Poseur to Composer

Bill Evans in a concert in 1969. Photo by Fauban

On my last post, I mentioned Bill Evans and his expressive improvisations. Particularly on Peace Piece, Evans seems to bare his soul. As psychoanalysis is a deep interest of mine, it made me wonder if musical improvisations reveal a person's psychological state, like the Rorschach ink blot test or Critical Stimulus.

Music may be better for conveying complex mental and emotional states because it's multisensory. Words are reductionist. The more descriptive you get, the less you mean. Use enough words and it means nothing at all.

I'd like to try psychoanalysing my own improvisations, using Peace Piece as a template. In the song, Evans comps with his left hand and improvises with his right. So today I started learning easy chord patterns for my left hand. Then I'll need some guidelines on piano improvisation (it's harder than it looks and sounds). Then maybe I'll start recording my improvisations and post them online.

There's no timeframe for this though. I'm contemplating another musical project too (shiny object syndrome strikes again) and of course I'm committed to learning So What.

Time bookstanding today: 15 minutes Quality of meditation (out of 10): 5

I went through Phase 3 of C Major Scales. It is tedious, time-consuming and totally not fun. Completion requires playing four octaves with both hands, ascending and descending at a 90 bpm. The fingering is different in the middle octaves, adding to the difficulty.

Can I accomplish this? Yes, eventually. It will take longer than a week though, and I wonder if doing scales across four octaves is the skill to have right now when there's so much else to learn.

I've decided to tweak Phase 3. Instead of four octaves, I only need to ace two. Then I move on the the next scale.

There's something else I should mention but too tired to remember.

Time bookstanding today: 40 minutes Quality of meditation (out of 10): 6

I could do C Major both hands descending at 90 bpm twice in a row before fumbling. Then I did it twice more before the wheels came off (again). I think it should count though.

On to Phase 3.

Time bookstanding today: 40 minutes Quality of meditation (out of 10): 5

Note: I had some trouble filtering out a song called Emperor during meditation this morning. It's a piano piece from Ian Ring, a composer and solo pianist who apparently lives only a few miles from me. The song is beautiful and calming, spreading outwards, but it doesn't seem to resolve into a final, stable chord. This sense of neverending expansion made it an earworm that stayed with me most of the day. I didn't mind at all.