Here’s another offering from Wednesday – just a little snippet!
Audio
I’m moving into an apartment (in two days) that has a Piano! It’s an upright, owned by the landlord who grew up in that building, and he’s letting us keep it. This was some of my first day playing it…
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!
4-21-12
Improvisation part 2 of 2. Parts are reminiscent of a classical cadenza, and there are definitely quotes from Bach and Chopin thrown in..
4-21-12
Improvisation 1 of 2 on my keyboard. You’ll hear some rustling in the background – I recorded this from the dining room of the co-op, and housemates are bustling in the kitchen!
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!
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!
Friday night, 3-16-12
A sadly truncated post. I tried to record this one directly into tumblr on my phone, and the app cut me off after one minute! To come: a guest collaboration with my brother after we watched the Alloy Orchestra perform to “Man with a Movie Camera” at Wellesley College. I should have this up by the end of the week! Stay tuned…
2/23/12
This is a recording I made from my home keyboard. I’ll be making these whenever I can’t find other pianos to try out!
I’m trying to recover from a repetitive stress injury to my right hand, and I have felt very cautious about playing too much. This post is definitely on the slower, more contemplative side.