For those of you who've held out and are actually reading this... thanks.
This post is completely unofficial - I'm just doing it for fun. It really has nothing to do with my project. (Though this will be my second-to-last post)
I just want to thank everyone who followed the blog until this point (and in advance to those who stay to read Coda which comes out in the undisclosed future).
If memory serves correct - I've already said the rest of my thanks and congrats on the last post...
Anyway... I'm back from my little spring break vacation - I was in New York and got to go in the Steinway & Sons Piano store and play on a really expensive (baby) grand piano. That was fun.
Here's the final recording - personally I don't think it's as good (quality wise) as Saturday Revue, but I think that this piece is worthy to be the last (music) post. It's my (sad) attempt at a medley. Of my improv recordings. Improving around the melodies made by previous improvisations... or something like that. It was quite an interesting experience. Also, I was back on the synthesizer because I wanted to use my new amp for it. But - I probably should have used my regular piano. And the camera angle is pretty bad. And my transitions aren't great. And... Oh well. Hope you enjoy the final installment...
Caesura: A pause in a line of music
A.k.a: "Railroad tracks"
Hello everybody! Sorry for the late post!
I know that I did say I was going to post a quick little improv (Fermata) sometime yesterday afternoon. But.. I had some other stuff (like a Jazz Band Competition), and I ended having to re-record the improv today. Although I said it'd be short, I couldn't bear to end the blog with a weak improv (I was also extremely heartened by all of the comments I've gotten - Thanks so much!) - so I'm preparing something a little bit bigger - hopefully something you'll all enjoy. But At this rate, it does not seem like I'll be able to get the post out (edit, upload, and embed) until later tonight, if at all, and if not, next... Wednesday. At our school, it's currently spring break, so I'm going to be busy a few days and though I have it all recorded, I currently do not have time to edit the video (put the audio and video together w/ text captions) until then. For those of you actually reading this blog, those of you who haven't completely abandoned blogger just because the project is done, I thank you for your patience.
I have gotten my grade for the project, but not the rubric yet - that may have to wait until post spring break (which ends April 6th), the earliest possible day we could get our rubrics back. If there are still people following this blog even then... well... thanks!
Welcome to the final Cavatina post!
Huge shoutout to everyone who has presented in both the morning and afternoon Gifted sessions, and good luck to those few who are presenting tomorrow!
It's done! It's finally done! D.C. al Coda: "da Capo al Coda," or "from the head to the tail." It directs the musican to go back and repeat the music from the beginning (Capo) and to continue playing until one reaches the first coda symbol.
Coda - A type of conclusion to a musical piece, often inserted into a repeated section (ex. D.C. al Coda).
First of all, shoutout to Alex, Matt, Jacob, Olivia, Matt, Zoey, and Laura, who all presented their TED Talks today in addition to myself. You guys were great!
This post is going to be a bit of a reflection on the TED Talk and on the overall project.
So about the TED Talk. Overall, even though I was really nervous on stage as I took in the fact that I was very alone, very exposed, and very nervous in the seconds before I began, I am very satisfied with the end result. I felt pretty confident in my script, and made it through with very few errors. I did my best to add tone and inflection to my speaking, but I am still unsure as to how well it translated to the audience. The PowerPoint went pretty smoothly as well, with no technical errors.
My goal with this talk was to not only explain a bit about what I'd been doing, what I'd accomplished, and to show off a bit of what I've learned, but to convey a message to the audience (side note: having an ultimate message/meaning was also a requirement for the TED talk in general). If you didn't hear my talk, that message was to not be afraid to make mistakes - just like in improvisation. I hope that I was able to bring that message to everyone.
About the live performance - personally, I'm pretty satisfied with the outcome. I think that I was able to show a lot of the different things I've been working on during the project - in just a minute or two worth of playing. I've also received overwhelmingly positive feedback, so I'm really glad that everyone enjoyed it. Some of my classmates even called me up to a sort of encore while we were waiting for the bell to ring (after the rest of the presentations had finished). Big thanks to everyone who enjoyed, and an especially big thank you to Mr. Conahan, the school's choral director, for lending me a piano to play on.
This project has been a lot of fun, and I've really enjoyed being able to spend so much time immersing myself in music, just playing whatever for an unconstrained amount of time. It was a really great learning and mastery-type experience. I hope that all of you readers really enjoyed following my progress on this blog as well. I have no idea if anyone really wants them, but for those who really enjoyed, below is a link to a Google Drive containing Mp3's for my songs - you can download them (they are filed as an album so you can drag it into iTunes or whatever), or you could just enjoy them on YouTube. Meddlings Album Download My YouTube Channel
I don't think that I'll be posting much anything else on this blog - as much as I've enjoyed improvising, the time it took to record, film, and upload the videos was a bit much to handle on a regular basis. I will be posting a follow up on this post, Coda, to review my performance when I get back my grade/rubric. I'll also be posting a final little clip of some improv (separate from Coda maybe). It'll be short and concise, and a little less cumbersome than Saturday Revue. It'll try to kind of emulate what I performed at the TED Talk. It's not the same obviously, but I hope it'll gets the point across.We'll see what happens!
- Josh C. Sorry for the weird highlighting - technical error forced my hand.
Subito Acclerando: To suddenly increase in tempo (speed)
Ok. My mind is kind of a mess right now, so this post is as much for organizing my own thoughts as it is for giving you guys a quick update on where things stand with this project.
So I've got my script all typed out - it's going through practice and revision at all times - but I'm still pretty nervous. Especially after seeing a number of really good presentations just a couple minutes ago. My hope is that I'll be able to keep my head screwed on my shoulders in the right direction for when I present. And I've got other homework to do at the same time as well... sheesh.
Ok, about the blog:
There are not going to be many other posts, and those remaining posts will probably be posted post-TED Talk (Wed 25th). This includes a recording of my "final" product. The reason I'm saving the recording for after the talk is because:
A: I'm a bit pressed for time
but more importantly:
B: Because it's improvisation, and because I'll be performing at the talk, they're going to be two very different pieces of music. I don't want to spoil too much about what kind of music I'll be improving at the talk, and I don't want to create any expectations set by another piece for the talk. I also want to end the project on a good note (hehe) in my last post or two.
So that's where we're at: stress, anticipation, excitement, and a promise to post a "final" song later.
Another shout out to all the people who presented today:
Dani, Jess, Sarah, Hannah, Harry, Sarah, Evan, and Kenny.
Well, it's time to wrap up the comments for this project. There are a LOT of cool projects out there, and today I actually got to see some TED Talks yesterday! Shout out to TJ, Caitlyn, Nicole, Jason, Mohammed, Helen, Ellie, and Abby.
Here are my comments for the section (I think I may be just a little behind schedule...)
Click their names for links to their blogs!
Nicole:
Choreographed and danced a dance to PTX's dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy
Trevor:
Flew a bunch of planes in a simulator - can now fly a wide variety of those flying chunks of metal.
Caitlyn:
Learned to play piano, then accompanied a cello-solo piece on piano.
Jess:
Learning to write Mandarin Chinese. Her tower of note cards stands 2.5 inches high.
Eric:
Whittling various figures like Card Suits. He also whittle me a little figure for my birthday! (Which I forgot to mention was on March 18th). Thanks Eric!
Ellie:
Studied photography - her pictures really are worth a thousand words.
Dani:
Animating a short clip/movie - it's plot remains a mystery - can't wait!
Key changes will be made... to my workload this coming week.
Hello everyone! I hope you've been enjoying the last movement and my vlog... This week: Movement IV is finally out! This is going to be a relatively shorter post, but before we get to the recordings, a bit of nitty-gritty chit-chat.
So... the TED Talk presentations are now scheduled to be Friday the 20th and all during the following school week. I have taken a position on Wednesday the 25th. As the date draws nearer and nearer I am brimming with anticipation. And stress. And anxiety. But, oh well - I'll just have to believe in my improvisation skills that I've "honed" this project, as well as my ability to write a TED Talk.
Moving on, this week was about chord changes. I chose this as a last goal since switching from one key to another is relatively simple. There are plenty of super-complicated ways to change keys - but I've found that experimentation works pretty well. Different chords will set up for different transitions. It helps when one chord in a chord progression overlaps into different chord progression in a different key. Additionally, rests can serve as good transitions between keys. The big clincher, I guess, is what happens after the transition.
If you change from one key to another, and you don't do anything different, other than change the key, it's extremely boring. So I've found change a feel, tempo, rhythm pattern, or dynamic really accentuates the change - evolving the song, if you will - so that it's a little different with each change.
And... I'm back on the normal piano! Bigger dynamic range, in tune, clear, and nicer to look at than my homemade synthesizer studio... Though the lighting is a bit off... ah... I'm just being a bit nit-picky. Here are your recordings.
Nightfall
This one's key changes are a lot more - abstract. going against what I said previously about key changes needing changes in style (to an extent) to be more interesting. The changes are a lot more intertwined, switching fluidly, between G, D, and C Major, with an emphasis on the minor chords. The result was a bit of a darker, lower melody - minor, but hopefully kind of thoughtful too.
Saturday Revue
This one is 6 minutes long. Yes. 6 minutes. 5 key changes - four transitions - four changes in style - four keys (C-A-G-D-C). I kinda went all out. Since the whole concept of this song was to improvise a little differently in each key, I kinda went all out doing my best to make it sound good - and it ended up being really long. I'd like to say its my most complicated improv piece to date. It starts off kinda of slow, with a lot of block chords, eventually loosening up through the changes, before going into the final change, where it speeds up and the chord chorus reaches max volume.
I hope you find them both enjoyable!
Well, that's all folks... about my next post... I'm not yet sure if it's going to be my TED Talk reaction, or if it will be a recording of some complicated improvised song that incorporates what I've learned. The 6 minute song above was a bit of precursor - incorporating a lot of different elements of the project using key changes as a point of transition. Hopefully the final result will be more fine-tuned, (concise), and even better.
Have a great week!
- Josh
P.S. Shout out to my friend Trevor. He turned 16 today. Check out his blog here.
Here are this week's comments. I took a look at the list of all four classes' blogs, looking to "explore" the available blogs a bit more. I hadn't commented on Liliana or Ellie's blogs yet, and I wish I had sooner - they're doing some pretty awesome stuff, so be sure to check out their blogs as well!
Jess: Mandarin
- Chinese tones and pinyin, plus a cool shout out!
Liliana: Balloon Animals
- Birds, Bears, Bow-and-Arrows, and more!
Ellie: Photography
- Pictures worth a thousand words - this post focused on still life!
If you haven't seen it already, check out Movement III!
Complicated accompaniment is complicated...
Hello! Welcome to Movement III!
As this is project is fast approaching its climax, a number of things are going to be happening!
First and foremost, I need to start working on my TED-talk. The presentation is in the near future (March 17-19), and I need to get prepared so that I can have time to practice and make a presentation and all that. I'll be talking about that a little bit more.
And by talking, I mean literal talking. This post will be containing a vlog (video + blog), where you get to "meet" me. I'm gonna talk about a number of things, including more about the state of the project, my origins as a musician/why I chose piano improv as my project topic.
It's not perfect. It might be a bit long. And my voice might seem a little congested. And I look away from the camera to consult my computer which has a teleprompter running. The jump cuts and video insertions may also seem a bit random. Again, not perfect... but I wanted to add the bit of personal narrative. I did my best to offset the length with a bit of humor and music... though I'm still not quite sure I've succeeded. I hope I'm not acting too silly at some points... Watching myself over and over again has desensitized me, and I have no idea if others will find this good, or will find it immature... I hope you enjoy nonetheless...
Edited on iMovie. Teleprompter: Cue Prompter
Phew. Got that over with. (Sorry it's YouTube again - the file size is once again too big for Vimeo to embed). Indeed - the process of procuring good recordings can lead to... insanity. And "so on."
Moving on, to this week's recordings. I know that there are only two of them, but I was a bit pressed for time, what with recording the vlog as well. If given the option, I would have probably redone them... but overall I am satisfied with how they turned out. And, now, for the results of the poll:
In a stunning and complete (but not all that surprising) turn of events: live video of my hands has won by... a lot. 5 votes to 0. Thank's for your input!
The main focus was to increase the complexity of my left hand's movements.Now that's a very abstract goal - after all, how does one define "complex" without using their own opinion? What I've been doing up until this point is playing whole chords (for the most) with my left hand - whole note, whole note, maybe a few other rhythms thrown in there too. Additionally, in the past, I have improvised with a constant movement of the broken chord in triplets or in eighth notes.
To add "complexity" this week I strove to play broken chords of varying rhythms, in an attempt to weave the left and right hand together into a more cohesive piece. This includes interjecting notes between hands using syncopation, swapping melodies (briefly) between hands, or playing transitional notes outside the chords between phrases of melody or chords in the progression. There wasn't much research involved in the making of this piece - just listening to music of varying genres gave me a few reference rhythms, but the rest was purely experimental. I'm pretty satisfied with end result. I hope you are too. Enjoy the fruits of my labor.
The Coming of Spring - A kind of bouncy tune keyed in C Major - It starts off a little scrambled, like flowers finding their way through snow... (maybe) and resolves with some nice chord-choruses near the end. A little jaunt-of-a left hand melody switch as well.
Rain - A bit of a melancholy tune - kinda like a rainy day. Set in G Major - with E minor harmonies to offset the major key. I really tried to intertwine each hand's part - and not trip over my own fingers in the process.
At the end of the post, she left a little nod towards my blog (thank you for the compliment).
And I would like to argue that I am on the level of a hedgehog playing jazz piano.
(Here comes the "retaliation")
In fact:
I found that hedgehog going in the opposite direction.
Though it's a .gif, not a Vine, so there's no sound.
And a few other animals playing piano .gifs
To my readers, I apologize for the randomness of this post.
I felt obligated, somewhat, to respond to that post somehow (I'm probably over-reacting because I found the hedgehog playing jazz hilarious).
Though, whether this post counts as retaliation or whether it merely augments the strange enigma that is the joy of watching animals play the piano, it's hard to say.
Rest assured, I'll be back to normal by the time Movement III comes out (perhaps this weekend...?).
And be prepared! I'll be including a video blog or "vlog" as well.
Hello everyone! Sorry for the kind of late post. Here's your reward for waiting so patiently!
So this week/cycle/period of time (the unit of time between posts is beginning to get confusing), I have been focusing on chords. Since improvisation has no real set melody, it relies on keys and chords as its skeleton - they basically denote which notes sound "right" or "good," and which notes sound "wrong" or "dissonant."
Until this point in time, I've primarily improvised under the context of a progression referred to as I - iii - IV - V (I have deviated from this a bit when I play however... either because I stylistically choose to or because I play the wrong chord in the wrong order and need to improvise a new progression. That often ends up with mixed results). Anyway, for those of you who may be a little bit confused, I'll do my best to give a brief explanation of music theory in relation to these chord progressions.
So a chord is a series of two or more notes that is played together. They can be spaced in different intervals, and pitched in different keys. Additionally, you can play chords that are minor and major without changing key signature. Below is a picture of thirds (chords spaced so that the notes are on every other key) pitched in C Major. You'll notice that each chord is labelled with a Roman numeral. This numeral represents which note of the scale it is derived from (I is rooted on the first note of the scale: C. ii is rooted on D, the second note of the scale, etc.), and whether it is upper or lower case denotes whether the chord is a major chord (uppercase) or a minor chord (lowercase).
Major chords are the "bright," "cheerful," and "happy," chords you typically here in songs. Minor chords are often incorporated in as contrast, or to create a completely different sounding song. They are typically described as "dark," "gloomy," "spooky," or "sad." In one key signature as the chords go up the scale, the positioning of the notes makes it major or minor. This is based on the root of that chord's scale. I think an example would help illustrate this a little better.
In the image above, the second chord in the line up, the ii-chord is minor, and it starts on D. When played in C Major, in which there are no sharps or flats, the chord is played as D-F-A. However, if you were to play a D chord in D Major, it would be played as D-F#-A. You'll notice that in the key signature D Major, the F has a sharp (#). So by playing that same basic structure of the chord in a different key signature, the F is lowered a half-step and the chord is made minor.
Chord progressions are exactly what they sound like - series of chords that follow a pattern to create a certain feel in the music, usually ending each cycle of the pattern with a resonating chord (usually the V chord).
Chord progressions are also an important for transitioning in keys, which I'll be focusing on later in the project. Something interesting I do want to point out is the Circle of Fifths (below), a musical diagram that progresses from C Major (or A Minor) by fifths in either direction, and showing how all the keys are connected through chord spacing.
Pretty cool huh? Even if you didn't quite understand all that, the Circle does provide a pretty cool representation of how many patterns can be found in music theory. I'm barely scratching the surface here.
So that's kind of a brief explanation of the basics of basic chord theory and progressions.
If you managed to make some sense of my attempt at teaching basic music theory - congratulations. If not, I'm sorry - I'm not that great at explaining music theory. Regardless of whether you understood or not, if you want to learn more, check out this site: Chord Maps: This provides very in-depth information on chord theory from the basics to some of the (slightly) more complex techniques/variations. I used this for a lot of my research on chord formations, progressions, and variations.
So going back to what I practiced/focused on this week, I ended up coming up with a few nice-sounding progressions:
I - iii - vi - I - iii - V and
I - iii - vi - IV - V
They've both got a lot of major chords that sound really nice, and the minor chords provide nice contrast that leads into ear-pleasing resolution with the V chord. After consulting with some sheet music that was laying around my piano, I cam across another chord progression I ended up utilizing:
iii/I - IV - I - V (The first / means that the left hand played a iii-chord, but my right hand improvised as if it were playing a I chord)
As per request, I also dabbled into some jazz improvisation. Jazz is actually the first style of piano improvisation I had ever tried, but it was a bit mangled, repetitive, and unstructured. I followed a (little) more closely to the classic 12-bar blues style of :
I7 - IV7 - I7 - I7 - IV7 - IV7 - I7 - I7 - V7 - IV7 - I7 - V7
(The 7 just means that the sevenh note of the chord is added to the three-note basic chord, and then lowered a half-step. This makes it sound "jazzy").
I also varied the "turnaround" or final 2 bars as:
I7 - IV7 - I7 - IV7 (Each chord for half a bar/measure).
In addition, I incorporated inversions and slash chords.
Inversions: When I rearrange the notes of a chord (i.e. play them in a different order).
- Ex. C - E - G can be re-arranged into the inversions E - G - C and G - C -E. Each inversion has a slightly different sound.
Slash Chords: When I play the notes of the chord with both hands over different octaves.
- Ex. The I7 in C Major (C - E - G - Bb) can be split between two hands - the left hand playing, let's say... C - Bb, while the right hand plays E - G - C. This creates a bit of a 3-dimensional sound to the chord.
Finally, I was a bit at a loss at what to do for maybe a third song, and I considered only posting two videos... but I ended up deciding on doing a bit of twist on a classic song. Heart and Soul by Hoagy Carmichael and Frank Loesser
I basically did some improvised variations on the song, using the melody as as inspiration for the majority of the improvised melodies, and utilizing the main chords of the song. Additionally, sticking with my theme of using varied chord progressions, I ended up playing some sections of the song with the old I - iii - IV - V pattern that I had used in the past, and it ended up not sounding half-bad. Even with the chord variations, I think that I managed to keep the Heart-and-Soul-feel going.
Moving on...
Hardship wise, I think that I shared my fair share of hardships in my last post. Again, finding the time to sit down, noodle around on the piano, and record a good decent session, and also edit it into a video that could be posted and embedded was hard, what with other activities. today, I'm actually participating in a band concert (on trumpet) that's been rehearsing after and during school, and that has drained a lot of my time. Additionally, I learned the piano tuner is coming to to fix the key and tune the piano up on Monday. My solution until then: use this synthesizer that was sitting upstairs in my parents' room collecting dust. It's an old Roland JV-30, and is hooked up to this Aiwa CX-NA111 stereo because we don't have an amp for it. Check out this sweet setup:
And... if you look carefully... you may see it on the left side... yes.
A camera and a tripod. A HDR-CX190, if you were curious.
This is another thing that held me up - for the sake of providing a little bit more novelty, convenience, and/or entertainment to my viewers. It also made me a lot more conscious about my piano form (wrist movement, finger movement, angle, etc.). I'm going to be paying more attention to that now as well. If you look on the right side of your screen, you'll see a poll. If you would kindly take the time to do that, it'd be much appreciated.
And now... for the recordings. They are the reason that you've put up with all my ramblings for the past couple minutes you've been reading.
First up: Using the chord progression I talked about first: Morning Sunshine (titled by: Mom). This bright, cheery song in D Major is reminiscent to waking up in a good mood - happy, full of energy, and ready to start the day. Something like this (<- click for a link to a video clip. Sorry, I didn't realize the hyperlink color would be so similar to the text's normal color).
Next: The jazz song requested by Catelyn Huang in a comment for the last Movement post, and by a few other people verbally to me, in person, at school. It's called: Genius Hour Blues (Because this is the Genius Hour Project, and this work can be long, tedious, and blues-inspiring... It's a really clever name. Hehe...) It's in C Major. The fast run of notes at the end is called a cadenza - it doesn't really follow any time or tempo - so I can just play whatever. And playing fast like that is kinda fun (and it seems to impress some people). Also, I made the video black and white because, well... it's jazz.
*Does Jazz Hands*
Finally - the Heart and Soul variations tune: Soulful Hearts (super creative name). It's basically variations on the main melody and chord progressions of the song in C Major.
Well, that about concludes this post. I hope you enjoy the recordings. If they're not already up, they should be added to the blog playlist very shortly.
Back to the grindstone! (For school. And band. And this project. Sigh....)
(Sorry - this is a repost - the version I posted about an hour ago got reverted to an old draft by accident. Sorry!)
First of all I hope that you enjoyed Movement I's recordings. I'm pretty happy with the way that they turned out, and overall I received some pretty positive feedback. I also hope that you like the installation of the playlist bar at the top of the screen (sorry mobile users).
Now, I had originally planned to post Movement II today at some point, but unfortunately, I've run into some technical problems that may delay the post to tomorrow. To make this post a little more interesting however, and to give you readers something to enjoy while you wait for Movement II, I'm going to give a brief rundown of the process I undergo to record my improv sessions.
So first of all, I've been playing on a 37-year old Story & Clark upright piano. It was my mom's when she was younger, and it has been maintained quite well over the years, as it still sounds pretty good today.
I originally had trouble finding a way to mic the piano, but luckily I found a Logitech USB microphone. It had originally been a part of a Disney: Sing It! Wii Game that my family never played. So I re-purposed it, and by hanging it down the back of the piano and connecting it to my laptop, I've been able to record a pretty good sound.
The laptop I use is a school-issued Dell Latitude 3330. I use the program Audacityto record the sound. Since Blogger does not support posting audio files alone, I have to convert them into videos. For editing ease, I email, upload, or in some other manner transfer the audio files (saved in mp3 format) to my home iMac, where I put pictures to go with the music on iMovie. Finally, the whole thing is exported to mp4 format, uploaded to YouTube, and subsequently embedded on the blog.
And that's about the whole recording, processing, converting, uploading, and embedding process.
I face several problems going into the afternoon, the time I had originally planned to record. My first concern has been using a different laptop (mine was in the tech office, being repaired, and the loaner was a little buggy at first), but that has seemed to have resolved itself after a restart and a re-connect to my home WiFi. My bigger concern now is with the piano.
The piano, as I said earlier, is in fact 35+ years old, and it has seen its share of re-tuning and repairs. As of recent, one of the hammers on one of the important keys, E natural (one octave above middle C, 4th space up on the treble clef), is loose, and makes a very loud clicking noise when it plays, which can be heard no matter how much I adjust my microphone's settings. To be honest, it's been clicking for quite some time now, but only now is it loud enough to be picked up so easily on a microphone. If you listen carefully to Bring Me Home, you may actually be able to hear it click every now and again.
The piano re-tuning guy will hopefully be around here next week, so this week I may have to... improvise a bit. Yes. I made that pun. While Movement II is behind schedule, I do plan to have something out in the near future.
Oh! That's right. Here's a quick video I found of a guy doing some piano improvisation. I thought it sounded really good. Improv like that is one of the things that made me want to learn more about improvisation in the first place. A lot of the things he's doing in the video are things I hope to learn/dabble in over the course of this project - varied/complex rhythms in both hands, multiple keys (and key changes), multiple chord progressions, and an overall pleasing sound.
Hello everybody!
I have some exciting technical news with the blog interface!
So if you haven't noticed, at the top of the page there is now a black bar running along the length of the screen, much like a slur running over the top of a musical phrase. This bar is a playlist that I will be continually updating. It will basically play all the songs that I have recorded thus far, so you can listen to them across pages without interruption, without having to change videos, and without having to scroll through my pages to find the YouTube videos.
The site I used to create this playlist is called Playlist.me, and you can basically input YouTube and Mp3 links or SoundCloud tracks on the Set-Up Wizard, choose a skin, and it will give you the HTML code for the playlist. Then, you can copy and paste the code into your blog's HTML code. This works for just about any personalized website or page that you can edit the HTML code for.
I think that it's a really cool feature, and I plan to keep my playlist updated with my latest recordings. Hope you all enjoy!
- Josh
Note (Pun intended): This playlist appears to not work when accessing the blog on a mobile device. To utilize the playlist, you must be on a "full sized" computer.
Keys are one of the keys to better improvisation Hello everyone!
I want to start off quickly by apologizing - I realize only now that I completely forgot to introduce myself. So... uhh. Hi, I'm Josh. But I guess it all kind of works out now, what with this being my first blog post documenting actual project progress.
So let's get down to the brass tacks.
This week, as mentioned earlier, is the week I'm going to be focusing on improvising in more varied key signatures. Key signatures have a huge impact on the overall sound of the piece. They generally denote the mood of the piece, in addition to supplying the roots for the chords I play. Up until the start of this project, I generally improvised in the keys of C Major (0 sharps or flats) and D Major (2 sharps). To expand my range, I decided to try my hand at improvising in keys up to 3 sharps (A Major) and 2 flats (Bb Major).
Playing improv and recording it is somewhat of a challenge - it's all kind of spontaneous, so if you make a mistake on a recording and want to make changes, you have to start over completely. Additionally, no two solos are exactly alike, so it's not like I can go back and practice a certain phrase - it's done on the fly. As I got more comfortable, it became easier, but I still found that putting forth something that sounded satisfying took a considerable chunk of time. This may prove to be a roadblock later on - but it hasn't set me back too far. Yet.
Continuing on, I've found also that improvisation seems to become more and more complex by itself. This is kind of in regards to become more comfortable playing a in a certain key, or with certain chords, or with certain rhythms, but I feel as though the experience just kind of piles on and helps add to new compositions. For example, through experience, I've learned that when I hit a note in the wrong key or with the wrong chord, I can (sometimes) pass it off as intentional dissonance by resolving it in the next beat or so. (You'll be sure to hear a few odd notes in my recordings...)
Anyway... this cycle's pieces are in Bb and A Major keys. I didn't really use many other resources to fuel my progress - introducing a new key to play in is rather straightforward if you know your basic music theory. For some ideas on melodies and chords, I did use a few things for reference.
Auto-Chord:
This site basically gave some suggestions for chords that can be played in different keys for different genres. I didn't necessarily take after any specific genre - I just took into consideration chords that resonated well with or sounded nice in the key. Pandora Radio:
Pandora offers a lot of piano stations - I used contemporary, classic, and solo stations as means of inspiration for melodies, emotions, styles, etc.
Next week's goals, involving new (variations of) chord progressions or patterns, is going to be a bit more complicated - so I'm going to be searching online and throughout my house for some more music theory about chords. I'll be sure to explain a little more in-depth later. Chords are something I don't have a ton of experience with (my piano teacher didn't directly teach me too much, she just assigned simple theory worksheets and had me complete them), so I look forward to expanding more knowledge on them!
And now, having endured my rambling, the moment you have been waiting for: the recordings!
The first two, "Moon" and "Stars," are keyed in Bb Major. They were named by my sister (age 11) based on her first impressions of the pieces. The second one, "Bring Me Home," is keyed in A Major, and was named by my mom based on her first impressions of the piece. Overall, I'm relatively satisfied with how they turned out (though you may hear a little "intentional" dissonance). Hope you enjoy, and see you next cycle!
(Since I can't upload audio files - I've converted the audio into video files and added some pictures with Ken Burns transitions, and because those videos were too big for Blogger to upload, I've embedded them as YouTube Videos. Sorry for any inconveniences this causes.) Pictures: Google Images salon.com ubanrabbits.eu artofthesouth.com/Thomas_Kinkade
Hello everybody!
Introducing Cavatinas!
Cavatinas are short, simple melodies performed by a soloist that are part of a larger piece.
Likewise - these types of posts will be short and sweet, and a secondary in importance to my main posts. As students, we are also required to comment on our peers' blogs. Each cavatina corresponds with one cycle/week's worth of comments. As I feel like I am a bit behind on schedule - here are two cycles' worth of comments! Make sure to check out all of their blogs as well!
The piano is more than just an instrument - it's a tool for self-expression and an emotional outlet for the stressed. At least, that's how I see it. As a sophomore of about 16 years of age, I've been playing the piano for almost 11 years now, and I recently have found a new way to express myself using my experience - piano improvisation. Just for a quick bit of context, up until I stopped piano lessons following the end of 8th grade, I was taught almost exclusively classical music. I was aching for a change - a genre of music that was more free and more varied. Improvisation provided that route. Improvisation is almost purely spontaneous composition, and its free-form style allowed me to play however I felt like playing. As my interest grew, so did my desire to improvise in more and more complex ways. That's where this project comes in. In school, we are being given the opportunity to practice whatever passion we want over the course of around 6 weeks, culminating in a TED-style talk. I have chosen to take this time to improve my improv - and I'll be tracking my progress here on this blog. My goal is to incorporate a new component to my improvisation repertoire each week. I'll record an improvised piano solo utilizing each component to be posted with each blog post.
Goal 1 - Improv in keys up to 3 sharps or 2 flats
Goal 2 - Improvise in 2 new chord progressions (ex. I -IV - V - I)
Goal 3 - Incorporate more varied left hand accompanying rhythms
Goal 4 - Be able to transition between keys or chord progressions mid-song
Goal 5 - Ultimately, I will improvise a solo that encompasses all of the above components. As of now I don't really have any overbearing obstacles, other than maybe time deadlines. I have yet to discover how long it will take me to learn and effectively incorporate new techniques into my improvisation. This concludes the Prelude to a Project. I hope you enjoy the main event!
