Coming back.

... to New York is always hectic.  Mostly just the ride home from the airport.

Needless to say, today was busy.  I have lots of time to write on future days.  Today I'm just gettin' it on here.  Even though I kind of hate it.  Boo.

Here we go, Day 17: https://ia800501.us.archive.org/21/items/Improv83111/8_31_115_26Pm.mp3

Found:

In a local bar, two fabulous brews.

Surly Furious.  A delicious, Minnesota born India Pale Ale.  http://www.surlybrewing.com/beer/year-round-beers.html

, and

Bell's Oberon Ale.  From a nearby midwestern state, Michigan wheat ale.  Crisp, clean, made me utter an unexpected, "Ooooh, mama!" upon first sip.  http://www.bellsbeer.com/brands/#Seasonal-2

What this has to do with improv, I'm not sure.  But it is pure poetry as far as I'm concerned.

Here we go, Day 16: https://ia600706.us.archive.org/2/items/Improv83011/8_30_119_41Pm.mp3

Tickles.

It was difficult to fit in some good improv time today.  I've been in Minneapolis with my parents for the past several days, and my sister, her husband, and three little ones arrived yesterday to join us.  I love the time spent with them, and it was the first time I got to see little baby Claire, who was born in mid-July.  With ages 5 weeks, 2 years, and 4 years, there isn't much time to do any personal stuff... it's all about the kids.

Joy was reading to Ana when I sat down to do my improv.  Mom held the little baby, and Toby was amusing himself with a miniature mailbox and block set.  He didn't notice at first, but it wasn't long before Toby toddled over for a peek at what was happening without him.  He climbed up onto the piano bench and forced his way under my arm and onto my lap.  He plunked out a few notes, and enjoyed the response he got from the instrument, but wanted me to play something.  Not content with what he heard, he pulled open the book of Beethoven sonatas that had sat on the music stand, and pretended to play Opus 31, No. 1.  He said, "Play!! You play!"  So I played a bit, and he was momentarily enchanted.  I turned the page, and continued into a section with some trills and long scales.  Toby giggled.  "Again!" I played it again. "AGAIN!"  He laughed and laughed.  "Where is that?" he asked.  I pointed to the place where each of the sounds could be heard.  When I turned the page, he flipped back, and said, "Play here!"  I did as I was told, and he squealed again.  "It tickles!!!" he said as he collapsed into little snickers.  I could be wrong, but I think the kid might be into music.

Here we go, Day 15: https://ia600700.us.archive.org/19/items/Improv82911/8_29_117_57Pm.mp3

Wanderer.

I saw my friend David yesterday, and was reminded of an entire world that I was submerged in for a while a few years back.  David is a Minnesota-grown, intermittent New Yorker, flamenco guitarist, and has recently gotten back from a year and a half in Spain.  He's not sure where to go next.  New York, Minnesota, New Mexico, or somewhere entirely different.  Why not?

Naturally, the conversation turned to music, improv, classical, flamenco, what have you... and it made me want to re-dabble in some of those sounds for a while.  So I did.  But I won't let you listen to that.  At least not yet.  That's an entirely different language, and it will probably be a while before I'd be willing to share that hackneyed mess with the world.

So today, you get another blues.  Again, not sure why.  But I have always felt that the blues and flamenco are very very similar, just one has the whole Sephardic twist.  The soul is the same: intimate, guttural, painful, lonesome cries, exiles from the caverns of the heart.

Here we go, Day 14 (wow, two weeks!): https://ia700701.us.archive.org/23/items/Improv82811/8_28_1112_52Pm.mp3

Dreams.

Today when I sat down to do my improv, I had about half an hour to play before my friend came to pick me up for a hang.  I wasn't particularly inspired, and didn't have anything in mind except to get some stuff on record before the day was over.

What came out right off the bat, without my permission, was a blues.  I don't even know why.  I haven't been sad, or "bluesy."  I went with it, anyhow, and I'll post it down below so you can all hear.  My second improv, I decided was going to be a little lighter, and it was, but I just wasn't feeling it.  I even thought about quitting before I felt "finished," but didn't because I know that sometimes it doesn't feel as good as it sounds, and I wanted to give a fair shot.  The next one, again, without permission, was another blues.  And the following one still had elements of blues in it.  I kept going with the improvs, just to see what else I could bang out.

So what I've been noticing more and more, now nearly two weeks into the project, is that there are some motives and shapes that just seem to want to come out.  Some of them are exactly the same as a week ago, and some are modified, but recognizable.  Is it in the shape of my hand, and the physical aspect of it that my muscles just like?  Or my ear?  Both?  And then there are the musical styles that just happen.  Like the blues today.  I don't know how to play the blues.  I like the blues, but I've never learned them.  Why the blues?  Why today?

What I'm concluding is that improv is essentially a waking dream.  There are things that come out in the music that are both conscious and subconscious.  We can guide the dreams if we're aware, and can control certain elements, but then there is an entirely different portion that just happens that we're not even sure where it comes from.  The subconscious feelings that have been locked away, or recalled parts of the past, present, future, are all expressed through improv.  Maybe this sounds far fetched, but I think I'm on to something.  It makes sense, then, why playing music is such an emotional release... perhaps it gives us a chance in our awakened state to ask impossible questions, play out alternate scenarios, and talk to our long gone friends, everything that we do when we dream....  And we're able to work toward freeing ourselves from internalized and unresolved conflict.  I'm sounding to myself full of hooey.  But maybe?

Here we go, Day 13: https://ia600705.us.archive.org/16/items/Improv82711/8_27_118_03Pm.mp3
and Day 13, part 2: https://ia600501.us.archive.org/35/items/Improv282711/8_27_118_17Pm.mp3

That squirrel is searching for its nuts.

As I listen to my improvs, I notice that I don't really have much arc to most, or even any of them.  When you create a piece of music, do you know how long it's going to be?  Do you purposefully build to a certain place, and then do the whole golden ratio thing?  Does it even matter if you don't do that?

I'm sensing that most of my music is sort of meditative, and doesn't naturally go anywhere on its own, but I think that's something that I would like it to do.  Or at least some of the time.  Do we let music flow where it wants to flow, or do we guide it into certain channels?  And if we guide it, how do we do that and still sound organic?  Maybe these are some of the things that need to be practiced as an improvisor.

Here we go, Day 12: https://ia600701.us.archive.org/4/items/Improv82611/8_26_115_14Pm.mp3

The Night's Music.

Today was a magnificently beautiful one.  When I got home from lunch at a great BBQ place with an old friend, the cicadas were rattling in the trees, the sun was shining strong and warm, mom and I went for a walk around Lake Harriet.  We stopped at one of my favorite places in the whole city, The Rose Gardens, and dipped our feet into the lovely old fountain.  These are the elements of summer.

When I sat down for tonight's improv, I was acutely aware of some of my favorite summer sounds... watering of the garden, the screen door opening and closing, and crickets.  I always wanted to be able to make the cricket sound.  My friend said that all I need to do is rub my wings together, but I just can't rub them that fast!

Here we go, Day 11: https://ia600703.us.archive.org/22/items/Improv82511/8_25_118_19Pm.mp3
and Day 11, Part 2: https://ia600707.us.archive.org/11/items/Improv282511/8_25_118_24Pm.mp3

Coming home.

I'll bet that over the course of this project I write about four of these.  I come home to Minneapolis about that many times each year.

Coming home for me is good.  I didn't know that when I was itching to live in NY all those years ago that there would come a time when I really missed being near my family.  But I do, and I admit it that it's very hard being apart from them.  Especially knowing that I'm missing the formative years of my nieces and nephews.  And also that one day it'll just be me, and no more coming home.  I hate to write about that stuff, but it's true, and it isn't the first time it's crossed my mind.  I'm very envious of those that have their loved ones nearby.

Anyway, coming home this time began with a long wait while my parents inched through a two-hour traffic jam, followed by some good old-fashioned back-seat driving, questions about New York City, discussion on how New Yorkers say "on line" rather than "in line," yesterday's earthquake, hamburger grilling, sweet corn on the cob, mom telling me not to lean back in my chair, dad leaning back in his chair and almost falling over, mom asking dad if he needed a helmet over there, doing laundry since what I packed was all dirty, in-home security cameras, what it means to be in a major or minor key, and finally a little improv.

About a year or so ago, my parents acquired a little Everett spinet at an estate sale.  They were quite proud, since it is in beautiful shape, and only cost a little over $200.  And honestly, they got a great deal. But since I'm the only pianist in the family, and I only visit four times a year, they haven't gotten around to tuning it.  It seems to have been well maintained before we got it, but still.  Estate sale?  The thing is way, way out.  What should be an octave is more like a major ninth.

That being said, I wasn't sure what this next week of improvs was going to be like.  I even recorded some of the airport noise in case I couldn't get something I approved of at home.  But then, after I sat down and started to play, I decided that squeaky pedals and pulsating sound waves that you can almost taste they're so thick were kind of awesome.  Work with whatchya' got, that's what I say.

Here we go, Day 10: https://ia600701.us.archive.org/12/items/Improv82411/8_24_119_41Pm.mp3
and Day 10, part 2: https://ia700702.us.archive.org/12/items/Improv282411/8_24_119_52Pm.mp3

And see that little white box to the left of the TV?  That's another security camera that my parents got for their quaint little fortress of a home.  It was on sale.  Rock bottom, dad says.  And supposedly it barks.  They don't have it hooked up anywhere permanent so that they can move it around wherever it is most needed.  So where they have it now, well, they can watch people watch TV.  Dad says people look pretty stupid when they watch TV.  I asked if he ever watched himself watch TV.  He said no.

Obviously Mary Prescott.

Today I had dinner over at Erich and Shelly's, and of course, told them about this new project.  Erich was pretty excited for me, because he too is a classical musician that gets that same itch that I get about wanting to expand my musical horizons.  At some point the question came up about, well, how do I begin an improv?  Am I thinking about adhering to a harmonic structure, or do I start with an idea of what I'm going to play?  My first instinct was to say that since I know nothing, I just go for it.  But when I thought about the kinds of things that I've been putting on here, I think that probably I do have a few concepts rolling around from time to time.  Today, for instance, after futzing around with my first improv, I got into a kind of Bartok groove.  I didn't mean to get there, but once I got there, the following few improvs were all based on that.  And for whatever reason, in the back of my head I've been telling myself to try something new for each of these days.

It's been that way with the postings, too.  I wasn't really aware of it until two or three days ago, when I had some improv that I really liked, but it was very similar to stuff I had put on before, so I chose something else for the blog.

This leads me into a question that is probably a big one for many improvisors.  How do you recognize your personal voice, and how do you develop it?  Is it something that needs to be consciously developed, or does it just happen?  And am I ignoring it when I push myself into a different zone?  I think that it's possible for musicians to be very good at many different styles, but there has to be a point where you're playing something that is uniquely you. That thing that when people listen to your recordings without seeing the label, they say, "Oh, yeah.  Obviously Mary Prescott.  Do you hear how she does this and that, and then in this later part goes the other thing... That is so Prescott, right there."  I mean, nobody does that with my recordings except for me, but music nerds have been known to carry on lengthy conversations like this.

I had written something about classical vs. improv in this arena, but it's getting too tedious to delve into.  Every time I write these, I open up a giant can of worms, which I'm happy to get into, but it takes a really long time to write about.  So, let's leave it with those questions of personal voice.  And onto a related tangent...

Jesse had mentioned to Akiko that when he starts a free improv, he consciously tries NOT to adhere to a harmonic plan.  This is the same Jesse that inspired this project.  Then, the other day I was chatting with Mike, who is a phenomenal multi-genre cellist, and he was saying that almost no one goes into improv without some sort of plan.  And then we proceeded to get into the kinds of plans that one can have.  I know that they're both right.  I think I lean Jesse's way, but I suspect a good way to develop improv chops is to explore guidelines.

So I feel like I'm in a really good position right now: standing in front of a bunch of doors, and allowed to peek through any or all of them.  The next question is, do I walk through a door that I like and hang out a while, study the flora and fauna?  Or do I keep peeking into different worlds before settling down on any of them?  I guess both?

Here we go, Day 9:  https://ia600707.us.archive.org/26/items/Improv82311/Memo-12.mp3https://ia600707.us.archive.org/26/items/Improv82311/Memo-12.mp3

And today's photo, to entice the more visually oriented.  Because who doesn't love a cute kitten photo?

kazillions of clusters.

I used to hate NY in the summertime.  I had good reason.  It's really hot here, especially with the tall buildings, asphalt and concrete radiating all that disgusting mugginess, buses driving past and blowing kazillions of dirty dust particles (or should I say chunks) all over everybody's sticky, sweaty selves.  The subways are the worst.  And at my height, my face is exactly armpit level.  If it's gonna be that hot and gross, I prefer being in a place that offers a nearby beach.  That's why I usually kick out of NY for the summer, but since I started my music workshop, I haven't really had as much a chance to do that.

But anyway, today was gorgeous.  So I don't know what I'm complaining about.  And what I wanted to say was that NY actually has a ton of cool stuff going on in the summer that I've been taking full advantage of this year.  Free movies in the park, outdoor tango dancing, live music, live plays, kayaking, farmer's markets... I could go on.  It's great.  Plus, I spend at least an hour or so sitting in the Sheep Meadow every day... lately to listen to my improvs.  This must be what I was thinking about while I was listening, because I don't know why else I am writing it all in here.  I've just wasted two minutes of your time.

A handful of years ago, I got to a point where I realized that, hey, I don't hear dissonance anymore.  And I don't mean that I don't recognize it, but that I just don't hear that "bad" sound anymore.  I'm not sure if that's good, because I know that it is physically painful for some people to hear dissonance.  And I don't want to hurt anyone.  But there's something in the colors and textures that one can produce that I just love.

Today I felt sort of nostalgic for clusters.  It's been a while since I've worked on a piece that has them, but when I had in the past, I really loved them.  They're freaking fun.  So today I was all about the clusters.  And actually, I feel like I had started incorporating them little by little unconsciously into the other improvs.  But today, the cluster was king.

Two of 'em.  First one, very Stravinsky.  Second one, very Mary.

Here we go, Day 8:
https://ia600703.us.archive.org/11/items/Improv82211/Memo-10.mp3
https://ia600704.us.archive.org/20/items/Improv82211_534/Memo-10.mp3
https://ia700701.us.archive.org/32/items/Improv282211/Memo-11.mp3

Oh, and today I'm going to add a picture.  I decided that people like pictures, and they want to see them. It doesn't matter what I put on here.  And plus, Akiko said that they will make it more inviting.

This is Will, who, in the midst of a hang, asked if that big red box was a tool box, and then started to fix my piano bench once I told him not to move the bench that was over the big red tool box, because it was broken.  It was 1:45 am.  Now the piano bench is at Will's house.  Supposedly getting fixed.

there's no good title.

These last couple of days are turning out to be pretty busy, and full of end of the season summer socializing, so I'm not going to pontificate about music or improv or any of that...  I'm just gonna get today's improv on here.  Hope you like it.

Here we go, day 7: https://ia600700.us.archive.org/1/items/Improv82111/Memo-9.mp3

moe.

I'm going to be honest here.  When I do these improvs, I usually do a small handful of them, not just one, and then listen back to choose which one I'm going to post.  Because I think that if I only gave myself one shot per day, and were stuck with that one, it might get in the way of my creativity a bit (or maybe what I mean to say is that it might cause some intense anxiety, perhaps even some hyperventilation)... or maybe I'm defeating the purpose by giving myself a bunch of shots.  Well, in any case, I'm going to keep doing it this way, at least for now, because I just can't let go that much.

So anyway, the problem with that is what do I pick if they're all so different, but each explore something that I find important?  I like some more than others, but sometimes the others were an experiment to try something new.  For example, the first one I did today was very nocturne-like.  And in my opinion, it's very pretty, and sort of dreamy.  I like it, and for me, it creates a pleasant atmosphere.  The second one is super different.  I started on a B-natural, and tried to stay physically centered around that note... in a lot of the improv, you can't hear it much at all, because I'm holding it down the whole time.  You hear overtones and stuff, but not the B itself, except now and then.  It was interesting to do, but maybe not as interesting to listen to.  Or... maybe MORE interesting to listen to... I really have no idea.  The other two were also both very different.  One expansive and resonant, covering the entire range of the piano throughout... the last was short, sweet, cheery.

So pondering this choice made me wonder... when we share music, who do we do it for, and why?

Okay, I guess I need to pick now.  Eeny meeny miney...

Here we go, Day 6: https://ia600500.us.archive.org/0/items/Improv82011/Memo-8.mp3

Tinto Verano

After sitting in the park, watching the sky get dark, and deciding I better hit it back home, I got in about 2 minutes before the stormiest storm began.  Made myself some skirt steak and an avocado salad.  And decided I should probably have some red wine.  The only red wine I had was opened over a week ago in a hotel room somewhere in Connecticut, and wasn't finished, due to utter exhaustion, but also because it wasn't so top of the line.  Anyway, I stuck it in the fridge so it wouldn't go completely bad (can't waste alcohol, you know...), and decided to mix it with some lemonade to create a lovely summer drink.  I've had this before, mind you, when I was on a six week stint in Cadiz, Spain.  They call it tinto verano.  It's effing delicious.

Anyway, listen to this while it rains.  Sort of fits.  I like it, anyway.

Here we go, Day what is it, 5?  https://ia600703.us.archive.org/23/items/Improv81911/Memo-6.mp3

I might as well add this one, too.  It's so much more rainy summer night, thinking of Spain, with a glass of tinto.  Plus, I think my mom will like it better.  Here we go, Day 5 part 2: https://ia802607.us.archive.org/6/items/Improv281911/Memo-7.mp3

Time for rain.

Everyone complains on rainy days, and I'm not really sure why.  For me, they're some of the best days ever.  Rain is a very sensory experience.  Sound, smell, feel, sight... and even taste, if you want.  Everything about the rain, I love.  Yes, even when I have to walk in it.


Today, I'm going to reference time.  Music lives.  Especially in improv.  You know how I know?  Because in one moment it exists, it expresses, it breathes, it makes mistakes, it falls apart, it builds up, it speaks, it evolves and unfolds.  And then, it's over.  And what happened in that moment of living never happened before, and will never happen again.  It's a translation of the soul, and is as unique in its moment as any of us, or any other thing in nature.  Even a recording is just a photograph of what happened in that moment, and what we have in that photograph is just a memory.  


What happens in a moment of music will never happen again the same way, just as you and I will never happen again once we pass.  Yet somehow, during the course of a piece of music (and even throughout the evolution of music as a whole), what happened then is essential to what happens now, and to what will happen in the future.  And what happens in the future depends entirely on what is happening now, which depends on what happened already.  It is predetermined, and its not.  Once a choice has been made, it's very difficult to go back and try to reroute onto a different path.  It's not impossible, but getting back there entails yet another path.  One of the scary things, and honest things, about music is that you can't take back anything.  There are always consequences.  And since this is the truth about how the world/universe/evolution/humanity works, you can see why I would say that music lives.  Fwew.  I'm rereading this, and it's just a conundrum of wordplay.  Let's leave it to the experts.


An excerpt from a poem by T.S. Eliot.  I won't put the entire thing here, because no one wants to read an entire poem in a blog.  I'll just write the title so that you can look it up if you want to.  


An excerpt from Four Quartets: Burnt Norton:


Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.


Here we go, Day 4:  https://ia902701.us.archive.org/35/items/Improv81811/Memo-5.mp3

Be like children again.

I'm probably getting this post in way too late to be considered for today's entry, but here it is anyway, and as far as I'm concerned, IT STILL COUNTS.  I'm a night owl.  It's just a fact of life.

I spent this beautiful evening doing work in the park, then watching the first 25 minutes of a bad play that should've been a good play, leaving early, finding booze, getting invited to a spontaneous stewed lamb, roasted potatoes, kale and salad dinner, eating it atop a friend's apartment building out of the pots with our hands, with lovely views of the GW Bridge, the Hudson River, and the few sprinkles of stars that Manhattan gets to see on clear nights, all with a gentle, clean(ish) summer breeze.  It was a night to remember.  And with lots of good conversation, too.

Matthew, turns out, has been dabbling in improv, too.  It so happened that he had been contemplating some of the same things that I have been contemplating.  One of them was musical language, which I briefly wrote about yesterday.  (He can weigh in here if he wants to about that.)  Another was the idea that the people who are best at creating music are the young, because they know nothing, and the old, because they know everything.  I had mentioned that I wanted to be like a child again, because they just do what they like to do naturally... no inhibitions or predispositions.  They explore the world, every little bit, and end up discovering beauty and interest in things and places that most adults wouldn't give a second thought to.  Why, as adults, do we ignore the details?  And why do we disallow ourselves to follow the rabbit down the rabbit hole?  (Shoot, as I edit this, I'm realizing that I'm opening a door into an entire chapter of discussion.  I should probably just quit with what I've got.  Let's see if I can word my way out of this.  Hmmm.  No.  Let's just jump to a new paragraph while the night is still young at 2:41am.)

I understand that as adults, we have responsibilities to ourselves or our partners, and people that depend on us.  But why do we care so much about what is thought of us that it prevents us from trying new things that we're interested in?  Is it because we only want to do things that we'll be automatically good at?  Is it a time issue?  Or maybe not wanting to spread ourselves thin... as Vlada suggested, not wanting to be mediocre at the things we invest ourselves in.  It all makes sense, but somehow I'm not okay with that limitation.  It's hard to know how to get out of that... I guess in some ways this whole project is a way out of it.  We'll see in a year.

So today, I wanted to try something a little bit different.  Yesterday I tried to conceive an entire conversation in Mandarin (free improv), and while it might have been fun, I ended up not really knowing what I said (played).  Today I tried to use a little bit more English (classical) in my improv.  It's much less dissonant, and certainly more harmonically structured.  I still have a lot of trouble with an automatic ingrained chordal structure, but it's definitely more towards a sort of "classical style."

I'm going to put two improvs on for today.  The first one is pretty straight forward, and I got a little scared that it was going to end up sounding really corny.  The second one was a kind of take on a Bach solo cello something or rather, not really a suite, since it's not very dance-like, but in that vein.  It's all for the left hand.  Oh yeah, and sort of strange... they sound kind of similar.  Is that normal?

Here we go, Day 3:
https://ia700709.us.archive.org/35/items/Imrov181711/Memo-3.mp3
https://ia600705.us.archive.org/35/items/Improv281711/Memo-4.mp3

你 听！

I remember being a kid in a piano lesson, and my teacher would say, "You have to listen!"  And I was like, "Uhh, yeah.  I know.  Umm, I'm sitting right here."  And then one day, my teacher said that same thing, and it dawned on me the breadth and depth of all of the sound that was ringing in my ears, but that I hadn't been listening to.  I thought, "Geez! I want to listen to all of that stuff, but it's HARD to hear it all while I'm doing all this other stuff with my hands!"  Now I wonder if I ever even learned how to listen at all....  Bummer.

I think I listen better when I improvise.

Seriously.  I think when I play classical music, my brain is so busy trying to execute what is written on that page, and trying to do it "correctly," that my ears turn off a little.  Or at least they listen in a different way.  The ears listen for precision, or clarity, or phrasing and form.  But not as much to the creation or the question mark or the process.

When I improvise (like I do it all the time, or something... geez, this is just day two), I have to and want to listen intently.  First of all, I'm not burdened by all that pre-written stuff.  I can create what comes next, which is also the challenge.  And if I'm not listening, it won't make sense.  I may not always play what I want to hear next, and sometimes that surprise is the fun part.  Or it just means I'm not as good as I want to be yet.  But definitely, yes, listening is the big key.

And language, too.  The notes might be the same, but the way they are used is totally different.  I mean, there's a reason why there is usually a separation between the classical musician and the jazz musician.  They're certainly not interchangeable unless said musician has had training in both.  I feel like when I'm improvising, I'm sitting down at an instrument that I don't know how to play.  Or speaking a language that I only know a few words of, but trying to construct an entire dialogue.

Well, here's what it sounds like when I try to speak Mandarin:

Day Two: https://ia902703.us.archive.org/8/items/Improv81611/Memo-2.mp3

The first of many. (I hope.)

I was inspired to begin this project by many people and things, most directly by my friend Jesse, who did a project much like this one.  He, a jazz pianist, set out to improvise and record every day for a year, and publish each recording online.  

Well, I'm going to do the same thing.  Except, I don't play jazz.  I'm not an improviser by any musician's standards, hardly my own.  But I'm an improviser in life, and, well, here we go then.  

As a classical pianist of 25 years, it's time now that I explore that part of me that wants to be free.  I've always had a curiosity to improvise, but for whatever reason, (a class got canceled, or was full) I've been siphoned down a different path.  Well, each day is an opportunity, right?  So starting today, I'm going to improvise every day.  And I'm gonna record it.  And it might be bad.  But it might be good.  And I'm gonna force myself to publish it online.  

That's scary.  Because in conservatory, we're trained to criticize ourselves and other musicians.  We hold ourselves to ridiculous standards of perfection and aesthetic.  And as much as I hate being that way, I have been bred into this mindset as well.  So, to publish something on here that I might not be happy with, probably not even good at, is kind of a big deal for me.

There's a lot I want to write here... a lot that I've been philosophizing about over the past several months. I can't possibly get it all down into one little blog note.  But here are at least two stars in a universe of solar systems and galaxies that we can peek at: fear and vulnerability.  Whoa.  

So, we fear the uncertain, and we fear it because we think that it could cause us some sort of pain, emotional, physical, or otherwise.  And so we make ourselves invulnerable in order to avoid that pain, because we're afraid that we could, possibly, maybe end up getting hurt.  Even though, when we avoid that "pain possibility," we're also cutting off the possibility of something really awesome happening.  What the heck?  It sucks, but it's true.  You can't open yourself to the possibilities of super awesome amazing without opening yourself to the possibilities of horrible ouchy pain time.  Well... and that's life, then, isn't it?

One of my fears, and I think a valid fear that many of my musician friends share, is of being exposed as a fraud of sorts.  Someone who claims to be a "professional musician," but then falling short somehow, or being perceived as a hack.  Maybe didn't execute that one difficult passage so very well, or isn't a very good sight-reader (in my case, how true), or wasn't able to harmonize that melody properly, or WHATEVER.  Yeah, I think we're all pretty damn insecure.

And so anyway, I've decided that I'm okay with putting it all out there.  I want to go out on a limb, even if a very shaky one.  I've already said I'm not an improviser.  So, at least you all know that you shouldn't have high expectations.  (And I'm not expecting many, if any, readers/listeners, so ultimately this is more for my benefit than anyone else's.)  But maybe... something awesome will come out of all of this.  Maybe I'll even like some of what I create.

Let's see what happens after one year.  Today, I don't know how to begin.  I don't understand complicated chord progressions on a dime, like some.  I don't know how to read a chart.  I don't know the jazz traditions, where they were fifty years ago, and how that developed into what they are now.  I don't really know anything about improv.  Let's just see what happens. 

(P.S. I know I need to get my piano tuned.  I also apologize for the recording quality... it's nothing fancy.  Just my iphone.)

Here we go: Number 1.  https://ia700702.us.archive.org/4/items/Improv81511_279/Memo.mp3