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Love At Lost
One of my best jazz improvisations, l’m thinking.
PurePiano, Electric Vintage, Module Kaypro Cello, BeatHawk Total
Comments
Very good indeed. There’s no way I’d been able to guess that this was improvised and not composed.
This is beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.
Thank you @JudasZimmerman. I guess the “finished” quality that can occur with improvisations is not unique. It might have all begun when Athena sprang fully grown from Zeus’ forehead. I also think of calligraphy as an example of unplanned completion.
The mind is a wonder, for sure.
And thank you @Dav. Your continued listening is much appreciated!
You have that ability to delay playing a note just the right amount of time where it doesn’t feel late, it just builds anticipation. I’m not qualified to say if this is one of your best, but it’s damn fine music.
A stunningly beautiful improvisation! Took me places!
I love that about Lineman. I made a similar observation and comment on one of his other pieces.
Maybe improvisation is unique in the self-inflicted torture?
Hours/years of drills and exercises prior to improving a spontaneous and completed piece versus a rough piece and then hours and days/weeks of edits, over-analyzing, perfectionism, analysis paralysis, ect.
Beautiful piece by the way. Lovely, just lovely.
Thank you for that praise @Edward_Alexander. It means a lot to me.
@MadeofWax @Blipsford_Baubie, thanks for pointing out that aspect of what I do. Frankly, I never thought about it specifically and the “technique” might be something relatively new for me… perhaps even a direct result of the iOS experience as I don’t think I did it much in the old days.
I can say it is probably the result of a deeper, passive, listening experience. These days I’m in less of a rush to get the notes out. The music is more reverberant in my being, maybe. There’s more room for silence.
Also, I’m toying with the idea that it is an energy thing. A sort of pulse from positive to negative… like an electrical charge that waxes and wanes…. or like a power drop that gets a boost back to full capacity. A recharge of creativity from moment to moment.
These are just speculations, of course. But I know it is not an intellectual choice. It just happens from a feeling place. Maybe our encyclopedic @McD has an engineer’s perspective. Anyway, I appreciate your both pointing it out. It is effective from a reasoning perspective and is a bit original, perhaps… Originality is important to me, but that’s another story.
You play in the style of the great romantics, where time is subject to manipulations on a par with pitch and volume as an expressive parameter. It's pre-MIDI... anti-MIDI actually which forces everything to a strict clock/timeline and only has meager controls to enable fluid time. Applying an LFO to BPM would help but that's not available in AUM... hopefully, I'm wrong and the real engineers will weigh in on time in the age of MIDI: @_Ki, @Wim, @espiegel123...
One thing I love about your playing is your voicing is so different that the normal jazz chords. Very unique. Keeps me wondering where you are going with the progression. Sometimes I think, that ain’t gonna work, then you drop a note and it comes together.
@McD : midi does not force one to play quantized or single tempo music. Even if using a daw, one can simply use it like a tape recorder and ignore the bar lines and metronome.
Good point. This is how @linearlineman approaches Cubasis. But for a purist like me it means every note is wrong when you try and add programmatic tools like lumbeats drummers.
Ultimately, if you use quantized tools, doing things like using LFOs to change tempo and algorithmic humanization tools, you still won't get the expression of someone that plays expressively. Those tools can make things less robotic (quantized music can be good) but they don't achieve real expressiveness .... which is a whole different think from technical mastery.
Thanks for that observation @Dav. I can only attribute my unusual chord voicings to exercises I did for many years which were based on a system rather than incorporating chords commonly used in jazz. If you’re interested I can explain it to you. I also utilize proprioreceptive technique… in other words, I am feeling and initiating different hand shapes as a way to create chord voicings.
@McD and @espiegel123, indeed I use Cubasis as an analog recording device often with a click track. But midi editing and instrument substitution on tracks is also critical. Quantize only very occasionally.
Nice! Could listen to the piano all day long 👍
Great improvisation! I wish I could add some of that to my music.
@0tolerance4silence. Thank you, sir. You might listen to this album of piano improvs…
https://michaelalevy.bandcamp.com/album/pure-piano
Thanks @Paulieworld. You’re welcome to sample any of my tracks if that helps. Also, a collaboration might be possible. PM me if you need anything.
Thanks for the recommendation. Great tunes! Half way in I wasn’t sure if I can pick a favourite, then came The Application of Stealth which took the crown. 👍 Where is the EP coming from in that one? Is it even EP? More EP please!
Really good stuff! And great improvisation!
Side note: would you recommend Pure Piano? I have a lot of apps that do good/decent piano sounds but a standalone piano plugin is one of the only things I don’t have in my arsenal.
I don’t understand? Yes there were some very, very nice parts in this - even from a guy that doesn’t like jazz normally. But improvised? You didn’t play and record this right off the bat surely @LinearLineman? 😀 I mean it wasn’t all in one take, piano on one hand and strings on the other… right? If it was I would book a slot at the Edinburgh Festival if I were you 😀
Or is it all in a multi patch thing or something?
Whatever way - truly sweet man 👏🏻
Thx @Not1Iota . I’ll certainly listen to that.
@HotStrange, my piano favs are Ravenscroft 275, PurePiano and Module American D. PurePiano is mellower. Ravenscroft is crisper, has pedal noise control and string resonance. Module has a rich sound and lots of good presets. All good. Ravenscroft often goes on sale for $17. There are lots of threads on these. Hope that helps!
Hi @robosardine. The piano part was a one take with two or three midi edits. I derived the cello part from the treble notes of the piano improv. When I record I additionally divide the piano into treble and bass using MidiTools key zone splitter. I then attribute different instruments to all the parts as needed, as below…
Thanks for listening!
@0tolerance4silence the EP on The Application of Stealth is House Mark1. I use EPs regularly in conjunction with pianos which I did here (Module American D, lyrical preset)…hence, your curiosity. I have an old EP album. I’ll listen again and see if it’s worth recommending to you.
@0tolerance4silence, yes, the album, Wurlygig, recorded in 2019 inspired by @Daveypoo,’s EP love, is def worth a listen. The 2nd track, Glistener, is @McD’s favorite.
https://michaelalevy.bandcamp.com/album/wurlygig
I gave this one a cursory listen earlier but was distracted.
Very lyrical, NICE key change at 1:00, definitely in line with your recent work. You're a wizard, Harry - I honestly don't know how you spin these spells, but you do so quite regularly nowadays.
I am really fond of the Vince Guaraldi echoes I hear in these last bunch of tunes. I love his playing and he's not often nodded to beyond a Linus & Lucy or Cast Your Fate To The Wind quote, so it's nice to hear his stylistic choices being the influencer here rather than you simply quoting the head of either of those tunes in a solo.
Thx @Daveypoo. Guaraldi makes sense if you’re channeling the inner child, but he was a pretty sophisticated jazzer as well.
I'd love to hear this explanation of the system and relevant exercises to reach for this level of fluid harmonic creativity. I'll probably never get there since the piano is so far from the sofa and it makes noise downstairs due to the physical weighted keyboard and the fact that I like to play too loud. It leads to serious pain in my hands but I'd like the mental exercise of following your system... usually this leads into areas that seem metaphysical and lack engineering rigor like the Lydian Chromatic Concept or the guitar theories of Pat Martino:
Perfect 4ths are Old Testament but Perfect Fifths are US Marshall. Both badges of honor and commitment.
Thanks Mike! I will probably take you up on the samples. You have a lot of material, and I have a few specific songs in mind that I would enjoy working with. A collaboration would also be fun. That could be quite a challenge considering our different approaches to music making.
I will PM you first, before I start anything.
@Paulieworld, great. Please PM me with anything I can do to contribute.
@McD, @Dav, the exercise to engender voicing inventiveness is sublimely simple, tho tedious. Imagine a sheet of paper filled with 40 or so of the following…
135, 1235, 13561, 17, 137, 1357, 13567, 159, 1359,
251, 2561, 23561,
351, 3561, 3571, 359, 3579, 3569,
513, 5613, 5713,
613, 6135, 6735,
735, 7135, 7235… etc.
Obviously these are chord voicing descriptions. This is only an example for major chords. My teacher gave me many sheets filled with such descriptions for major, minor, diminished, etc. I played through these lists in all twelve keys, right and left hands… for several years. They stretched and shaped my hands into many different forms, so I got into the habit of moving my hands into different and sometimes new shapes. Hence coming at chords through proprioreceptivity. It also opened my ears to chord sounds divorced from a particular jazz context. When I think back on it now, the voicing patterns were not very complex… Connie, my teacher, didn’t add the fourth to the major chords, 1457, for example. Also, she didn’t offer voicings that used both hands together… 2561-2357, for example, played through 12 keys. I never thought to ask her why she kept it so simple. Perhaps it was more about expressing the concept rather than the specifics. Once armed with the habit any sequence or shape became possible with one or both hands.
I also came to the conclusion that so long as the melody is strong, dominant, prominent, any combination of notes could underpin it, no matter how strange or unexpected they might be. It’s a bit magical, where intention makes it so.
Hope that gives some clarity as to how I got to where I am,
Thank for the chord info, @LinearLineman. I’m gonna play around with the technique you have described. I have stayed so basic in my chard structures for many years, need to expand my world...
@Dav PM me with any further questions. Sorry I don't have the original lists.
You outdid yourself with this one @LinearLineman. Love it.
Thanks for the affirmation @wim. Glad you enjoyed it😘