I improvise.  I have done so for more than forty years.  I do it a lot, and now I usually record what I do, using MIDI technology.  Because I do it so much, sometimes some really heart-felt or interesting (my opinion) music comes to me.  Everything by me on this web site started as an improvisation.  Even in the multi-part songs like A Harmony of Friends, all the parts are improvised in the same session, and generally the first or second take of each part is final.

Every few months, I select, from everything I have recorded, some interesting music which can stand by itself, with a clear beginning and end, plus some special quality that makes it worth keeping.  I repair any mistakes if necessary, and cut boring parts, adjust or add a few notes here and there, and fix any unwelcome tempo variations.  Finally, the computer renders the MIDI recordings into audio files, and voila!  As I am working in this way, I open a door into mental space and look around for an appropriate name.  I grab one that I like as it passes by, and instantly, the music is plucked from the space of unlimited flow, and born as a named entity in the realm of human thought and discourse.

This way of creating finished musical pieces was not technically possible until the last decade or so.  Possibly, more musicians will work this way in the future.  Or maybe some do already and I just don't know about it.

I know a little music theory, and can read and write music, slowly.  Ideally, I would be able to incorporate ideas that appear during improvisation into constructed compositions.  I am beginning to study and experiment with this possibility by transcribing some of these pieces into scores, and seeing what I can do to improve the overall coherency without injuring their spontaneous life.  This may take a while.  Meanwhile, I do what I can to try to make the world just a tiny bit more alive and happy with this music.  If some of it touches your heart or tickles your intellect, then I am pleased with the result.

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