Music from My Mother's Piano 4

In the last few days before my mother's piano was wrapped up to be crated off to Europe, I managed to get in several more good recording sessions. I also improvised around a new piece or two that turned into finished compositions. I still need to notate them, and maybe re-record them, as the piano was going well out of tune by the end; one of these new pieces is long, and I still have some cleaning up to do of the recording before I post it. I am pleased with what I accomplished. I set out to record a lot of new music on my mother's piano, and also to take a lot of new photographs of it, to use for future art pieces, and also to remember the piano by; and I got both of these projects done, in and around everything else that had to get done.

Sunlight

badlands no. 2

Transplantation



I also recorded lots of little narrative, sometimes abstract pieces: things to use as bumpers and pauses between poems or other texts recorded for the podcast. I have a growing collection of these little musical moments, and was pleased to get several new ones down on this piano.

piano abstract

piano narrative no. 2



Some new pieces I played inside the piano, directly on the strings. An avant-garde technique composers have actually done for a century or so, but still considered unusual and radical by most listeners and players. As if every musical instrument could only produce sound one, pre-designed way. The open mind can always find new ways of turning sound into music; there are always possibilities.

earthbell



And here's a bit of an hommage to one of my favorite composers, Olivier Messiaen: an abstract improvisation in the style of his birdsong-influenced and celestial/mystical piano compositions:

Messiaen's Night Birds