Profile:Derek Andrews
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Derek Andrews is 24 years old. He has spent many years developing the art of spontaneous improvisation on the piano. This is different from jazz, as all aspects of his music are created on the fly: Rhythm, Melody, and Harmony. His goal is to continually develop this skill throughout his life, making as many recordings as possible and sharing them with his friends and family. He has no desire for fame of any sort and takes the greatest pleasure in helping others learn to improvise. It is the single most beautiful, transporting, fulfilling activity he has ever encountered. He is almost entirely self taught but has received encouragement and tips from his friend and improvisation mentor Ted Jones. In addition to his improvisation, Derek has studied traditional repertoire and technique with Dr. Steven Smith at the Penn State university. He has a modest repertoire consisting of well known works by Bach, Scarlatti, Beethoven, Chopin, Schubert, Debussy, and Rachmaninov.
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Personal Contact Information
On the forum, he is "Derek". He can also be contacted at zomcoder@hotmail.com, or AterMelodius on AIM. He's happy to chat with anyone about improvisation, or anything else that comes up.
Recorded Spontaneous Improvisations
Derek has over 360 recordings of his improvisation stored on cds, backed up on DVDs, on his hard drive and on his ipod. He is very vigilant about keeping them all backed up so they will remain intact throughout his entire life. Most of these improvisations are around twenty minutes to half an hour in length. Since early 2007, he has begun to improvise dozens of shorter, more coherent works which sound as though they were composed beforehand.
His Style
Derek's main influences are composers from the Baroque and the Romantic eras. However his freedom with harmony and rhythm make his music sound modern, though always very tonal and harmonically strong. Derek is primarily interested in abstract music and has never bothered with titles or even genre names for his music.
Recordings
Interviews
Articles
External Links
Samples of Derek's music can be found at: http://www.myspace.com/derekandrewspianoimprovisations
