Fighting special interests

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Cool. The instrument of Serbian genocide.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocW3fBqPQkU[/youtube]

I did take music lessons for improvisation when I was very young for several years. I don't know if I'm one of those "very rare cases."

For me music is like language. Improvising a song is like talking to someone. It is spontaneous, but it requires the use of words and following grammar rules. Playing a piece that has already been composed is like a speech. Composing my own song is like writing a speech.

Well, on balance of probability alone, you're probably not. But you will be able to learn improvisation skills as you progress with your instrument, should you choose to attempt to attain them.

Then again, you might not choose to pursue this avenue of development at all, depending on how your relationship with the instrument works out.



If music is a language, it is unique in that it is non-verbal and its grammar consists only of verbs and moods. Sorry, irrelevant personal observation.

I wouldn't tend to agree that improvising a musical performance was like talking to someone, unless you're expecting to take periodic pauses for your audience to suggest themes for you to develop in your performed response (like Bach improvising The Musical Offering).

I recognise the parallels you draw between oratory and music, but is it not possible to deliver a completely improvised speech which while complex and aimed at a specific audience, with a specific purpose in mind, is delivered in strict observance of the rules of the English language?

Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech, for example, was almost entirely improvised, an aspect of his ability to deliver improvised sermons in a religious setting that was massively magnified into near-immortal levels of oratory by the demands of the situation.

I'm not suggesting that all improvisation can attain such lofty heights, but to take the most prominent example that springs to mind, Beethoven did most of his composition in his head -- often consisting of no more than a couple of themes and some suggested developments -- and then performed those pieces at various times (often in front of private audiences), developing them at each subsequent performance by heavily improvising forms around the original themes he had composed, until he finally arrived at a structure that he felt best portrayed the 'idealised' concept of the work he had in mind.

I don't know where I'm going with this, or even if I have a point I'm trying to make. But it's a subject that is of immense interest to me, and therefore discussing it with someone who is just embarking as a performer on/composer for a specific instrument raises all sorts of questions and considerations in my mind.

My own ability to practice a musical instrument is unfortunately limited by my dyscalculia, which means that although I'm fine with the 'vertical' dimensions of written music, the 'horizontal' aspects completely defeat me, so while I love music in general, I am unable to perform to any meaningful standard.

Although I have (through sheer determination and repeated effort) taught myself to play some classical pieces (some of quite high complexity) on the piano -- these were bloody hard work, and (due to my blindness to the 'horizontal' aspects of written music) would have been impossible had I not already known what the pieces sounded like.

So I suppose that as well as merely being very interested in your theoretical approach, I am also quite jealous of your specific musical abilities.

(Not of the accordion in general, though -- you can keep that, it's the Devil's work)

It is a language to me. The notes are like words. Riffs are like phrases. A melody is like a sentence. The key a piece is in and chord changes are like the grammar. I'm not perfect at it. Just like no one is even perfect in their native language.


Maybe I didn't use the best analogy. It's not exactly like a conversation, it's more like talking about your day or a monologue about a special interest .


I agree with you. I said that improvisation is more similar to everyday conversation than a speech. It's not really planned, but you can still get your point across. A speech is like a piece that has already been composed. Writing a speech is like composing a piece. You have more time to think carefully about the purpose and your audience. When I improvise the improvisation begins with me exploring several themes until I find one I like. Maybe you can listen to my improvisations on my soundcloud to hear what I mean.


Accordion isn't the only instrument I'm interested in performing and composing for. I also have ideas for piano, synth, harp and some other random instruments.

The reason I'm interested in it is because there is a lot of accordion music that inspires me. It expresses a lot of feeling I can't express with words. I don't really get that with other instruments as much. Eventually my brain figured out that it can express those feelings with original accordion pieces. My brain started getting flooded with incomplete accordion pieces. It was driving me crazy.

I wanted to have an accordion so I could get them out of my head and turn them into real pieces. Right now I don't really have as many of them because my mind is focusing more on the technical aspect of playing an accordion.



I don't really think of sheet music when I'm learning a piece. Even though I had some ability to sight read, I used to go on watch youtube tutorials on how to play specific pieces. When I play a piece that I've memorized I hear what I have to play next in my head. Through practicing I memorize the exact notes I have to play.

I was forced to develop my sight reading skills when I started accordion. There isn't very many youtube tutorials for accordion.