Category: Uncategorized

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4-21-13

This past weekend, I was out on Whidbey Island, off the coast of Washington State, for my Grandad’s memorial service. I live in the Boston area, and I have rarely gotten out to this place in my lifetime. My brother and I flew out there together with our mom, and we spent a couple days on the island. The woods were so incredibly lush and green!

We had the memorial service at the Senior Center where Grandad had spent a lot of time. As people were starting to trickle in, someone expressed their disappointment that my mom hadn’t brought her violin to play. Very shortly thereafter, someone suggested that I try my hand at the upright piano that was sitting in the front of the room.  This is the first music I played. Sometimes my partner asks me if what I’m playing is “right now.” Almost always, if it is improvised, then the answer is yes, and this music was no exception.

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Here’s one that I recorded for my mother last year for Mother’s Day. In the wake of everything that has happened in Boston, I wanted to share a little love. One of my friends recorded a video of her garden this morning, to send to her friends in Boston who couldn’t go outside, and I want to share this in the same vein. Love in the face of chaos and violence and fear.

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9-8-12

I haven’t played piano in ages, it seems, though probably a more truthful story is that I haven’t played piano in two weeks.  My back went out last night, and I had to cancel my Saturday plans, so I’ve been spending the day in and out of bed.  I was getting restless, and I remembered the keyboard, sitting in the upstairs hallway.  Sometimes, even if it hurts to sit, the benefit of doing something as spiritually grounding as playing music can outweigh the discomfort I otherwise feel in my body.  I only recorded this little snippet, but then I went on to get lost in sight-reading (slash remembering) Chopin Scherzos, and it really was a wonderful hour.  My back isn’t much worse for wear, either!

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This is the second part of the improvisation I did with my brother Eric in a practice room at Wellesley College after listening to the Alloy Orchestra in concert (Performance to Man with a Movie Camera).  I think you can tell that some of the inspiration comes from what we just heard. 

A little background: Eric and I grew up listening to our dad (Philip Carlsen) composing at the piano.  We both studied piano while we were growing up, and we both loved to just sit at the instrument and improvise (I think we preferred this to practicing our classical music pieces!).  Periodically, we would jam together.  Now, after we’ve both graduated from college and are working as graphics/media designers, we still take every opportunity we can to make stuff up together. 

In the first recording (see the previous post), I was playing bass and Eric was playing treble.  For this recording, we switched.  Enjoy!

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This is the first of two recordings I made with my brother Eric after a performance at Wellesley College by the Alloy Orchestra (Performance to Man with a Movie Camera).  He’s playing treble on this one, and I’m playing bass.  We’re down in a practice room, playing on a baby grand.

On our way to this concert, we had been listening to a James Booker Pandora station in my car, and I think our first improv session was loosely inspired by that music.  Our second session was heavily influenced by Alloy Orchestra’s performance.  It was cool how that turned out – definitely not intentional!