Tag: piano meditations

Piano meditation: On the breeze

Here’s my latest piano improvisation, a short piece that I think I channeled my inner Erik Satie to create.

Again, I’ve used a simple motive, in this case the movement between two chords, and have tried to create a piece that has steady degree on movement without relying on harmonic changes and instead leaning on a repetitive rhythm and dynamic changes to create the mood.

It reminds me of a see-saw, or a sunflower swinging back and forth on a growing and fading summer wind.

I’m happy with the outcome, it’s peaceful.

Enjoy.

Piano Meditation 6:

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February 12th, 2010
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Piano meditation: The steps

When I sit down to record a piano improvisation sometimes I just empty my head, play what I feel until I’ve said what I need to say. But sometimes I like to restrict myself to a specific motive, one of music’s oldest tricks, to create the piece.

You’ve already heard my “one note” meditation, as well as my exploration of the V-I progression. However, for this latest one, it’s all about octaves.

To create this each hand only plays octaves, so the harmonies never include more than two notes. The result is a sometimes haunting piece that climbs and falls, or mounts and slides downhill at times.

It’s beautiful and creepy and I’m happy with it.

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Flickr photo by Tim Green aka atoach
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January 26th, 2010
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Piano meditation: The tempest

Who said program music is rightfully dead? In fact, I love it when music evokes a scene, mirroring some living phenomenon. It already mirrors, amplifies and often juxtaposes our emotional and spiritual experiences.

In the case of my next piano meditation, the idea was simple: a storm.

In order to create the effect I played a series of arpeggios, often faster than my fingers could move, causing a few muffed notes and blurred passages that I felt the captured unevenness of a whirling rainstorm. At one point, I break the rhythm altogether, and go wild like uneven bands of storm.

To make the point even more I upped the tempo in Garageband just a bit.

I pretty happy with the result. I don’t often play to set a scene, but maybe this is my musical attempt at haiku, which often finds greater meaning in the simple observation of nature.

Enjoy the piece.

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Flickr photo by OneEighteen
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January 6th, 2010
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Piano meditation: Peace, dark or light

My last piano improvisation was on the more abstract side, an experiment in using one note only while still telling a musical story.

In this next one, it’s back to an exploration of mood, especially a minor mood. I based the meditation on a simple V – i resolution, stepping in and out of it, meandering through outside chords always with the inevitable V – i resolution in mind.

At the same time, I kept the movement of the piece very slow, almost decelerating  at times, all to create a very somber and reflective feeling to the piece.

I kept the high points from gathering too much strength as well, which when I thought about it after listening to the piece the first time, it made it feel as if the music was a man with his head bowed who even when he’s on the brink of breaking out of the melancholy, doesn’t because he loves the mood too much.

Enjoy the piece.

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Flickr photo by seligr
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December 29th, 2009
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Piano meditation: One note, no more

I’ve always been disappointed the One Note Samba by Antonio Carlos Jobim doesn’t stick to one note, though the tune is catchy as hell. So for this second piano meditation I decided to try sticking to one note, and only one note.

That doesn’t mean one frequency. In this case I used five different octaves of G, but never left G.

It’s not all that pretty, and I made a point of breaking up the rhythms so the time and tempo felt fluid. In fact, the piece is a bit stressful at times, with all of the repetition, but who says music must always be pretty. Art not only imitates life, but it amplifies life too. And while repetition in our own daily lives may beat and beat on a muffled drum, it’s normal that an artistic interpretation of that sounds with more tension.

In addition to the repetition of the G, I discovered while recording that the pounding Gs started to generate a lot of feedback, which I ended up using in the piece. And since I played this on an electronic keyboard, which is always perfectly in tune, there are plenty of harmonics floating over the monotony.

Enjoy.

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Flickr photo by procsilas
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December 19th, 2009
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