Improvisations on The Ledge

But you can still listen to it in the car if you either lack the time or inclination to watch. Improvisations on the Ledge (IOTL) – Back on the Ledge (Pilot Episode) Improvisations on the Ledge is back—this time live. IOTL began as a 47-episode podcast of piano + spoken improvisations. Now it returns as a live streaming series: music, words, and visuals unfolding in real time. No edits, no retakes...

Leave a comment and share your thoughts: https://open.firstory.me/story/ckw6kzm991rm90878rsjk4zli?m=comment The moment a theme is stated, it wants to do something. What? Like all lifeforms, it wants to replicate, mutate, transform…become something. That something is musical structure. How we get from a single note to a theme (motif), to a full-blown musical structure (song, free improvisation, sym...

Leave a comment and share your thoughts: https://open.firstory.me/story/ckvk002b34j0c0938go4chdbo?m=comment Musical themes seem to emerge from the sonic abyss almost by their own volition. But where do they come from? Are they elusive attempts to describe the moment? State of musical mind? Emotion translated into sound? Or are they just, as I discussed in the previous episode, a form of musical me...

"The Many Layers of Musical Memory—and Forgetting" is an episode about how listening to music, and performing it, are really acts of thematic memory—and forgetting. And sometimes the forgetting is part of the creative process. Or maybe it's just forgetting. In any case, I take a deep dive into the many layers of musical memory that go into improvising or composing. But also into the listener's exp...

After an extended layoff, I've decided to get back to Improvisations On the Ledge by sticking to the theme—literally. The entire season—including this episode—is devoted to musical theme: how we create, perceive it, and make music out of it. In the pilot episode for season three, I randomly stumble upon a couple of themes, including "My Funny Valentine" and "Money, Money, Money", then proceed to c...

Using jazz educator David Bloom's metaphor, musicians need to look in the rearview mirror and remember the theme if they wish to move forward. But when you look back, you are not just remembering what you played at the beginning of an improvisation—you're remembering all of that music that got you to the point of even being able to look back in the first place. Powered by Firstory Hosting Get full...

My intent was to dive into Part 2 of my “End of Melody Episode,“ but by planned chance, I rolled the dice and came up with something completely different. Unplanned, but fated to be this way? Possibly. Powered by Firstory Hosting Get full access to Musically Novel at petersaltzman.substack.com/subscribe

Melody. As a creative musician, you're either born with it or not. Or maybe everybody is born with it but some choose to suppress it. Why would anybody do that? Powered by Firstory Hosting Get full access to Musically Novel at petersaltzman.substack.com/subscribe

Math, science, and logic can explain a lot but not everything about how music works. The strange thing, though, is that great music almost always has a perfect logic to it. How is that possible? Powered by Firstory Hosting Get full access to Musically Novel at petersaltzman.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, I do battle with Philip Glass and, by extension, the entire genre of minimalism. To my surprise, though, I found that even while I reject the aesthetic as a whole, there’s plenty I can take from it creatively—but only by adapting some of its techniques in ways never intended by its practitioners. Powered by Firstory Hosting Get full access to Musically Novel at petersaltzman.subst...

After I finished recording this episode, I remembered that I had already done one early laster season on the same subject. Thus the "again". I didn't go back and listen to that because I gotta believe this one's completely different. Or is it? Powered by Firstory Hosting Get full access to Musically Novel at petersaltzman.substack.com/subscribe

I was watching Jerry Seinfeld's new standup release on Netflix the other night and it put me in the mind of nothing. Specifically, how we build music out of essentially meaningless sound events that end up adding up to...something? Powered by Firstory Hosting Get full access to Musically Novel at petersaltzman.substack.com/subscribe

Season Two is finally here but it’s not at all was I was planning. Befitting the title of the podcast, Improvisations on the Ledge, in fact, resists any serious planning. And yet, for this premiere episode of season two, I can’t avoid the elephant in the world-sized room: CoVid-19. The central theme of this episode, then, is how the crisis changes the way we go about making art—if at all. Powered...

It's been a LONG wait, but season two is just about ready to launch. With an exciting new format and several new features, it will be well worth the wait! Powered by Firstory Hosting Get full access to Musically Novel at petersaltzman.substack.com/subscribe

What if I came up with a theme in the morning, then improvised variations throughout the day? What would that add up to? Call it a variation on the theme and variations idea, but in the form of a diary of a single day in the life of Peter Saltzman. Powered by Firstory Hosting Get full access to Musically Novel at petersaltzman.substack.com/subscribe

Do you ever think about what you’re thinking about? Of course, you do, and I often think about what I’m thinking about when improvising. But when I pose this question to the great French pianist-composer Jean-Michel Pilc in this episode, his answer is sort of along the lines of...a kind of nothing. Sort of. Powered by Firstory Hosting Get full access to Musically Novel at petersaltzman.substack.co...

For years I’ve had this thought that I should be able to improvise a full 4-movement piano sonata. Is this just another example of me being completely out of touch with my times? Well yes. But that doesn’t mean it won’t work. Powered by Firstory Hosting Get full access to Musically Novel at petersaltzman.substack.com/subscribe

In the interests of busting yet another musical myth, I improvise a nocturne in the afternoon. At least it’s relatively dark in its sweetness. Powered by Firstory Hosting Get full access to Musically Novel at petersaltzman.substack.com/subscribe

...Or how musical order insists on materializing out of seemingly random occurrences...​ Powered by Firstory Hosting Get full access to Musically Novel at petersaltzman.substack.com/subscribe

Yes, that’s right, improvisations with sports-style play-by-play analysis—including instant replay! Powered by Firstory Hosting Get full access to Musically Novel at petersaltzman.substack.com/subscribe

Is it possible to make beautiful music with just two intertwining melodies? Bach did. Can I?​ Powered by Firstory Hosting Get full access to Musically Novel at petersaltzman.substack.com/subscribe

It's Friday, so in honor of Joe Friday from Dragnet I give you these three unrelated (both to each other and the TV show) improvisations. Back next week with a full episode... Powered by Firstory Hosting Get full access to Musically Novel at petersaltzman.substack.com/subscribe

...Another short, wisp of an episode to fill in the gaps between the long, meandering yet highly focused main episodes...​ Powered by Firstory Hosting Get full access to Musically Novel at petersaltzman.substack.com/subscribe

You can create nearly perfectly executed music in this world—as long as it’s not original. Powered by Firstory Hosting Get full access to Musically Novel at petersaltzman.substack.com/subscribe

Back in the day, the great classical composers were brilliant improvisers. Are they still? Is it even possible? Powered by Firstory Hosting Get full access to Musically Novel at petersaltzman.substack.com/subscribe