Getting started…

Welcome to the Piano Improv blog. My name’s Jim, and this is my space for discussing my experience of making up music at the piano. I’ve been playing piano on and off for the past 40 years or so, sometimes professsionally (mostly in cocktail bars), but much of the time just for friends, family and myself. Initially, I’m expecting this to be an occasional blog, but my aim is to be posting once a week within the next couple of months, and if I manage to find some readers, I’ll be posting even more often than that.

This isn’t really my first post, actually. It’s what I’d call a “pre-post” — a sort of announcement about my intention to post. I just wanted to get a placeholder here in case anyone stumbles across the site before I’ve actually had a chance to think through what I want to say in my first post. But before I finish, I will quickly say a couple of things about what I hope my blog will lead to.

In time I’d like to create a space where I and others can upload audio recordings of our piano improvisations, and discuss each others’ playing, and our ideas about playing, in a supportive way that helps us all to learn new ways of making up music.

In time, I’m also hoping to start a series of informal tutorials on getting started as a piano improviser, and if there’s a market for it, to offer more formal tuition online for a small fee. This might be in the form of downloadable video and audio files, pdfs of practice materials, and midi files illustrating particular lessons.

But one step at a time. Let’s get the Piano Improv blog going first, and then allow the upload/discussion site to take shape before I tackle the more challenging business of teaching online. Keep an eye on this site in coming weeks; things will start to happen!

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