The introductory music for Braenna Ironbeard, the dwarf barbarian.

Braenna - Dwarf Barbarian

The introductory music for Canari Lanhareth, the kalashtar cleric.

Canari - Kalashtar Cleric

The introductory music for Moxie Everhart, the aasimar monk.

Moxie - Aasimar Monk

The introductory music for Umbran Orion, the warforged sorcerer.

Umbran - Warforged Sorcerer

The introductory music for Vrexil von Chomsky Saginstein McPuffett, the gnome artificer.

Vrexil - Gnome Artificer

Another improv track I came up with over the last few weeks. Inspiration for this piece came from my summer with the Blue Stars Drum and Bugle Corps.

Improvisations in F Minor

Piano improvisations on 24 November, 2015.

New Take on an Old Theme

Second draft.

This piece was an assignment for a Music Technology class while I was a student at Northwestern University. We were restricted to recording clips of already existing music and manipulating them in basic ways - no MIDI, no original input of any kind.

A Cosmic Ocean

Improvisation is a lost art for many professional musicians. When it is not reserved as a niche skill for jazz musicians, it is generally disregarded in favor of heavily practiced, memorized, and polished etudes and other "serious" works from the western music canon. This, in spite of the fact that many of the most highly regarded composers from said canon made a living improvising - in church services, during encores, and even during otherwise prepared and practiced works, improvisation was a staple of the lives of some of today's most oft-played composers.

This series follows humbly in the footsteps of those musical giants, offering a simple improvisation to hopefully brighten your day. On a semi-regular basis, I will upload single-take recordings without any cuts, edits, or splices. Unedited and unfiltered but for some compression/EQ and reverb, these uploads will serve as an argument for the value of improvisation as an artistic skill that, to me, is as fundamental as listening itself.

They will also serve as an important reminder that lots of music is made half-baked - in these uploads, you may hear fragments of musical materials I'm currently engaged with, or new ideas may come to the fore. The point is: it's not well-considered, it's not polished, and it's not perfect. And that's okay.

[Improv - 1] Starting something new...

Improvisation is a lost art for many professional musicians. When it is not reserved as a niche skill for jazz musicians, it is generally disregarded in favor of heavily practiced, memorized, and polished etudes and other "serious" works from the western music canon. This, in spite of the fact that many of the most highly regarded composers from said canon made a living improvising - in church services, during encores, and even during otherwise prepared and practiced works, improvisation was a staple of the lives of some of today's most oft-played composers.

This series follows humbly in the footsteps of those musical giants, offering a simple improvisation to hopefully brighten your day. Lots of music is made half-baked - in these uploads, you may hear fragments of musical materials I'm currently engaged with, or new ideas may come to the fore. The point is: it's not well-considered, it's not polished, and it's not perfect. And that's okay.

Jacob Pope