Riyoko's channel: youtube.com/@riyopiano website: riyoko.jp Riyoko's sheet music PDF purchase link: coming soon. All proceeds go directly to Riyoko. Here Riyoko is improvising on a random input of notes and rhythm provided by a randomly selected volunteer from the audience. It's a fun and memorable segment that Riyoko regularly does at festivals and promotional events. Unrivalled spontaneity, raw & unfiltered improvised playing in different styles, and audience engagement in different formats are some of Riyoko's trademarks that separate her from her peers. This performance was recorded on 29 July 2023 at Machida Ichiban Street Summer Festival. Special thanks to Lynn Dixon youtube.com/@lynndixon4383 ('lynnthecomposer' on Fiverr) for this excellent transcription. In case you're wondering, *Riyoko has an unusual case of auditory-visual synesthesia. That is, she can see and imagine sounds as color pictures (her brain is wired such that there's a cross-talk between auditory and visual cortexes). But there's an additional twist - her sound-color palettes always change colors with her mood and emotional state (there is an additional wiring to limbic system in her brain).* That is the real reason why she never plays anything the same way twice and always experiments and improvises. Some color palettes are better suited for different music. This is also why she has different performance gears. When she's in a great inspired mood, sky's the limit to what she can crank out. It sounds like a cheat code, doesn't it? But don't get it twisted, as of today, Riyoko has been working on her improvisation craft in different styles for well over 2 decades and playing piano for well over 3 decades. She's put in over 50K hours into this. There's a saying "hard work beats talent when talent isn't working hard". Riyoko has put in her time to reach her potential, so an ordinary person without gifts from mother nature will never match her level. So, does that mean we (ordinary people without gifts/talent) shouldn't even try? Quite the opposite. I'm a fully grown adult with absolutely no musical background and I was inspired by Riyoko to learn piano and improvisation. A year ago, I couldn't even individually control fingers 4 & 5 on either hand, had no strength to push weighted keys with fingers 4 & 5, and sheet music was completely alien to me. Now I can reach and push the notes I need with fingers 4 & 5 and I can align complex Riyoko's transcriptions to her actual playing. I can now actually hear, discern, and follow individual notes, chords, and groups of notes on sheet music and match them to Riyoko's playing. Riyoko is a world-class Japanese Jazz pianist and composer who isn't bound by a single genre or style and has crossed classical, traditional Japanese, pop, EDM, and anime genre boundaries and styles in her compositions, arrangements, and performances. She's a classically trained prodigy and has been playing piano since age 4 and for well over 3 decades, latter 2 of which she dedicated to Jazz. She's renowned for her musicality, deep harmonic understanding, live performances full of energy with fluent improvisations, and delicate touch on the keys. Together with her talent and charming character she continues to proliferate Jazz and attract many fans from all over the world. You can learn more about Riyoko and sample more of her music from playlists on my channel home. Riyoko doesn't really make short clips of her music and a lot of her music and performances are missing from her own channel due to Japanese copyright laws, where venues own all the rights to recordings on their premises. Because of that Riyoko can't freely share a lot of her music with us. But an artist like this should be shared with the world, so I'm making it rain on my channels.
Yea, even with this being a spontaneous improvisation with some random constraints for entertainment purposes, it came out really awesome. Riyoko's composed original music is even better than this. I'll be uploading more of her original music transcriptions in the near future. There's a portion of Riyoko's original 'MIYABI' here after 4:52 and my previous upload was a transcription of a live version of Riyoko's original 'Infinity' th-cam.com/video/rWSsUe3TUjk/w-d-xo.html
0:00 selecting a random volunteer from the audience via a fun game 0:10 getting a random input of notes and rhythm from the volunteer 0:47 perfect pitch demo 1:31 improvisation on random input of notes and rhythm 4:52 merging improvisation into Riyoko's original 'MIYABI' 7:01 reactions
Riyoko's channel: youtube.com/@riyopiano website: riyoko.jp
Riyoko's sheet music PDF purchase link: coming soon. All proceeds go directly to Riyoko.
Here Riyoko is improvising on a random input of notes and rhythm provided by a randomly selected volunteer from the audience. It's a fun and memorable segment that Riyoko regularly does at festivals and promotional events. Unrivalled spontaneity, raw & unfiltered improvised playing in different styles, and audience engagement in different formats are some of Riyoko's trademarks that separate her from her peers. This performance was recorded on 29 July 2023 at Machida Ichiban Street Summer Festival. Special thanks to Lynn Dixon youtube.com/@lynndixon4383 ('lynnthecomposer' on Fiverr) for this excellent transcription.
In case you're wondering, *Riyoko has an unusual case of auditory-visual synesthesia. That is, she can see and imagine sounds as color pictures (her brain is wired such that there's a cross-talk between auditory and visual cortexes). But there's an additional twist - her sound-color palettes always change colors with her mood and emotional state (there is an additional wiring to limbic system in her brain).* That is the real reason why she never plays anything the same way twice and always experiments and improvises. Some color palettes are better suited for different music. This is also why she has different performance gears. When she's in a great inspired mood, sky's the limit to what she can crank out. It sounds like a cheat code, doesn't it? But don't get it twisted, as of today, Riyoko has been working on her improvisation craft in different styles for well over 2 decades and playing piano for well over 3 decades. She's put in over 50K hours into this. There's a saying "hard work beats talent when talent isn't working hard". Riyoko has put in her time to reach her potential, so an ordinary person without gifts from mother nature will never match her level. So, does that mean we (ordinary people without gifts/talent) shouldn't even try? Quite the opposite. I'm a fully grown adult with absolutely no musical background and I was inspired by Riyoko to learn piano and improvisation. A year ago, I couldn't even individually control fingers 4 & 5 on either hand, had no strength to push weighted keys with fingers 4 & 5, and sheet music was completely alien to me. Now I can reach and push the notes I need with fingers 4 & 5 and I can align complex Riyoko's transcriptions to her actual playing. I can now actually hear, discern, and follow individual notes, chords, and groups of notes on sheet music and match them to Riyoko's playing.
Riyoko is a world-class Japanese Jazz pianist and composer who isn't bound by a single genre or style and has crossed classical, traditional Japanese, pop, EDM, and anime genre boundaries and styles in her compositions, arrangements, and performances. She's a classically trained prodigy and has been playing piano since age 4 and for well over 3 decades, latter 2 of which she dedicated to Jazz. She's renowned for her musicality, deep harmonic understanding, live performances full of energy with fluent improvisations, and delicate touch on the keys. Together with her talent and charming character she continues to proliferate Jazz and attract many fans from all over the world.
You can learn more about Riyoko and sample more of her music from playlists on my channel home. Riyoko doesn't really make short clips of her music and a lot of her music and performances are missing from her own channel due to Japanese copyright laws, where venues own all the rights to recordings on their premises. Because of that Riyoko can't freely share a lot of her music with us. But an artist like this should be shared with the world, so I'm making it rain on my channels.
Beautiful. A lot of emotions
Yea, even with this being a spontaneous improvisation with some random constraints for entertainment purposes, it came out really awesome. Riyoko's composed original music is even better than this. I'll be uploading more of her original music transcriptions in the near future. There's a portion of Riyoko's original 'MIYABI' here after 4:52 and my previous upload was a transcription of a live version of Riyoko's original 'Infinity' th-cam.com/video/rWSsUe3TUjk/w-d-xo.html
0:00 selecting a random volunteer from the audience via a fun game
0:10 getting a random input of notes and rhythm from the volunteer
0:47 perfect pitch demo
1:31 improvisation on random input of notes and rhythm
4:52 merging improvisation into Riyoko's original 'MIYABI'
7:01 reactions