Hi Richard,

I'm pleased that you accepted my invitation to you to visit the forum and comment on this particular improvisation. This is a treat for me to get some tips from a pro. (For others reading this, Richard Clements spent 30 years in Hollywood as a professional composer-conductor-arranger in television, film and records.)

I'm not familiar with turn of the 20th century French theater music, so I'll listen to some to pick up some ideas and techniques that might relate well with this piece.

I quite agree with the following comments, and had already had made these basic observations myself:<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font>

I think some more structured rhythmic germ motive changes ( or variations ) might add interest, while at the same time give structure to the piece. The rhythmic gesture changes at bar 110, and another at bar 128 added interest and helped to move the composition along. Having to wait until then seemed to me a bit long before introducing rhythmic interest.

Harmonically and tonaly it is quite interesting. Rhythmically, I feel a little more variety or variation might add more sparkle, and hold interest.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>Especially, I think the rhythmic pattern of the first phrase is repeated too much in this improvisation. My mind and fingers were working at full capacity to get this much done in real time in the improvisation. I usually find that my improvisations sacrifice some dimensions of music while I concentrate on others. For a large portion of this improvisation, I settled into a repetitious rhythmic pattern so I didn't have to think much about it, and so I was able to experiment with the chord progressions and the upward chromatic motive, which takes on some different forms throughout the improvisation.

I agree that the shift in rhythmic pace at measure 110 came much too late. The beginning rhythmic pattern had repeated far too often by then. Also, I think the idea that is more melodic, started at measure 110, could be stretched out more.

There seems to be enough material here to evolve this improvisation into a composition, but it won't be easy for me. I'll need to cut out dead stuff, but also probably add some more musical ideas, or if not, at least make more variations on the existing ideas. However, I probably will still leave the first rhythmic phrase as the principle unifying element of the piece.

This improvisation seems fairly pianistic to me, so I think it makes sense for me to make it a piano piece. However, I'm thinking that perhaps I should also try to orchestrate this piece as a means of developing orchestration skills. I would use GPO. What do you think? Do you hear orchestration in this piece? Or, do you hear it as suited really only for the piano?

Cheers
-- Mark