Hi David,

My keyboard technique is actually lousy compared to what I try to play and improvise. My ears gloss over all of my playing mistakes, just as my eyes gloss over typing mistakes (thank heaven for spell-checkers). Because of this I almost never play the piano for anyone else to hear. That I exposed the AmericanProkofieff piece is a rare exception.

I'm glad that my ears can hear through the mess to discern what I'm trying to do musically in real time. I find that if I work too hard on playing the right notes, the musical ideas quickly disappear, so that all that is left is music that is boring to my ears, even though there are fewer wrong notes.

This recording of the AmericanProkifieff piece was my second improvisation of the ideas. I didn't record the first take. I rarely turn on the recorder. I liked what I had improvised the first time, so I thought I'd try to capture it in a recording. Just the fact that I knew I'd be listening to my own recording later caused me to tighten up, so that this second improvisation wasn't as inspired or well-constructed as the previous one, and so that this second improvisation actually had more wrong notes.

What time I find to play on my acoustic piano, at least half of that time is spent improvising. One of the main things I work on when improvising is trying to stretch my musical vocabulary-- not so much to improve my keyboard technique, but much more so to just be able to contemplate different musical ideas. I wish I could do this by just sitting in a chair and listening to music made up in my head. I understand some people can do that, but I can do that only with an unsatisfying vagueness, lack of clarity.

Thus, improvising is my way of sitting in a chair and making up music in my head, in the way I understand some people can. I put up with all of the "typing mistakes", because I wouldn't begin to hear the music if I were attempting to do it quietly in my internal ears. I think that what improvisation skills I have developed are much different from those of, say, a jazz pianist. His skills are highly developed in certain musical idioms of his choosing. To succeed, he must be able to play jazz scales, and play lots of different types of musical figures, without thinking. If you think you need to spend more time with Hanon, perhaps your goal is more like that of improvising as a performance for others to hear. This would make sense, because you are in the business of bringing theatre and music to the public. On the other hand, if your interest is to develop improvisation skills as a tool for composing, then I'm not so sure that painful time with Hanon would be well spent. He might kill your spirit.

Cheers
-- Mark