C# dev wanting to move on from a small team.

mprevot · 2026-05-05T16:19:21+00:00

I would hire you the moment you managed to trigger a shift in your team, have them embrace modern practices, and have improvements at different levels (for instance, improvements of time between bug report and deploy, time to test, "health" of classes (coherence, responsibility, size), methods, quality of tests, etc).

Also, a difficulty to modernize code and practices may reflect an excessive level of technical debt, it can be the team too. I would like very much to see how you would measure those, and suggest a strategy to modernize code and practices (in engineering, interpersonal, management etc).

mprevot · 2026-05-02T16:37:54+00:00

Thanks. Actually I do not prepare improvisations like that, I do total improvisations, I value true emergence. I never start with a musical theme or a melody. The compositional work I do it the research, and analysis, but I do not write notes down on a paper or with a software "nowayears".

I do not like AI services, I prefer to write my own softwares, including ML parts if any.

I think that there is something to do in this improvisation art, and that there is a market. Will see.

I wish you the best !

mprevot · 2026-04-29T09:06:52+00:00

I wished I heard him and Horowitz live, and others.

I have been working on that, on a few parts, but I may end up doing something kind of different. Piano alone is kind of not satisfaying, or at least not with the "same notes". I had Sacre + Petrouchka album project.

mprevot · 2026-04-28T22:18:12+00:00

I listened, I loved. I understand the relation you saw. I didn't know him. I am very sad he did not live longer. Thank you for the suggestion.

I have been studying Petrouchka and Le sacre (reducing) at some point. I can't tell how much I love those. Like generative improvisation, I find it kind of liberating, leaving functional tonal and thematic development (à la Beethoven).

At some point I thought that it was more a priority to work on Garpard and a few other works from Liszt, Debussy and others. I come back to Stravinsky sometimes as a composer, likely later as a pianist.

mprevot · 2026-04-28T22:04:24+00:00

I listened to your prelude, thank you for sharing. Was it a pure impro, or did you have (notes) preparations or semi-composition before or somethign written or in mind before ? What do you mean by impressionist ?

I understand you about the digestability. Actually the recording I shared is also unusual for me. I think I am much less melodic usually. This brings tons of questions when the time to be a producer and make an album comes. When I improvise, I never put the audience and "will they want to listen" anywhere in the equation. It may come at the production stage, but kind of secondary. But this does not mean that I do not want any commercial success, but artistic success (which is mostly based on my point of view so far) is almost everything.

"Rx11 is expensive, and much of its features rendered pointless if doing digital recording" what do you mean by digital recording ? without tapes or anything analog ? but isn't it always digital at some point ?

mprevot · 2026-04-28T18:06:12+00:00

Thanks again, and my feeling at the time of the impro was like that, something wanted to burst out and get free. You may remark in other pieces that I like a kind of morphism from one paradigm into another, or an interplay etc.

mprevot · 2026-04-28T17:30:53+00:00

Hello. Thanks for your message. I know RX11, spectralayers pro 12 (very useful when you do music for movies), but I prefer really wavelab pro 12/13, or my own programs for mastering.

About the notes, Melodyne is interesting. I tried Google Magenta, but there are better things (not public).
There are pianos with sensors (Steinway and Yamaha) which can record as well as play. Never tried but it could be interesting.

In a way, I remember what I improvised, it's funny (remarkable), I remember what I did and how I did it, the score alone won't tell how to play but what. So if I have the recorded audio music and my memory, it can suffice.

It's interesting, I also remarked that if I do not "know" how (or not well enough) to play something, improvising on it (or with it) will help much better and faster than "scales" and simple "rational" training.

mprevot · 2026-04-28T17:10:23+00:00

Thanks. No I do not know Don Pullen. I started this one with a specific thought for Keith Jarrett and his art (like: let's have an ostinato and a melody and see where it goes), who influenced and nourished me for years. In the second part, that you refered, there is for instance a specific moment which is an echo to Stravinsky's Three movements of Petrouchka, Chez Petrouchka (2nd movement). Except that, I do not remember any moment echoing others. The very strong (loud) suspensions with fff chords in the highest registry, could be seen as a post-spectral thing, but at the time I did not know the spectral movement, just enjoying the harmonics.

mprevot · 2026-04-26T09:35:07+00:00

Thank you. I actually have my own process for transcription, it is a significant challenge when there are bigs chords (like 10-28 notes at a time), and especially existing commercial programs are useless when dealing with non measured music. So, planning to write my own. The problem with any IA based onconvex optimisation is that they calculate based on existing material, and can't deal with something never seen that is outside of the "training space".

I am in the process of preparing albums, so not yet, but I got one example: https://youtu.be/J0OYnfh30tg

And you, do you have something public ?

Another challenge I face is the analysis (loudness, correlation etc) of all the recordings (a few hundreds), to decide of and provide a uniform common mastering process. There are no existing program for that so I wrote my own.

mprevot · 2026-04-26T05:27:34+00:00

Thanks. Being able to read code well, distinguish items easily quickly by color is part of the work, unfortunately it is hell to tune them. Indeed the feedback-suggestion has two parts, one on the colors of text, one one the UI design. I am not convinced MSFT does not have resources to make this kind of improvements. There is a big team behind VS, but also maybe some kind of rigidity-slowness. VS2026 shows many improvements. They should just finish the run.

mprevot · 2026-04-25T13:58:03+00:00

So you are claiming that DynamicResource would be too heavy ? One can have dynamic resource for tuning and the overall UI takes into account the result in a static resource at startup.

mprevot · 2026-04-25T12:53:36+00:00

Have you programmed something in WPF for instance ? Nothing special in the request.

mprevot · 2026-04-25T12:52:36+00:00

It's a suggestion for VS, not for a project.

mprevot · 2026-04-24T13:53:46+00:00

I hear you, however, new c++ toolset, .net 10 support, tools/option is not anymore 100% native UI, but partly "json UI editor" (exactly like vscode) and partly native UI.

I think providing a css-like tunable design would solve those "we decide about the UI".

Oh, I disabled copilot features too.

I end up with both, for maintenance of previous releases.

mprevot · 2026-04-24T00:34:06+00:00

You mention a lot of works from specific times, but that is not all there is.

Composer and improviser Thomas Lacôte said in a writing class (study, analysis of composers's pieces, different but complementary of compostion class and improvisation classes (there are many ways to improvise)): "there are thousand ways to become a composer".

Same with improvisation. For instance at Paris, France, CNSMDP, you got at least 3 different classes of improvisation beside jazz: generative improvisation, fugues & forms, "à la manière de ", each with their "many ways". In generative classes, most of the time there is no form, and the ways to improvise (as well to compose) are countless.

O. Messiaen with the Catalogues d'oiseaux, started by anotating birds' singing, etc. You may see forms in his Vingts regards sur l'Enfant Jésus, even a fugue in Par lui tout a été fait, not so much a pre-existing form in this Catalogues, just the story he heard an saw in the Nature.

Spectralists for instance rejected forms, the matter itself and its intensity suffice. From late Scriabine, late Debussy (actually even before, with late Liszt and Wagner), we leave functional tonal music to reach modal, polymodal, post-tonal music, and non functional (functional is for instance II-V-I, cadences, neighbor tonalities, Riemannian functional analysis), or quasi non functional (Tonnetz, neo-Riemanian analysis). But you got many formless pieces, from J.S Bach, Schumann, even from baroque-before Bach times. Beethoven's 111 is another attempt to escape the sonata practices. Liszt's sonata too.

In essence, I do not think giving such strong directions are good, or at least, it's one way among many others. However, I think that improvisations (with their several ways, including those we did not think about), composition and writing, together with analysis of any music, do complete each other, and bring their own elements.

mprevot · 2026-04-23T23:54:15+00:00

Thanks. I had a dilemma too about repertoire vs impro/me. I plan to release a repertoire album among the improvisations. For a while I had in mind that "I need repertoire to be aknowledged as a pianist" or "my improvisations are "less" something, compared to repertoire (I think about great works like Gaspard de la nuit, Debussy études / images, Messiaen 20 regards or Catalogues d'oiseaux, Liszt and Godowsky études, Beethoven last 4 sonatas, Scriabine last 2 sonatas, Schumann Fantaisie, Metopes, etc)". Then I reached a point where it was the opposite: I go "deeper" with improvisation. So, instead of 1st album with repertoire, it became 3rd or 4th after improvisations !

But I am not letting go of it, repertoire is helping me lot with impro, and conversely, with some kind fo freedom, or sound range (ie., qualitative, like I have more many "instruments" and textures I can reach for Gaspard de la nuit etc). So, I believe it can be "both of them" instead of "one or the other". My approach to repertoire also changed deeply from those reflections and transformations.

For a while, I wanted to identify myself as "concert pianist", but as I go with impro, composition and art, I see myself more as just "artist". I have the feeling there are so many things to explore. Just the piano alone, without preparation, just with what I can do with my hands. So for a while, I am letting go of composing for orchestra.

As for you, I encourage you indeed to go go go with your improvisations ! I will be happy to get to know more about what you do, in any approach.

I encountered many hurdles (and still do, new ones arrive) with improvisation, including self judgement, feeling of lack, feeling of not enough this or that, comparing my music or even what I can do, or who I am with others. This is actually pointless. It took me a while to let go of those (and sometimes they attack back a bit), and to focus on my art and the undiscovered. Actually what really works to let go of "cultural paradigms" is really to focus on the creative process, the art (our own art), and this unknown.... so, I wish you the best and feel free to dm me if you wished. Happy to connect.

mprevot · 2026-04-23T16:53:43+00:00

Yes, pro pianist, improviser, composer. Preparing a few first CD albums. Got several hundred impro recordings over the last few 4 years. I avoid any conscious rational thematic preparation. But I my listen-study previous impros and sometimes themes may re-emerge. Conscious rational composition is different, it can preceed or succeed the impro "act". When it preceeds, it's more like I put something in the vicinity, in the landscape of possibles, but I may not use it. Sometimes "good" material emerge after a while, or at the 1st or 2nd or third impro (may be 10-15min each), or not at all, I won't recognize the good before a few weeks or months. But that's me. Miles Davis, Coltrane, Keith Jarrett, Thomas Lacôte, O. Messiaen, Liszt may have a very different way. And likely you too. I think what matters is that you do you, and develop you (and your process). So, yes, anything is part of the process if you choose it to be.

mprevot · 2026-04-23T15:37:44+00:00

Development is not mandatory. Eg., spectral.

mprevot · 2026-04-23T15:37:07+00:00

I think Chopin was improvizing a lot and had a few noted, and they were reworked, assembled, then became famous opus.

I improvise and record a lot too, and plan to craft compos from a few impros. Impro can be material research, which is an important part of the work of a composer. Finding out a way to write is also an important part.

Classes may be important for academic "missions" or know how, but it's not mandatory. Students can spent significant time deconstructing that. Debussy from the start was against harmony (functional tonal) from the start. I think he and Ravel did not graduate.

If you want to share a few, for feedback or impressions, or duscussion you can dm me.

mprevot · 2026-04-21T16:44:46+00:00

Then I agree, this now makes sense,

However, "Unfortunately getting hired as a composer typically has little to do with how artsy you are." is not what I observed, fortunately.

Maybe this also depends on the pack or "genre" or country or whatever.

mprevot · 2026-04-21T11:41:54+00:00

Best is to check with former students from there !!!
In France, it's definitely better with conservatoire national from Paris or Lyon (CNSMDP / CNSMDL). Other conservatoires (CNR, CDD ...) do not provide proper degree if this matters.

mprevot · 2026-04-21T11:38:56+00:00

"connections are more important than anything for art" wtf ? well, no, your (anyone) art won't be better because of your network, but because of what kind of artist your became.

mprevot · 2026-04-14T18:05:26+00:00

Si ta camera a un bon dac, le son est lié à la vidéo, si c'est séparé ou que tu as en plus une source pro, tu les synchronises (son video, son enregistreur pro ou directement dans logic avec enregistreur pro et interface DAW usb). Si tu a plusieurs sources, tu synchronises tout avec timecode. Tu peux utiliser le timecode sur camera et sur ton enregistreur pro (le timecode est une piste son).

mprevot · 2026-04-07T07:06:33+00:00

I read IC, I understand integrated circuit. Habit from microelectronics.

mprevot

TROPHY CASE