Piano music – Four Elements

I recently spent some time thinking, feeling, and then doing what I hoped to accomplish next with the piano music I share with you. While a YouTube video of a performance may be a ways off , I'm open to adventure, experimentation, of all manner of fresh possibilities.

I had the urge a couple weeks ago to sit down and play 4 (because it's a lucky number for me, contrary to most Asian myths) long pieces. Each one unique, identifiably diverse. And by "long", I mean, at least 8 minutes — not radio-friendly fare, but glidingly grandiose works which shifted, blended, and evolved some common ideas across the course of their improvisatory length. In doing so, they almost create a fracturing of the spacetime continuum, taking simple riffs and developing them, building those key notes into a tasteful harmonic palette, and beyond all words, MAKING YOU FEEL GOOD.

OK… so here's how I'd explain them. And click a number to download if you enjoyed it after sampling via the inline audio player.
 

» I

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It was my every intention to begin this in a spirit like Satie's famous "Gymnopédie no. 1", which has proved a tremendous departure point for further journeys. In other words, a good soundtrack for moving furniture.

But then, it becomes its own very quickly, drawing from a swath of Impressionistic influences. I had some New Orleans blues influences here which sound off at first, but you know what they say: if you slip, repeat your mistake several times to equalize it into sounding right. (Contrary to popular wisdom of "two wrongs don't make a right", but perhaps sensical in that "three" or "four" will.)

The staccato passage @ 3:35 provides some dynamic respite from the heavy pedaling happening within. I love painting with tone colors much like their visual counterparts, and I have a penchant for lulling ostinatos into a hypnotic sort of mood, then drawing back and saying "Aha, there's much more to this!"

@ 7:20 or so, that's really when I started to get comfortable with the stroked, left-hand brushiness, these 8th-note chords which really supplement the more freeform treble lines more. And then it all comes to a beautifully simple close.
 

» II

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Shades of Yann Tiersen, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Philip Glass, and perhaps some of George Winston's more driving works here. I like the key of A minor because it feels so natural. You can climb up on the sharps, but like a cat, you eventually want to get down from your tree and toss balls of yarn (or image macros) around, and that's what I found myself doing.

Constant rhythm is great for concentration because it provides a trustworthy balance. That being said, there are parts during this trek where I deliberately offset the rhythm (1) because I didn't want it becoming too mechanical or predictable and (2) I almost fell asleep at the keys and had to react to avoid ruining the recording. This was not the single take, and came after several failed attempts… before I just relaxed and played.

I felt so intense jamming @ 3:30 and onwards, where it almost feels like it morphs into triplets, and indeed, later on, it does exactly that. So a sort of improvisatory foreshadowing, because I kept the idea in my head as I proceeded.

4:19 starts a simple octaval riff that's a sly nod to something earlier I've done. But all too quickly, things change again. I really appreciated having a samey bass while continuing to change chord progression atop, and do this methodical-yet-careering dance.

The asymmetry at the end is deliberate.

I think this'll be a fan favorite, but that's just me.
 

» III

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Bangin' chords like a certain Tchaikovsky piano concert begin this, and continue throughout. There were some pretty thick chords, the sequencing made up on the fly. I wanted to pervert a classical intent, that is to say, take some of the "crayons" of the old masters, and scribble them around into they made more sense in a contemporary form. This means that there's a certain urban aggressiveness here which you wouldn't have found c. 1800, but it's the kind of karate-chop action that makes a lot more sense if sampled in a hip-hop track and layered with a beat (if anyone likes to do this, please feel more than free!).

By the time we're @ 3:46, a singing beauty becomes evident. More 8th-notes from the left hand, but more urgent and rushing. 4:26 starts something that sounds like the prominent rhythms in "II", but the bangin' chords return. It feels like a war about to end, with the kind of self-assured peace that's neither scorched earth nor lackadaisically ambivalent. 5:14 finds us in a really sloppy jumble of cascaded notes, with little care nor attention paid to their pitiful selves.

But — more bangin' chords (TM) pick up the slack @ 5:40, pushing the guts forward. And then, plentiful amounts of melancholy for the modern soul. I adore the crest that rises @ 7:00 or so; it sounds like the same nervous floatiness played during a Dario Argento garden scene (just before, you know, the bad part). Some more indecisiveness, and those bangin' chords keep coming back! (But did they ever go away?)
 

» IV

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By the time I got to this, I was feeling a lot more mature. If you've listened to my music for awhile, you may remember this exposing a severely overt romantic theme I've used in other songs. My emotions gushing, I raced onwards and played my heart out. There's something so exciting about improvisation, having to make decisions every millisecond, so that most —and earnestly, it'll never be all — fall in the right place.

No holds barred — prepare to fall in love @ 2:03. Not all of life's threads end neatly, and to find greater happiness, you have to be willing to put yourself through moments of sadness. But throughout it all, the Good, the Pure, and the True shine on you. And that's all I'll say, because my music will tell the rest of the story.

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