Supposed to play a piano concert on Jan 15th in Guelph and just like Blake Brooker from the One Yellow Rabbit theatre said 10 years ago, “I love deadlines”. True, there is an affect on the background of life when deadlines loom. When I reached the Tranzac tonight, in order to work on something else, I lost an hour easily preparing for this piano concert. Most of the instrumental piano pieces I’ve written have no names, usually in my mind, they are the thing in G, the thing in D, the thing in Bb or I refer to them by something that happens technique-wise the thing with shoulder smashes, the thing with mirroring. Titles would be welcome, I’ll have to study some Shadowy Men albums for inspiration. The thing in D is developing nicely though the essential problem is balancing the head with when and how I deviate from it. The problems that go through my head while improvising with it are this i) is the left hand doing as much as the right hand, ii) can i play the whole thing in 4th chords after clearly stating the theme, iii) must restate everything in the upper register, iv) can i represent the shape of the melody in clusters, v) if shaping new rhythms result organically, how do i get back to the head without it sounding forced, vi) can I insert minor 6th diminished sequences without it sounding like George Harrison’s Blue Jay Way, vii) can I forget about the audience when the show happens or will I be so distracted with the possibility of screwing up, that I screw up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"