware that I have a very peculiar musical background, I'm between two worlds essentially, seeing glimpses of both but really belonging to neither; but in the same breath I must say I cannot understand sophisticated listeners who don't find anything of value in that improvisation, I mean enough value that their comments would be positive rather than negative, as yours seems to have been.

I mean all of this in the best possible way. I'm very sure that if I don't get a few positive comments here, then it's me who is missing something and not you even if I never understand what that something is, exactly, due to not belonging, as I mentioned above.

I think the "I'm too old" thing is a cop out. You get out of things what you put into them. It sounds to me like you don't want to bother. I could be wrong, but to assume that Beethoven or any other great musician didn't work really hard and try to overcome their own weaknesses is a discredit to the work they put into it.

I think this is starting to become somewhat silly, but I don't feel like I put anything at all into that improvisation. It just happened, yet I'm very happy with the result.

You may be right though, maybe I'm just avoiding hard work. Reading now about all these people who are so musical I'm starting to think maybe I can pull it off too if I try hard enough. The idea is starting to seem alluring. Still, one must be realistic: it would be hard. Probably too hard. I think Beethoven and Mozart and the like had their own hardships, mostly related to having to write for patrons instead of whatever they liked. Both made some exceptions but it was the sad rule.

Anyway, I don't think they had any trouble at all in terms of memory functions and writing down a passable approximation of whatever heavens they were hearing in their minds. There's a fine line here between belittling their efforts on one hand and denying the very real disadvantage if not disability I have on the other. Alas, I'm more deaf than Beethoven ever was. That's not to say I'm not thankful for the bursts of inspiration that sometimes happen during improvisation. I take what I can realistically get.

What theory, harmony, counterpoint, etc. have you formally studied? If you have not formally studied theory, harmony (etc.), then that is your first step to learning how to notate what you write.

Unless I completely misunderstand you, it sounds like a mere avoidance tactic to say that you can't notate music because you don't have any musical memory. In this context, I'm not sure what you mean by "musical memory." To notate what you have written, you have to learn to transcribe music; almost anyone can do that, at any age.

Listening or not listening to music as I child, I believe, has nothing to do with one's ability to compose - since you say that the music just "comes to you." It should not, either, have anything to do with the skill of writing down what you compose. That skill is a learned skill.

Regards,

" ... silly, but I don't feel like I put anything at all into that improvisation."

Now this is getting bizarre. You say you put nothing at all into your improvisation, and yet you think that
- your listeners are going "to experience [...] really good stuff,"
- with an incredible basic theme,
- that we are missing the "chance of a lifetime" if we don't listen to the "heights" that you have reached.

If you can accomplish all this by putting nothing into your work, what can we expect if you expend some effort?

To quote you again : "So much for humility."

I listened to the whole thing, all the way through. I really like what you did with the ending. It seemed to fit. I wonder how you decided to end it that way, though?

--Andy

Thank you. That comment I can relate to. The ending is perhaps my single favorite part even if it is short and simple.

I guess I need to elaborate on my previous comments. I play more through my eyes than my ears, but when I'm inspired I play through my fingers most of all. It literally is as if I'm being controlled. It doesn't feel like that, but when I take a step back and listen to what I have recorded, and think about my skill level and what I accomplish 99% of the time (pure rubbish), that is the conclusion I must draw. So there wasn't really any decision except a very fleeting idea of Chopin ending something quietly and maybe something equally fleeting that gave me the idea to keep playing that one note in a weird rhythm. There was some sort of activity going on in my mind, but only enough that I wouldn't become the main focus of attack for James Randi.

BruceD: it's not just notating the music. When I try to play that part that I recommended for you, just the right hand, I get nowhere. I kind of vaguely remember something about the music, but mostly I can just hear that I'm not getting the right notes played, even after a lot of trial and error. If I try to actually compose, it's even worse, because now it's not just a simple right hand passage, it's harmony too. Either I play something good accidentally and fortunately had the record button on, or I play something good accidentally and take great pains to notate it. If I try to eschew improvisation and try to actually compose, it's just ... nothing. Or at best I half accidentally get something good, but this is very rare as with improvisation.

You'll notice that that improvisation is three years old. I haven't improvised anything as good since, even though I improvise on average perhaps an hour every day. I'm sure it's difficult for you to understand just how poor a musician I am. Listening to that piece, I'm almost myself fooled. But as I said, it mostly just happened. I spent a little time coming up with the theme (and that felt more a product of inspiration than work), and then I started playing, trying to keep the theme or parts of it there as much as I could, and there's the result.

As for formal lessons, I haven't taken any, but I have a good grasp of basic music theory. I just can't recollect wide intervals or harmony, so I can pretty much only play with my eyes when it comes to harmony, and, when I'm lucky, through inspiration (a little bit of eyes + a little bit of ears + a lot of something inexplicable). I guess the problem here is that you don't believe me. That's OK. I didn't come here to give sermons, so it's fine if we simply agree to disagree about what is possible and what is not.

Isn't the last sentence I quoted above an obvious conclusion as to why the previous statements were made? Even the most talented musicians in the world and in history had to have that talent cultivated, refined, and channeled so that the best music could come from it. If you haven't done that work by learning from other musicians who know how to get you to be able to do the things that you say you can't do, then the logical conclusion would be to learn how to do those things from those that know how to teach it.

I'm not trying to be discouraging, because I hear that you do have talent, but it's getting stuck inside of you because you lack the skills to let it out. Skills are things you learn, talent is the thing you have that uses the vehicle of learned skills (technique) to project that talent outward. And of course, if you have never tried, how do you know you "can't"?

Greetings,

I am very interested in your improvising and your creative processes. Your are 100% right that this improvisation has some extraordinary qualities - and I wouldn't dismiss that something supernatural is happening if that is what you feel, especially as I sometimes get music directly from the source and have had contact with one dead composer.

I believe that you should keep recording these improvisations, especially whenever the force is strong, and place them on youtube.

Maybe it would be possible some day to have a video of the improvising uploaded?


Mvh,
Michael

I've heard this all before.

Thanks for understanding. I suppose a video might be interesting, but the most I see myself as doing is recording more of these. Maybe I'll get some good recordings out of my music therapy sessions when they begin in earnest soon. I get to record a nice sounding upright piano there in a duet with a jazz type bass.

I'm sceptical anything very interesting will come out of it except here and there, momentarily, but we'll see. We aren't planning to record everything, and the world-god seems to have a habit of destroying or obscuring imperfect beauty and only preserving the best as far as art is concerned. Good stuff goes to eternity and the rest just disappear after a while, I suppose. Still, they sometimes have a place in the hearts of those who created them and those who listened.