For as long as I can remember, I have been improvising and composing at the piano.

A few weeks after I started lessons, my fourth grade class listened to Mussorgsky’s Pictures of an Exhibition, and shortly thereafter I brought my teacher my own arrangement of The Great Gate of Kiev. I believe I did write it down, with what limited experience I had in note-writing.

My “practicing the piano” has from the beginning been interspersed with improvisation: all it took was one accidental wrong note in one of my pieces, and off I went into my own piece because my imagination had been piqued. Sometimes I wrote things down (wish I had saved them …), most often I didn’t.

Now, when I sit down to play the piano I just play and see what comes out of my fingers. Sometimes, when I like it, I keep spinning, and sometimes it turns into a “thing”.

For a long time, I hadn’t taken the time and effort to write things down, but with notation software, and especially the option now to publish through sheetmusicplus, I have started to write my compositions down and submit them for publication. I have chosen not to do paper versions of my pieces, just down-loadable PDF files. I find it environmentally more responsible to not have paper copies of my pieces out there, whether someone buys them or not, but to offer people to print one copy at a time as needed / purchased. It also allows me to make changes, without having to wait for an official second printing.

It’s a form of self-realization. It is definitely not something to get rich by: sheetmusicplus pays a 45% commission on every copy sold, and when they offer a sale, say, 20% off, then I get my 45% off the reduced price. So, for the time being, I’ll keep my day job as the owner of a piano studio, but slowly and not entirely surely, I get to share this other side of me, too.

So far, there’s a Sentimental Waltz, and the first of several Etudes available. Go have a look!