Witnesses.

Ooooof!!  Lots to learn, lots to learn.

So today I had that trio session I mentioned yesterday, closely followed by another session with Akiko on koto.  Man.

First of all, rhodes is pretty much one of the coolest instruments ever, and I loved playing it.  The SUSTAIN, man!!  Maybe my favorite part aside from the timbre, which is pretty awesome.  I am currently looking to pick up a rhodes.  If you've got one, I'd be totally willing to take it off your hands.

Then, today was the first time I've played with drums.  Never played any classical with them either.  That was probably a very good thing for me, because I have a tendency to meander a lot with my improvs.  And I think I've been needing someone to keep me a bit in check in that area.  This helped.

Okay.  Finally, I can't post any of the trio stuff on here.  The guys sounded really great, but I sounded super duper boring!  I hate that!  And I don't mean the normal boring that I usually post, but even MORE boring than usual!  I hate going back to a recording and hearing something I really don't like coming from my own self.  It really, REALLY peeves me.  It happens all the time, and I get over it, but this time there were WITNESSES!  You know what one does with witnesses?  I'll give you a guess, but make it quick... I've got to pay a visit to some friends.

So I do a terrible mafioso impersonation.  Not my fault.  It's all in the delivery, and as everyone knows, it's very difficult to convey tone in the written word.

Anyway, the koto stuff was actually pretty cool!!  One of the things I liked a lot was that the sounds blended really well, and at times even I have trouble discerning which were koto and which were piano.  Yet the instruments still retained their individual characteristics.  I also like that the sound isn't just "asian," despite the origins and tuning of the koto (though, yes, you will hear some of that flavor).  Plus, how many people can say they've improvised with koto?  Like, ten total.  That's it. 

Here we go, Day 155: https://ia700807.us.archive.org/17/items/Improv11612/1_16_125_59Pm.mp3