Robert LoganI have decided to put a pay-what-you-want release out tomorrow of piano improvisations.
Thanks to those of you here who were interested. :)
Here is the release! Any support and shares are as always appreciated (and thank you to anyone who already shared the previous post.)
https://robertloganmusic.bandcamp.com/track/moments-notice-piano-improvisations
Over the last two years, I have been sharing videos of impromptu piano improvisations, played while wearing hearing protection due to hyperacusis - recorded wherever a piano happened to be available.
Friends’ homes, relatives’ houses, airports - across the UK, Hong Kong, Iceland, Hungary...Without a piano of my own, these moments had to be taken as they came, often quickly, without preparation, and without the possibility of return.
Some who saw these pieces as videos encouraged me to release the audio. Since I had never released anything in this spontaneous form before, it felt like an interesting thing to try. This collection follows that idea: letting the recordings stand, with all their fragility and environmental imperfections intact.
The individual captures remain largely unedited, but have been selected for their shared themes and characteristics from a larger group and brought into a continuous 53-minute experience. In listening back, I found threads running through these moments, shaping them into a kind of eccentric narrative.
Moment’s Notice is, in that sense, both a limitation and a method.
There are be plans to perhaps "properly" record more composed piano pieces in the future - but for now, this is offered as a free / pay-what-you-want download. :-)
Moment's Notice: Piano Improvisations, by Robert Logan
track by Robert Logan
Promise this is the last I'll post relating to this. 🙂
Video below:
Moment's Notice: Piano Improvisations
Razu Razu@Cognessence HOLY FUCK
@studio369 I hope that that means it’s enjoyable to you! =D
@Cognessence DAMN RIGHT IT IS
@studio369 that is lovely to hear! Thank you so much for your support and listening. :-)
sean_ae@Cognessence outstanding and astounding
@sean_ae 🙏 Thank you very much, Sean! =)
azkyll@Cognessence wow, that's really beautiful, cheers and thank you for posting it!!
@azkyll thank you for listening and the kind words. :)
PhilWill@Cognessence brilliant, loving this
@PhilWill that is lovely to know! Thanks for sharing. 🙏
Matt Mascarenhas@Cognessence Finding myself listening to this – free-streaming until I buy it next Bandcamp Friday – on repeat in, I think, the same manner as the brief bits of stuff I've recorded myself over the years.
Possibly as reminder, reassurance, a fresh perspective to maybe shed light on (subconscious) stuff that wasn't apparent while recording, that kind of thing.
@miblo Thank your listening and support, Matt! 🤗
That's really interesting, the way you described listening to things you've recorded on repeat. Just to riff on what you said - I can relate, in that the idea that a piece of music - especially one born without preparation, without the "authority" of set composition - might become somehow more legible after the fact than during its creation. That it might contain meanings that were not available to you who made it, and yet remain latent, waiting for a listener (even the same person!) to uncover this later.
"Reminder, reassurance, a fresh perspective" - makes me think that your improvs are less like objects and more sort of states that you can re-enter. And in re-entering them, the boundary between maker and listener dissolves. The person who recorded becomes a kind of stranger to themself - and the recording even a means of recognition...
OK, enough warbling from me. Thanks again to you for engaging! 😄
@Cognessence Aww yeah, there's a lot of potential for "where on Earth did that come from?"!
Gosh, yeah, maybe they are more like states, really. Sadly can't find any recordings of those bygone piano improvs, but I think this notion of states applies just as well to the VGM guitar covers videos that I had in mind here.
I mean, these repeated listens just feel different from, well, everything else not by me, you know? It's like, I dunno, as if it's snapshots of my own psyche, "untranslated".
@miblo What you said about your own psyche being “untranslated” there - it reminds me that with your own recordings, you're not encountering something already shaped into communicable meaning - but encountering it prior to that, or even outside of it.
There’s something quite cool in that, I think. The idea that you can become a listener to yourself in that way - not to confirm what you already know, but to encounter what you didn’t know you’d said!
t s r o n o@Cognessence oh cool, will definitely be checking it out ❤️
ghostmeet@tsrono @Cognessence excellent!
@ghostmeet @tsrono thank you both! It's going to be super low-key, though; I've just found a really nice thread with the recordings I already shared on here and elsewhere.
A friend has agreed to do a "proper" piano recording later - for which I may set some compositions - but for now I became convinced it was perhaps worthwhile to even share these improvs as-is, even leaning into the roughness of the recording.
I was going to insist it be a free download, but in case anyone wanted to add it to their collection decided on pay-what-you-want. :)
@Cognessence i'm all for leaning into the less formal recording spaces and recording mediums. have enjoyed much of what i've seen you share of those small moments of improv and such, looking forward to it
@tsrono @ghostmeet Nicely put! I’ll admit it’s new territory for me! Which is why I wanted to try it. :)
I mean obviously we all involve roughness and improvisation as a component “in” composition, but allowing that to totally be the “frame” is uncomfortable. Perhaps it should be less so! 😅
Wan Leen Siow@Cognessence YAY!! 🎉
@artistdubz thank you Wan Leen Siow! =D
@Cognessence you are very welcome, Robert! Looking forward to it!