by Peter Saltzman | Jul 23, 2020 | Piano Sketches
Introducing Piano Sketches Painted music? Underscored painting? Actually both. It’s a different kind of improvised duet where artist Jeremy Harrison improvised a painting to my piano improvisations (Painted Music), or I improvise a piano piece to a video of...
by Peter Saltzman | Jul 31, 2020 | IOTL
Planned Chance 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. Almost all improvisation is built upon a kind of...
by Peter Saltzman | Jul 30, 2020 | Featured Track
TRE Jazz Quartet Live 1999 by Peter Saltzman To compose or improvise. That’s the question? Composing and improvising are often thought of as two sides of the same coin. Composition, we say, is written down improvisation. Improvisation is spontaneous composition....
by Peter Saltzman | Jul 29, 2020 | Featured Track
Uncollected Pop (Volume 1: 1988-1991) by Peter Saltzman My son, Emanuel, loves the trippy 1980s vibe of this tune. And indeed, when I recorded it back in 1988, that’s what I was going for. Well, not so much the 1980s part as the trippy part. I do love creating...
by Peter Saltzman | Jul 28, 2020 | Featured Track
Piano Diaries (Volume 1A) by Peter Saltzman Long-form free improvisations tend to…wander, losing their direction like a lost soul blowing with the wind, this way and that. But this improv is focussed. Or at least I say it is. As with the shorter free improv from...
by Peter Saltzman | Jul 27, 2020 | Featured Track
One Human Minute by Peter Saltzman Short songs that feel complete, that don’t feel like a prelude or set up to something longer are a challenge. Does this one, from my album One Human Minute work? Methinks it does. But then again, I’m using the word...
by Peter Saltzman | Jul 26, 2020 | Featured Track
07/26/2020 This track, from my Kabbalah Blues/Quantum Funk (2000) is a kind of -free-for-all study in musical quantum weirdness. Although it is tightly structured around the two themes stated right at the beginning, there are a lot of semi-random clashes between the...
by Peter Saltzman | Jul 24, 2020 | Piano Sketches
Visualize Abruptly Changing Tempos  Surreal Space The abruptly changing tempos and pitches in Peter’s piece have a huge effect on how I move my brush. It might have been nice to have hit strokes on those high pitched chords but I like what happens with the red lines...
by Peter Saltzman | Jul 24, 2020 | Featured Track
This is a good example of highly melodic improvisation. It comes from the first volume of my ongoing and occasional series, Piano Diaries. The challenge for me is to create accessible, relatable improvisations that don’t sound like new age, smooth jazz,...
by Peter Saltzman | Jul 16, 2020 | IOTL, Piano
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? Whatever the reason, non-melodic music almost always lacks narrative. This is true whether it’s...