Integrating Improv

August 2, 2019 at 12:51 am | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

I hope that both classical pianists and jazz pianists will play my Perpetual Motion Etudes!

I designed these pieces so that they can be played as through-composed miniatures without any improvising. However, I can’t resist adding my own improvisation, and adding improv sections can be each piece feel like a more complete musical journey. The book version of the etudes includes “Improvisation Instructions” with improv suggestions for each piece.

[preorder the etudes here]

The biggest challenge for improvising on these etudes is that the textures are so dense that “normal” jazz improvising (right-hand melody, left-hand bass or chords) mainly doesn’t musically connect with the written-out etudes. Trying to improvise in traditional jazz styles after playing these etudes can leave the listener feel like the bottom’s dropping out of the music.

I had to do a lot of discovery in order to figure out an appropriate platform for improvisation for each piece. I’m going to show a couple of the improvisation sections here:

Etude #2: Van Gogh’s Dream

I have to thank the great pianist-composer Vardan Ovsepian for helping me with this. I was struggling to find a way to maintain the density of this piece and improvise, and Vardan suggested putting the entire perpetual texture into the left hand, leaving my right-hand free to make some melodies. I came up with a short chord progression and did a lot of coordination practice to be able to improvise while making new melodies. You’ll also hear what I think of as a “hand-over-hand” texture where there’s no accompaniment, but only arpeggio-like exchanges between the right and left hand.

Etude #5: Piccadilly Circus

This piece has the most traditionally “jazz” improvisation. It’s the only piece where I fully stop and start between the “head” and the “solos.” I decided I wanted one opportunity to play some swing music and this piece has a traditional “jazz standard” progression that lends itself well to swing. I also felt that the tempo of the piece felt a little bit slow for the solo – because the texture of the piece is so dense, I think it feels faster than it actually is and the solo felt slow. Therefore, as the written material ends, the pianist enters with a different tempo and a swing feel.

[to preorder the etudes, click here]

Etude #8: Blues

You can read all about etude #8 here. Although the body of the piece is only loosely related to a blues, I thought it would be fun to make the solos an actual blues. You can follow the blues form if you listen closely, however, because of the atonal harmony of the written-out portion, I felt obligated to obscure the blues form with lots of chromatic notes. I ultimately used a lot of triads as part of the solo to relate back to the triads that cycle through the written-out material.

Blues Instructions

Etude #9: Enchanted Forest

I modelled some of the harmony off of Oliver Messiaen as a kind of post-Debussy haze. Since the piece is rubato all the way through, I decided that free improvisation is the way to go. Here, the pianist is authorized to do anything that they like with only one instruction – they must transition from Bb major to G major by the end of the improvisation. Of course, the pianist’s improvisation should somewhat stylistically match the other sections – a Mozartean improvisation or Bill Evans-y jazz improvisation probably would be too dissimilar to the rest of the piece to satisfy a listener.

[to order the sheet music for “Enchanted Forest,” click here]

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