Piano Improvisations

Transcribing anything is like doing a crossword puzzle. The underlying pulse/tempo determines how many boxes across are in each word or phrase, and our boxes down determine the pitch of each note in a phrase. This transcription is a work in progress that I hope you'll follow and work on with me. It's Emo's piano improvisation from the Welcome Back My Friends album and it begins after the Gulda Fugue, played over the Take A Pebble left hand ostinato pattern. One of the first things you'll notice with the recording of this is the tempo. It's easily as fast as any solo by Charlie Parker and, once I get into the analysis of it, you'll see the similarities with Parker don't end there.

About The Pebble Project

Like many kids, I had a few piano lessons when I was young and I quickly picked up the ability to read the dots and play by ear. Up until the age of 12, I could play most things I heard but I was completely stumped after encountering Keith Emerson's playing on the ELP album, Welcome Back My friends. There was no available sheet music back then and so I spent the next few years totally immersed in ELP recordings. In hindsight, I'm thankful to Keith Emerson not just for introducing me to a whole world of music I might not have found otherwise, but for making it necessary for me to learn how to transcribe things off records. It's perhaps the most important skill a musician can ever learn.

This blog is all about sharing what I know about Keith Emerson's piano playing and improvisation techniques. The particular focus is on all the various piano improvisations Keith has played over the years as part of Take A Pebble, but other significant piano solos will also be closely looked at. Hope you enjoy!