https://soundcloud.com/kataway/exploration-en-cm

Do I make mistakes? Many...
Do I keep my speed steady? Don't think so...I didn't want to use a metronome or electronic drums. But I'd like to play with a real drummer one day.
Do I improvise? All the way...I based it at the beginning with 2 chords...Cm and Gm...and then while I was playing I had in mind some chords around these 2...I added a Bb7...later a Abmaj7 and finally a Eb (add 9)....I don't really respect the number of bars that would be cool on a written chart.

I play this Stick for 3 years and just want to show the path where I want to go...chords and bass lines in the left hand and improvisation with my right hand.

Hoping you won't suffer too much

Kataway,

The Exploration in Cm is a really nice improv piece, and I appreciate you sharing it at this stage. Hearing and mentally visualizing what you are doing, your musical thought processes are revealed by the music flowing, developing and progressing into the different sections.

Your extensive musical vocabulary really comes forth- I like the restraint from going directly into a blues, with a b5 emphasis, where a lot of players tend to go over changes like this, and not bringing that in until after a couple of passes, to the use of shapes which alter the underlying chord harmony. I also detected a harmonic minor scale nestled in there too for some spice! The two handed chords with interplay, both independent and interdependent at the end, is nice and a great Stick technique for large sounding chords.

IMHO at 2:13 some great ideas come forth and could easily be developed into another piece. Many great artists work like this in a free form setting ( don't worry about the time, I didn't hear any clams, gaffs, or anything that you need to put a disclaimer out there) - my take, to misqote Styx "thank you very much, Mr. RUBATO! you're playing solo- you can do what you want!

Wow -Soundcloud kept playing and Slamenttoultan came on- This is really pretty, and perfect for a Sunday morning song! piano and Stick with some synth textures and pads. Well composed and performed.

thanks for the post, & you are on the right track,
Excellent travail!
Dave Brosky

Nice improv. I'm looking forward to hearing more.

Thank you Dave and kenan...

You've been really "inside" my brain Dave with your whole comment...lol...nice man, really nice. I really appreciate every words you wrote about what's going on in this improv.

The other piece you were listening to...Slamenttoultan...That is a track of piano who was sent to me by my best friend, living in France, and he asked
me to put an instrument on it. He knows I play something else and didn't specify which one. I realized that playing the stick on it was fun and it was a complete complicity with his piano. That is the small history of this song.

Thank you to both of you...

Very different feel but on my 2001 CD I recorded a duet with drummer Matt Wilson called.........."Sea Miner"

Sounds great! I like that light sound. Reminds a bit of African Kora music.

I guess future pieces will come out really well if you cut down on the melody snippets fireworks brain storming and maybe lower the tempo a bit. Instead of trying to come up with new melodies you could try to stay with just one - and follow it carefully when it changes.

Thanks Per for your comment...in fact I don't want to stay with just one melody...that's the main principle of improvisation...well...the way I understand it. I cannot say I play jazz because I don't have these skills on the stick...I'd like to be able to do it later though. I don't play standard jazz I should say, but improvisation is kind of jazz...whatever the style is. For 10 years I touch a bit what they call latin jazz...on guitar. Maybe one day on the stick.

Thank you anyways...it's appreciated.

Well, I didn't mean "playing just one melody" per se. I meant it more like a trick, a mental attitude, to achieve a smooth flow through melodic transitions. In improvisation you always have to look into yourself and research where you should put your emotional and mental focus, what attitude you should stick with in order to make a desired result explicit to the listener. This is because we can never be an objective lister when we also are the player.

You're right about your last phrase...lol...thanks...

Oooh...that's deep.