I thought I'd share this: from day two of my autumn recording session, more of my kitschy sensibilities. Funny near the start when I look behind me to see if the engineer is arriving. Thereafter I seem really absorbed: actually in retrospect I'm rather fond of this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJae5UARjGE

Very great melody to start off with and amazing decorative passagework with octaves, appregios and the like, with rather nice contrasting sections. I do feel that after 3:49+ things you were a bit indulgent with the playing and took too long to get to the end somehow, but very pleasing and enjoyable nonetheless. Must be really cool to rattle this off to others and stuff for entertainment!

Wow, Andrew! Liberace would have loved you!!
It looks like arpeggios are no problem for you. Did you practice them a lot when you were younger?

Thanks, it's amazing just how well it turned out, considering I didn't sit down at the piano with any specific musical intent in mind, just a matter of going through various technical figurations (arpeggios, scales, octaves, double notes) as a method of warming up and being relaxed. You're right, it does start to waffle after a while. 3.49 itself appears to be a brief reference to Verdi's "Miserere", not sure how that crept in!



I'll dig out the candelabra next time
I did do a lot of arpeggio and scale practice when I was a child, but I think it's probably more relevant that I've played so much Liszt and that operatic transcriptions tend to be absolutely riddled with this sort of ornamentation.

Very enviable to be able to sit down and just let it flow so spontaneously. I wish I could do that.

I've improvised all my piano-playing life, right from when I was a child. Improvisation is probably when I'm at my most content, musically speaking.

I really like the harmonies you use in this. They do remind me of Liszt esp. the Consolations. Do you have a plan of some sort in mind when you improvise?

It's all pretty unplanned, though in a certain sense I have a formula that if I find a nice progression I like to play around with it and return to it after contrasting material: it helps create a sense of structure (albeit quite simplistic), rather than what happens sometimes where an improvisation is effectively a rambling set of not very well-connected ideas.

When in major keys I'm fond of mediant harmonies, and of modulations to a major third above or below the existing key. Also V9 and V13 crop up rather a lot; they are a fairly standard romantic harmonic trait however.