Piano Improvisations Archive

Hello there wonderful Patreon supporter! Welcome to the secret link containing the downloadable audio archive for every piano improvisation I have done. The files from 2018 and 2019 are hosted on Microsoft OneDrive, and thereafter on Dropbox. They are linked below in reverse chronological order.

Later improvisations than the first one here are archived at the new page, linked here.

2019-11-15 Setting Sail

2019-11-01 Past Travels

2019-10-25 Quiet Afternoon

Hello, everybody! Not much time for writing today, so I’ll just say that the track artwork for this week's improvisation is by Vitaly Vlasov from Pexels. As always, thank you for being a patron!

2019-10-11 Forest Stairs

Hello, everybody! Not much time for writing today, so I’ll just say that the track artwork for this week's improvisation is by Vitaly Vlasov from Pexels. As always, thank you for being a patron!

2019-10-04 Pink Shadow

Hello, everybody! It’s a lovely fall day here in Portland and today’s improvisation, which I recorded less than an hour ago, started with a strong theme and went to some pretty interesting places! It’s also one of my longest at almost 8 minutes long — I think because I’ve been listening to Chopin again lately, and after his model, decided to try for an agitated middle section before returning to the relatively placid theme. The track artwork for this week's improvisation is by Dids from Pexels. As always, thank you for being a patron!

2019-09-27 Still Waters

Greetings, all. I hope everybody is doing well today! The track artwork for this week's improvisation is by Alice Castro. As always, thank you for being a patron!

2019-09-20 Cafe Kind of Day

Greetings, all. I hope everybody is doing well today!

The track artwork for this week's improvisation is by H. Emre. It's a recent photo of a tram on the famous Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich, and it struck me how much it looks like San Francisco's Market & Powell on a similar kind of fall day. That made me think about all the times I've had coffee around Union Square and other places in San Francisco on days that look just like the one in this picture, and the one we're having today in downtown Portland. I went to the piano and started recording, and this was actually the first attempt, which is not always the case!

As always, thank you for being a patron!

2019-09-13 Autumn Roses

Greetings, all. I hope everybody is doing well today!

I did something a little different this week since I already knew what chords I wanted to play around with. This time, my starting point was meter -- the pattern of repeating stresses that gives impulse to a piece of music. Those playing cards you see on the piano are blank on the other side, and on each one I wrote a number or an instruction, as can be seen in a recent Instagram post. When I shuffled, it came up with 5 (think Dave Brubeck's "Time Out"), which is always an interesting challenge to maintain over the course of a tune since the pull of 3 is so overwhelming. And I did lapse into 3 more than a few times! But I kept bringing it back, and I thought this one in particular turned out nicely overall, so I selected it for you this week.

The track artwork for this week's improvisation I thought captured the quiet, offbeat mood nicely, and besides which looks like a room I'd like to hang out in for a while. It's by Secret Garden from Pexels.

As always, thank you for being a patron!

2019-09-06 Orange Waves

Greetings, all. I hope everybody is doing well today! I don't have any profound remarks this morning, so I'll just say that the track artwork for this week's improvisation is by Sergio Souza from Pexels. (Links above in the caption.) As always, thank you for being a patron, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

2019-08-30 Summer Coffee

Hello everybody!

Usually when I record these, I start with a technical idea or an idea of mood, and then go looking for suitable artwork afterwards, as I'm mixing the track and making the video. This time, though, I decided to start with the artwork and see where that would take me. It was a blazing hot day on Tuesday so today's photo, by Thiago from Pexels, grabbed me immediately as perfect for the mood of the moment. I began thinking about, what if I were that guy, who seems to be enjoying a morning with breakfast much like the one I have every day, looking contemplatively out his window. It looked nice and warm and like he was having a good start to a good day. So that's where I took my improv.

The photo is very green and the key of D has always felt very "green" and lush to me, so I started there, with a pair of rich tonic 6/4 chords. After a couple minutes I moved into the relative minor (B minor) but couldn't stay there long and ended up making it major. Now fairly distant from my home key, I retraced my steps back to D and ended the piece with the same 6/4 chords on the tonic, maybe ready for some coffee-fueled adventures.

I hope you all have some wonderful adventures of your own today, and have a grand weekend. As always, thank you for being a patron!

Photo by brenoanp from Pexels. I hope you enjoy the track!

2019-08-23 New Journey

Tomorrow is my 42nd birthday and even though that's not a big round number, and nothing huge is happening in my life on the scale of the move last year, it still feels like I'm embarking on something new. I think it's the fact that my birthday comes at the very end of summer and I've chosen to make my life in education, which means my work year always begins immediately after it. So it always feels more like a new year than the actual New Year does to me. The stagnation of hot summer days with few responsibilities gives way to a full calendar and cooling breezes and cleansing rains.

In any case, I named this track New Journey after this feeling and the wonderful photo here by brenoanp from Pexels. I hope you enjoy the track!

Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger from Pexels

2019-08-16 Cloud Covered

Greetings, all. I hope everybody is doing well today! It’s eleven days post surgery so I’m more or less back to full health now, and am only contending with a bit of fatigue and minor ongoing pain that I expect to resolve completely over the next couple weeks. I didn’t manage to record on Tuesday, so today’s improvisation represents one of the rare pieces that I’ve recorded just an hour or so before release! The track artwork for this week's improvisation is by Eberhard Grossgasteiger, and yes, the photo made me think of the famous Zen poem that ends with the words “Cloud-covered, whereabouts unknown,” so the title was inescapable. As always, thank you for being a patron!

2019-08-02 Lighthouse Shadow

Greetings, all. I hope everybody is doing well today! The track artwork for this week's improvisation is by Manuel Barros. As always, thank you for being a patron!

2019-07-26 Garden Memory

Greetings, all. I hope everybody is doing well today! The track artwork for this week's improvisation is by Lisa Fotios. As always, thank you for being a patron!

2019-07-19 Blooming Blue Sky

I've been traveling all this week, so I don't have much in the way of commentary today, and no poem. I hope you enjoy the music!

2019-07-12 Under Construction

This week I decided to try writing a new poem from scratch, directly inspired by this week's improvisation and artwork. I first drafted it after contemplating the image for a while, and then listening to the piece as I sketched out initial ideas. I revised it over the next few days and produced the following:

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

The clouds sweep across the sky.
A glance off the precipice
Down to the waves angled below.
A moment of dizziness;
Here it could end. Or begin.

Back off. Continue up the trail.
Only so much strength is possible.
Each day is another chance to build up
From nothing
Some thing
Still barely visible through the clouds.

Photo by John Cahil Rom from Pexels

2019-07-05 Underwater Looking Up

AFTER THE WRECK

For months
I’ve sat at my new desk, in this new city, in this new life
And laid out the flotsam of old selves:
Journals, novels, stories, poems,
The voices of a youth before the storm
Or one in the midst of a hurricane.

This quiet room, in this newly quiet life,
So unlike any I’ve had before.

It’s as though I’ve awakened on some beach somewhere,
Sole survivor of a sunken ship,
By fortune provided some plank or half-broken skiff
To escape the spiraling waters
And keep myself, for now, from the tangled deep.

No clouds in the sky today.
I lay on the sand and point at the sea
And try to speak of those left behind,
Their faces accusing. Why him?

Indeed, why me? This was never the plan.

2019-06-28 Nueva York by Ferry

Starting today I've decided to include some of the unpublished poems I have around here, when I find them appropriate to the music and image. Perhaps I'll even start writing some new ones! Today's image made me think of this one:

NOSTALGIA

It’s the romance
Of rain spattered

On the streets,
Of lonely afternoons,

A beer in
The window of

Some famous bar.
Words once spoken

In these rooms,
Lost to memory.

Nothing living is
Remembered so fondly.

2019-06-21 Through the Trees at Sunset

No fancy words today, just a lovely photo by Jairus Bellen, who hails from the Phillipines.

Enjoy today's music!

2019-06-14 White Clouds Over a Building

Greetings, all. I hope everybody is doing well today!

I recorded this one yesterday, along with several others that I'll be releasing in the weeks ahead. My left hand has been hurting from overpractice so I was taking it easy, and you'll hear a gentle mood coming through all of these improvs. Lately I've been working on my jazz playing, and that practice has not only put all these wonderful, colorful chords back under my fingers, it has also reminded me of several techniques for creating variety and dramatic interest in the harmony. So I hope you enjoy the sound of these!

The track artwork for this week's improvisation is by Matheus Viana from Pexels, a Brazilian photographer whom I just discovered yesterday.

As always, thank you for being a patron!

2019-06-07 Tabby Cat

I was having a hard time choosing a photo for this one, as I listened to its playful, shifting moods. That is, until I ran across this photo of a tabby cat by Samer Daboul. Really reflects the mood!

2019-05-31 Hopes

Today's improvisation is an excellent example of something that occasionally happens when I'm playing: I hit an unintended note that totally doesn't belong to the sonic world I've been building, a complete outlier that sounds pretty obviously like a "wrong" note.

But as I've learned from the teachings of Herbie Hancock (in this context especially) but also many others, if you regard the "mistake" as a gift from your unconscious and follow its lead, it might take you someplace interesting. Not to double down on it, but play it again to revisit it -- listen to it -- see what new door it has opened.

And that's exactly what happened in this case.

I've recently discovered a Serbian photographer named Rakicevic Nenad, and this photo of his that I found on Pexels seems to go well with this one. It's surreal in a way that seems to reflect the way this one took an unexpected turn. And also: it just made me laugh.

Thank you everybody for being patrons! See you next week.

2019-05-24 A Yellow Rose

Greetings, all. I hope everybody is doing well today!

The accompanying photo by Lisa Fotios from Pexels really sums up the mood of today's piece, delicate but with a little roughness. I hope you enjoy it!

As always, thank you for being a patron!

2019-05-17 Windswept

Today's improvisation is accompanied by a photo by Gabriela Cheloni from Pexels. This is I think the first time I've posted one with a human subject, something I mostly avoid because I don't think portraits generally suit the mood of these pieces. But there is something about this one that captures the exact mood of unsettled calm that I hear in this one.

As always, thank you for being a patron!

2019-05-10 Abstract Dance

Today's improv is kind of a classic playful jazz piece, and this photo of an abstract texture by Steve Johnson from Pexels really spoke to me as I was listening to it again!

As always, thank you for being a patron. I hope you have a lovely weekend!

2019-05-03 Boat Under Cloudy Sky

Today's rather somber and ominous Phrygian-mode improvisation still sounds somehow hopeful to me in the end, so I chose this photo of a boat facing a cloudy sky and wide-open waters by the Turkish photographer Emre Kuzu to represent it here. I hope you enjoy the improvisation!

As always, thank you for being a patron!

2019-04-26 Morning Light

Hello my wonderful patrons! I don't have a lot of deep thoughts this morning, so I'll just get down to business. Today's track artwork is by João Jesus from Pexels.

Last night, to get ready for the impending shutdown of Google Play Music, I started a brand new YouTube channel in an effort to get myself a proper Official Artist Channel on YouTube Music, and therefore all this piano stuff is moving to there. The old channel won't be updated again and I'll be taking down almost everything in the next month or so. So subscribe to the new channel if that's a thing you do.

This also means that the video playlist has moved to the new channel, so here's the new link to the video playlist.

As always, thank you for being a patron! Have a lovely weekend!

Jeremy

2019-04-19 Spring Blossoms

When I sat down two days ago to record a batch of improvs, this was literally the first thing I played. It was a warm morning and birds were chirping right outside, and I remember thinking about the musical calls of the chickadee and maybe I should start by imitating the bird right outside the window, whatever it was. I think that absolutely influenced the mood of this gentle piece.

Today's art is by Lisa Fotios, a UK photographer whom I have featured on at least one occasion before, if not several.

As always, thank you for being a patron!

2019-04-12 Curved Space

I hope everybody is doing well today!

Over the past ten days I have decided to use Instagram as my primary tool to raise my profile as a pianist and to raise awareness of this Patreon. It seems to be going well so far -- my marketing efforts on there have yielded almost one hundred new followers in the past week. The long term efficacy of this kind of thing has yet to be proven, but in the meantime I'm committed to the long haul with it.

One thing I'm trying out is one-minute improvisations, to conform with the one-minute video limit on Instagram. If you might be interested in seeing those too, I'm going to put them up on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the rest of the month of April, and then decide whether it's worth the effort after that. My piano profile is @jeremyhatch.

Today's photo is by Caroline Cagnin. It just seemed somehow to reflect the mysterious mood of this one!

As always, thank you for being a patron!

2019-04-05 Evening Train

Hey there everybody and welcome new patrons! Thanks for coming on board. Today's improv made me think of going places far away and that's why I chose this wonderful time lapse photo by Vitaly Vlasov from Pexels.

I also wanted to let you all know that, starting today, I've decided to start putting 1-minute-long clips from each week's performance video up on Instagram every Friday, simultaneous with you getting the posts here. Instagram is the one social media platform where I do have an appreciable audience (some 700 followers) and I feel ready to grow that audience even more, and while I am at it, to start looking for patrons outside the circle of people I know personally. This seems like one of the best ways to me -- provide a little teaser of what you Patreon supporters are getting in full. I hope that's okay with everybody here!

Thank you for being a patron!