June 8, 2018 in Composing tips

Most of my Piano compositions start life as an improvisations. In other words, I just play freely by ear at the Piano – doodling as they say! Often, I’ll play a chord sequence or a pattern and if I remember it – then it will probably be worthy of developing it later on. I do seem to avoid writing anything down till later!

Maybe like Rossini I’m lazy. There is a story where he was composing in bed, dropped the sheet music he was writing and so rather than get out of bed. He began again.

The following is a live improvisation I did recently without any preparation before hand – it goes where it goes! I hope you like the hat!

Improvisation in E minor

Moonlight on the Water

The next piece, which is the second longest Piano piece I’ve written – at 8 minutes in length, has taken me over three months to finish. Its started out of the initial ostinato, which probably was inspired by Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata – which I’m actually learning at the moment. Boy, isn’t it difficult to play without mistakes.