ImprovSessionEight

December 13, 2006
[March 2005] - This last week brought on another fit of pseudo-modern classical improvs recorded on my GigaStudio sampler setup, fueled by some leftover inspiration from PaulCantrell's piano blog. Grab them here:

improv viii


Three pieces in this session, of varying tempos and moods. The first I rather like -- slow but with some very dense chords underneath a simple almost melody. Short structure repeated 3 times.

The second is quite chaotic (at best) and sloppy (at worst), and on repeated listens, I seem to mostly like it. Unlike a lot of the improvs that get a few unrecorded takes to gather some shape, this was recorded literally after the first piece with no prep. The only theme in my mind was to grab for as many minor/diminished shapes my hands were familiar with, without trying to tie them together in any meaningful way -- not that this was necessarily accomplished, that's just the only thing I recall going for. I was in a somewhat irritable mood as well, so if I thought it was getting too ‘normal’ I'd push myself to meander which usually led to more hasty runs in the right hand.

The third ... I want to say this didn't get any prep takes either, but it may have, given that it has a bit of a recurring theme in the right hand. It starts with a line over a minor/major 7 sound, then shifts into an interesting chord progression starting on a pure C triad. The form is (mostly) run through about three times.

No MIDI editing on any of the tunes (the overall feel seems better than previous efforts, unlike the recently re-blogged ImprovSessionTwo), and just some standard Abode Audition processing that I seem to be liking -- some compression, slight reverb and EQ. Unfortunately, the compression comes out blaringly towards the end of the second piece, so that may get revisited for a new mix in the future.

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