more strategising...

Another busy day.. possible european bid (don't know if this will take off..) and an important meeting regarding strategy - the two activities very similar in what they are arguing for: cultural change. Difficult. Need to relax a bit..

New Piano... !

Busy day today.. Take Izzy to school - she's not well enough.. Doctor's appointment (trying to sort out cough!).. then collect new piano (Casio PX720). I've been researching it.. I really needed something that would sound consistent with the grand in the mansion. Roland's DP990 has great sound but hugely over-priced. Didn't really consider Casio until I heard sound samples on youtube. Very good (but still not quite the same as the real thing!).. hugely better than they used to be, though!

Tax day

Oh...and I had to do my tax return today... online filing for the first time - novelty! Izzy had quite a boring day.. (went to manchester to buy a bluetooth dongle and headphones). Astrid in London dealing with some sad news. Life goes on. And so do the improvisations...

Chromatic piano

It's possible that harmony is everything... once the harmony is sorted, everything follows. Here's a short harmonic piano sketch.. chromatic.. using jazz tritone substitution, but arpeggiating it, with golden section rhythms. It was easy to do.

Simple Quartet

This is interesting. Something very simple, but minor variations in accompaniment. And it was slightly less effort (which may or may not be a good thing!). Concert with Izzy tonight to see Nick singing in the Halle. Very Good.

Choral piece today

This is like the quartet yesterday... but I was interested in a static top harmony and playing around with different roots...

Quartet

This is from yesterday - again, like all these sibelius 'improvisations' nothing's finished, and the ideas come too quickly. Strangely, though, I'm getting something out of doing pieces quickly and having an end-point (sticking them here). It stops me getting too bogged-down (which can easily happen), and I can move onto the next thing. What I suspect will happen is that I revisit these pieces at some point in the future...

Also, I've been playing with ArtRage.. Izzy loved it.. here's her picture...