Improvisations
I hope you’re ready! For the month of March, my plan is to put up a podcast a day for Melsen’s Piano Log. I have many older recordings to use, but I’m also hoping to do at least two new ones per week!
If you listen to any of these, I would really appreciate your feedback. There are plenty of highly produced recordings of solo piano improvisation in the world, and I’m trying to do something different with these raw takes. I’d love to know what you think!
Sad key! It’s mechanism became unglued. To avoid damaging it, I removed the key. Waiting for the next time I can hire a technician. It’s been weird playing with a missing key.
Part of the Boston Street Piano project. A trumpet student was practing a part from the Ravel G-Major Piano Concerto, so I did this riff on it.
You can view a video of this improvisation here on YouTube.
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10-1-2013 – Longy School of Music (Piano 10)
I have so many videos and recordings to upload! Please bear with me as I stitch together the sound recordings I made on my phone and the videos I took on a little fisheye camera (which had terrible sound quality, since it was resting and buzzing on the piano as I played!). It might be another week or two before I get everything posted 🙂
This piano was my tenth “grab”, if you will. So far, I’ve played 30 pianos, and I’m hoping to hit 40 by the time they are taken away.
This improvisation grew out of the slow movement from Ravel’s G minor piano concerto. I started playing around with it because there was a trumpet player outside in the courtyard practicing his part for that same concerto, but the first movement!
The audio recording of this improvisation will be coming out on the Podcast tomorrow!
This is the second recording from tonight. It is much longer and lyrical than the first. I imagine playing this one for a dancer.
The first recording from tonight. This one is upbeat!
This is one I imagine playing for a dancer.
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Part of the Boston Street Piano project.
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Melsen’s Piano Log: Piano Log 2015-2-16
Another longer post (too long to post the recording directly on tumblr!). Here in Boston, we have had so much snow in the past month! The snowbanks are at least 9 feet tall on either side of our driveway, and our little street is like a bobsled tunnel. The last time I remember seeing this much snow, I was a child, and the walkways went over my head because I was tiny! Needless to say, I have had snow on the brain. So this improvisation ends in a little tune I remember from when I was that small child, watching a sweet movie about another child and his snowman.
You can follow the link, or just subscribe to the Melsen’s Piano Log podcast through the iTunes store.