Creativity Digest: 18th April 2025

Door Openers and improvising with Impressionism

I love spending Easter weekend in Frankfurt.

It’s so peaceful. The city empties out, the shops shut, and the never-ending noise of the airport dies away.

I actually really want to play the piano, but I’m going to wait because I don’t want to disturb the peace. I’ll play tomorrow, when the shops briefly re-open. I’m looking forward to it. Anticipation will heighten the pleasure.

I really needed this peace. My Mozart Method workshop at the Piano Teachers Course was great fun, but it was an extremely hectic few days of travel and meetings. It left me feeling drained and slightly ill. It’s nice to have time and space just to sit at my desk, to think and to write.

I’m very grateful to the readers amongst you who took the time to talk to me at the PTC and to come to my workshop. It was really wonderful to meet you.

It was also reassuring. Sometimes when you write, you’re unsure whether anyone is reading. Meeting real life people who’re using my ideas in their teaching did my soul good. I love this work and it’s great to know that it’s helpful. Thank you.

Why I’m writing

I’m writing to share a couple of bits of musical inspiration with you.

Rhonda Rizzo’s fascinating interview with Chris Gall about his album Impressionists Improvised (about which more below) gives us a wonderful example of how we can draw inspiration from the classics.

Clemens Christian Poetzsch’s Door Openers demonstrates this in an accessible bitesize form.

Door Openers

German composer and pianist Clemens Christian Poetzsch’s series of YouTube shorts called Door Openers is full of inspiration.

The format is wonderfully simple: he finds an interesting harmony or texture, explains it, then improvises on it. It takes about 60 seconds, but opens up a whole world of possibility.

Clemens’ work sits somewhere between classical, jazz and contemporary.

I love his music and—full disclosure—I’m fortunate to call him a friend. We’ve performed together several times and I’ve reworked one of the tracks from his collaboration with guitarist Reenkto Dirks.

His Door Opener concept is brilliant: we spot something interesting while playing, pause on it, and explore it. Doing so opens a door to creativity.

This concept aligns quite neatly with what I teach in my Mozart Method workshop, except where Clemens explores fairly advanced repertoire, I’m focusing very tightly on the elementary level.

If you’re looking for inspiration in your own creativity, I recommend following Clemens’ Door Openers. You can find them on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.

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Impressionists Improvised

Chris Gall’s spectacular album Impressionists Improvised reimagines works by composers like Debussy, Satie and Ravel.

Rhonda Rizzo interviewed him for her excellent site No Dead Guys.

The album is full of delights and Rhonda’s interview offers some really interesting insights.

If you’ve not already subscribed to Rhonda’s No Dead Guys, I recommend it. She posts thoughtful articles about being a pianist, guides to working as a professional pianist in specific spaces (e.g. being a restaurant pianist) and interesting interviews like this one.

Thanks for reading

I hope you enjoy exploring Clemens’ and Chris’s work. Have a wonderful weekend.

Garreth