spacing hack
For reasons I won't go into here, I've kinda been using the piano improvs as a crutch. But I'm getting to the point where I feel almost addicted to them. There's just something sort of primal/random/magical about doing them.
Though I play piano more than any other instrument (especially if you include all synthesizer related stuff), I don't really identify myself as a pianist.
I can blame my low self esteem or the very real fact that like 95% of my piano stuff followed the same schtick: a specific type of left-hand arpeggio (5-3-1-3 fingering in eighth notes) with a melody in the right hand.
I've probably said it before, but I do think such simplistic harmonic backings are an excellent compositional tool, with the principle being that if the song works in such a minimal setting, it must have a solid foundation.
But I've started to venture out of doing the same thing over and over left-hand-wise and it starts to make me feel... I don't know... like maybe it's time to finally make a solid effort to really ramp up my piano skills.
I'm all about efficiency and to me, there's nothing more efficient than being able to go straight from the idea in your head to playing it on the piano ASSUMING YOU ACTUALLY KNOW HOW TO PLAY.
So I'm sort of toying with the idea that maybe May can be the month that I really make a concerted effort to learn the piano and/or to really work on my skills as an improvisor. Like:
There is lots of work to be done. Will I do it?
Sure. But it may take 5 years.