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Here is a second selection from this year\u2019s Keys Please to follow Todd\u2019s little musical rattlesnake adventure. This is an improvisation by Carei Thomas, the rattlesnake\u2019s narrator, now on piano. I thought \u2014 and he said afterward \u2014 that there was a little nod to my own funny little improvs in this one, especially in the way it starts with a very low note and a very high one \u2026 but it\u2019s definitely a Carei thing!

Some improvs have a definite form (head-solo-head, fugue, tala) or a definitely style (Dixieland, bebop, Ghanaian drumming) \u2026 but this is one of those that\u2019s just completely spontaneous and organic, and grew out of silence in a completely organic way \u2014 like a spring daffodil poking its head up through the jumbled twigs and dead leaves. Todd and I actually murmured to one another during the applause, \u201cOo! Where did that come from?\u201d Only Carei knows, I suppose, and maybe not even him.

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\u25b6\ufe0f\nThe Usual Topic\n\n\nCarei Thomas, piano, improvisation\n\n\n\n\n\n\u2b07\ufe0f\nDownload\n\n\n(2:27 / 3.4 M)\n\n\n\n

I took care of my girlfriend Paige\u2019s pet parakeet Pegasus recently while her landlord did some emergency plumbing work, and Pegasus joined in one day while I was practicing the piano. It was not the standard chirping, but a complex mix of all sorts of sounds Pegasus doesn\u2019t normally make, which followed the music quite well \u2013 louder in the loud parts and softer in the soft, somehow matching the texture and fitting into the spaces in a birdsong sort of way. It was like she was a soloing on my material \u2014 a really wonderful bit of inter-species improv.

I tried to capture it in a recording the next time I practiced, but she wasn\u2019t as interested in the piano that time. Too bad! I did, however, manage to capture a bit of a human singer on the microphones, which I will share next time.