I’m a musician and composer who loves to improvise. My family loved my improvisations, and my grandpa kept telling me I should share them with other people. So, I created Weekly Piano! I hope to get good constructive critiques from people who hear the improvs (whether you enjoy them or not!), so please let me know what you think, and what you think can be improved!
Hello Weekly Piano,
We have been tweeting back and forth on Twitter since late on September 16. I’m here on your blog listening and intrigued. We are both exploring and playing with improvising in a classical tradition. I’m very interested in what you’re doing, how you are doing and knowing what the experience of improvising is like for you. What goes on in your head as you improvise? I’d be interested in exploring this and perhaps blogging about it.
At this point, I am recording but not video taping my improvisations. What are using to record your audio? You may have noticed the sound for my improvisations is pretty good. I am amazed because the technology I have discovered is simple to use and inexpensive – I use a Zoom Handy Recorder H4n. I just place it right on my piano music stand on the left side and point it into the piano. I click record and that’s it. It records CD quality. You can also hook up external mics to it.
I’m enjoying your improvisations, but I think you are cheating listeners in that the sound quality could be better and quite easily as I have just described. Perhaps that is not important to you, but I thought I would put that in for you to consider.
Craig
Thanks, improvising is a wonderful spiritual experience and it’s great to see others doing it!! I’m using the built-in microphone of my HD Flip camera to record the improvs. I actually have the Zoom H2 – I love the recorder. I may go ahead and try using that to release some audio-only improvs.
Bloggers, would you be interested in downloading higher-sound-quality mp3s of my improvs, or do you prefer the video style? Any suggestions are welcome!!
Peace,
Weekly
Really liking the music – but I would agree the sound quality as Craig says could be improved – the piano is a very difficult instrument to record accurately but I would encourage you to spend time in getting it right. As a contrast the sound quality of Craig’s “Rising” is very good.
http://craigaddy.com/?cat=12
Thank you, Ben. I agree also, the sound definitely needs to be improved. I have a Zoom H2 that gets really good sound, it’s just a matter of syncing that with the video
. Maybe I’ll do a series sometime soon of some really well-mixed improvs and do a batch processing of them all at once.
“…a wonderful spiritual experience…” Yes, same for me. I find it both meditative and passionate at the same time – kind of paradoxical. When I do improvise with people lying Under the Piano, that adds yet another whole dimension. A connection happens with that person that affects what I improvise. I invite you to try it sometime (having a friend lie under the piano as you improvise that is), I think it might be right up your alley. The experience of being bathed in the vibrations of the piano can be very powerful for people. Isabella Mori recently lay under my piano. She is a blogger herself. If you want to get her take on the experience, I invite you to read her blog post – she even wrote a poem about the experience. The link for her post is http://bit.ly/17a48l
I’m biased to great sound rather than a movie. After all, it is all about the music and what we are hearing when you get to the bottom line. However, YouTube is a great way to drive traffic to your blog right and people are visual – they like to see things, even if it’s an unchanging static shot. Do you have the software to do both? Video tape with your HD Camera AND record the audio with your Zoom H2. I have played around with iMovie on my Mac and it’s pretty easy. But, I’m sure it would add a significant amount of extra time to your production.
Craig
I think the experience of the visual adds to the experience of listening to the improv. It is about the music in the end, no doubt, though the ability to see the person creating the music adds another dimension to the experience. I think that’s one of the reasons people see live shows rather than listening to recordings, or buy concert DVDs in addition to the CDs.
I’ve thought about splicing the better audio recording with the video. I’m actually seeing if I can use a studio with a better piano and a good audio recording setup…but that won’t be for another 3 months, since I’m going to Thailand to travel in October
.
If you ever pass through Chicago, we should do a collaborative improv. You’re located in Canada?