The art of improvisation

Jef de Roode is a Dutch pianist who makes music through improvisation. When performing on the piano, he frequently transforms popular or classical themes into unique pieces. Jef also creates original music through improvisation.

The Albums

Jef’s use of improvisation gives his music a unique and personal style. His albums feature solo piano recordings of both his original compositions and revised versions of other works.

Parable of the prodigal son

2025

Parable of the Prodigal Son is a piano album based on the biblical story; not as a message of religion or belief, but as a meditation in sound. A psychological and philosophical journey through loss, longing, recognition, and return.
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Melodies from the shore

2024

Melodies from the Shore is a piano album about finding calm in the middle of chaos. During a difficult time, I started walking along the sea. The silence helped. The open sky, the wind, the endless rhythm of the waves — they made space for something new. These pieces are improvised. They came slowly, shaped by those walks and by what I couldn’t say in words. The music holds stillness, memory, and a quiet kind of hope. Sometimes we don’t need answers. Just a place to breathe.
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Elegy

2019

Elegy is a piano album shaped by loss. I lost two my sisters. Later, my father. It took time before I could turn that silence into music — but eventually, I sat down and played. The pieces are improvised, but not without form. Each one follows its own logic — fragile, quiet, unresolved. This album doesn’t explain. It listens back.
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September

2017

September is one long piano improvisation — 43 minutes, one theme, shifting. I kept returning to the same melody, letting it change through rhythm, harmony, and touch. Like how the same sentence can mean something different, depending on when or how it's spoken. It’s not about variation. It’s about perception.
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In de Spiegel

2013

In de Spiegel was recorded one quiet afternoon in Theater de Spiegel in Zwolle. It wasn’t meant for release — just a session to explore, without pressure or plan. But something about that recording stayed with me. The music moves between harmony and dissonance, stillness and motion. I hadn’t expected to share it, but I’m glad I did.
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Better sorry than safe

2012

Better Sorry than Safe is what happens when you stop playing it safe. I wanted to see how far I could push — sound, rhythm, expectation. Some moments flirt with blues or Brazilian patterns, but nothing stays where you think it will. This album is built on risk. And the joy of not knowing what comes next.
Bedtime Stories

2010

Bedtime Stories is my way of bringing back something I missed — the quiet structure of being told a story before sleep. As a child, it meant safety, rhythm, and a way to let go of the day. As an adult, that kind of calm is harder to find. These pieces are like stories without words. Gentle, a bit dreamlike, open to interpretation.
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Annual report

2008

Annual Report is a reflection of a year I’d rather not repeat. Everything felt unstable — relationships, work, even the ground under my feet. I sat at the piano and let the music come, unfiltered. These improvisations aren’t polished. They’re raw, restless, uncertain. But they’re honest. And sometimes, that’s enough.
Changed

2007

Changed is a series of improvisations on melodies we think we know. I took familiar songs and classical themes, and let them shift — through memory, mood, and instinct. Nothing is played as it was. Each piece is a kind of question: what stays the same when everything else changes?
Piano improvisations

2006

Piano Improvisations was my starting point. A mix of original pieces and variations on familiar themes — spontaneous, unpolished, but true to how I play. It gave me a language to build on. And from there, everything else followed.