March 2015 – Day 7
Day 7! It’s been a whole week, and I’ve still got so many recordings to share! Thanks to all of you who have been tuning in and downloading the podcasts. I really appreciate your interest!
Category: Uncategorized
Piano Log 2015-3-1
March 2015 – Day 6
Welcome to Day 6! I’ve gone back to recording directly from my iPhone while I try to get the new microphone fixed. You may have noticed some microphone static in a couple of the more recent recordings. It’s been getting worse, so I’m probably going to just get the microphone replaced. In the meantime, I have a shock absorbing mic stand for my iPhone which is pretty cool! It definitely helps reduce the background noise in the recordings.
Piano Log 2013-10-5 Part 1
March 2015 – Day 5
Yet another one from the Boston Street Piano Project. This was the first recording I made that day, after tower bell ringing practice at Old North Church. This is one of the fast arpeggiated ones, in the vein of my Davis Square recording.
Piano Log 2013-10-4 Part 12
March 2015 – Day 4
This one is more informal and playful. During the Street Piano Project, there would often be people milling around the pianos – waiting to take their turn, just listening, or wanting to join in. I started playing Autumn Leaves, and a guy who was standing behind me started singing along. Then he asked if he could play too, and we had some fun!
March 2015 – Day 3
March 2015 – Day 3
Part of the Boston Street Piano Project. This one explores different realms of sound from my usual palette. I mean, part of what I’m trying to do is be original and try something entirely new every time. But my ears and fingers have patterns they love to revisit. Sometimes I have to really push myself to shake things up, and I think this recording really did that!
Melsen’s Piano Log: Piano Log 2015-2-26 Part 2
Melsen’s Piano Log: Piano Log 2015-2-26 Part 2
March 2015 – Day 2
This is a longer, meandering one. References to Dream Girls (a little bit!), as well as themes from previous Piano Logs.
Piano Log 2015-2-26 Part 1
March 2015 – Day 1
For this improvisation, I found myself touching on a Chopin piece I’ve never actually learned. See if you can tell which one it is!
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.
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!
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)