Just Piano Improv

Practicing at home instead of in my office, I’m hearing the windchimes outside, especially the notes F and G. Stay safe, everyone!

I have a student who just played the Ginastera Danzas Criollas, and I was thinking of the beautiful third one. I was also thinking about an improvisation instruction I give my students: “if you play a wrong note, repeat it until it gets interesting.”

Sorry about the out-of-tune piano…I’ll have it tuned soon!

One of my favorite parts of the day is walking my fourth grader to school. Today we walked mostly in silence, which means he mostly hummed quietly to himself the whole time. It was a drizzly, grey morning and I should have worn gloves. When I got back home my hands were cold, and I played this to warm up (I wasn’t really warm by the time I was finished, though: I still had to go make a cup of tea before getting to work practicing).

It’s a new decade, and I’m coming back to this practice of uploading improvisations.  I’m recording at home, where there’s occasional traffic noise.

As I was coming home from walking my fourth-grader to school, the Burgmuller Arabesque in a minor was running through my head, because I have a student working on it.He’s a music minor with percussion as his primary instrument, and he’s really a beginner pianist, but two years ago he came to my office and asked about learning piano. I gave him my standard reply: here are a couple of recommended books, and you’re welcome to come by my office hours and to come to studio class if you want to, and then we can see. Usually when I tell people that, I never see them again. But he really did it, and he came to every single studio class for two years: he absolutely earned a spot in the studio. So now he’s working on the Burgmuller Arabesque, and doing very well, and he’ll be playing it in studio class this week.

That’s where this particular music came from.

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These are some of the chants that have been swirling around in my head since the march:

Show me what democracy looks like/This is what democracy looks like

The people united can never be divided/ La gente unida jamas sera vencida

I say p***y, you say power/ p***y/power/p***y/power

You’re orange/you’re gross/you lost the popular vote

We/are/the popular vote

Your body your choice/My body my choice

Si se puede/Yes we can

Fired up/ready to go

Show me what a feminist looks like/ This is what a feminist looks like