3 more:
Noodle Soup
Yoni
Freak World

previous:

http://mrblitz.info/mrblitz_7707_Romantique_Frantique.mp3
http://mrblitz.info/mrblitz_7708_Exercise.mp3
http://mrblitz.info/mrblitz_7706_Accidental_Minuet.mp3

rewind to 1987 and there's love in the air...

Romantique Pathetique
Last edited by mrblitz on Sat Jan 12, 2013 3:16 pm; edited 1 time in total

Who woulda thunk our Mr. Blitz was a young Chopin in 1987?

What happened between then and now?

well, this does seem like a successful composition, but to be clear; i never really played piano.

in college theory, it was a requirement to have some small amount of 'piano proficiency', but this piece is certainly beyond my piano-playing capabilities.

this recording is step-edited with renoise and mda piano. somewhere around 1992, it had also been step-edited (cakewalk?), and included as the outro on a song called 'so sue me'.

i remember back in '87, when the sheet music for this was all there was. one college isntructor agreed to sight-read-play it, and it was recorded to cassette; but that recording had a couple of mistakes. nonetheless it was 'something to listen to'.

there was actually another instructor, and she had first jab at playing it. upon playing those first chords, she stopped, and turned and said, 'how can you have Ab major as the opening chord to a piece in C minor?!' lol

if memory serves, she played a bit further, and then turned and said something like 'this is too much for an on-the-spot performance... go to the other (chief) instructor.. she can probably tackle this'. so i did (went to the other instructor and got a recording of it).

anyway, at the time i must have been listening to a lot of classical piano, and all sorts of other kinds of music. this piece was a reflection of that, plus whatever we were learning in theory courses.

after 2 years of music theory in college, i went into the working world; and continued to work on playing the guitar during 'spare time'. in any event, from that moment forward, the love for piano was always there; it's just that i never 'really played piano'.

be that as it may, the cassette is long gone, and i haven't listened to 'so sue me' in forever; so this new version is the first i've heard of this in several years (minimum).

it was definitely a trip down memory lane, reading from those old, hand-written manuscript pages; really, for the first time since '92. i've got several more from that time period ('80s), but this is probably the best by far.

there is another one which stands out; one which i could actually play at the time, called 'accidental minuet'. maybe i'll sequence that up, too.

oh, one other thing about this piece... in playing it back for the first time after the step-sequencing, my ears immediately picked out a couple of the mistakes that were there; so a part of me apparently really knows this piece.

NICE! It definitely has some interesting harmonic movement. I know many of the modern DAWS have Quantize functions with built in 'humanizing'. It would be nice if it breathed a bit more...on the other hand it's cool that it has that computer sound....very nice work!

yeah, it's been humanized in volume/delay, but perhaps not enough. the tempo also changes.

ok, here is about the level of piano playing i was actually at:

Accidental Minuet

here's another one where i didn't recognize the manuscript at all. quickly though, it became obvious that it was a variation on 'romantique pathetique', Romantique Frantique

Nice work on all of these, mrblitz. I'm sure I have heard this influence in some of your electric works, particularly in track intros.

Good work

btw, thanks everyone for all of the comments!

how about another?: Exercise

perchance the main difference between these and what arrived, say anywhere from five to twenty years after; is that these were transcribed in pencil on staff paper, whereas a lot of the later sequencing is much more 'impromptu'. of course, the later stuff does often involve a physical notepad (pen and paper) sitting beside the computer keyboard. but i haven't actually written something on staff paper in 'ages'.

Very interesting. I wonder what your instructors would think of the "Temple of the Screaming Electron."

Perhaps you could somehow incorporate some more composed elements into your more freewheeling guitar stuff?

fascinating and wonderful stuff

neil.

Nice composition, I dig it, wish I could hear it performed by a real pianist.

3 more:
Noodle Soup
Yoni
Freak World

Of the three new pieces, I preferred Noodle Soup. I think it was the more traditional melodic style and structure which appealed to me.

Good work

Incidentally, I heard some "crackling" whilst listening to each of these. Rendering/Encoding problems possibly.