Continuous music is a genre of music, and much more besides. The purpose of this site is to elaborate on what it is, and what it is not; to collect some of its history, pieces, scores and texts; and to provide a repository of knowledge that a student could benefit from.

On your left you may find an example piece, but within itself continuous music has a great variety of sounds and flavours. It is also a philosophy, a technique and a way of thinking and feeling - a mode of existing at the piano. It was discovered, and has been solely professionally developed, by Lubomyr Melnyk. We believe it is neither better nor worse than any conventional piano music - Lubomyr bows very humbly before Beethoven et al. - just simply different; it is very different, and unfortunately the bulk of the difference is understood only by the performer. This has invited a lot of arrogance from the casual onlooker, but if you really listen to, and dwell on, this music with an open mind, you ought to realise you have never heard anything like it before (though, it is greatly diminished once recorded). If the world wants to hear anything like it again, in live performance, than Lubomyr and I require you, dear reader, to study it or recommend it to another who might study it.

Continuous music has many modes and the musical, or compositional, genres have evolved over time. Very simplistically, the common thread is an extremely easeful technique which permits fast, fluid motion, and a manner of playing which supports rich multitextural sounds and total comfortability with overlapping tones - the sustain pedal almost always held - in a way that preserves, rather than destroys, the harmonic depth and musicality. Certainly, playing any classical piece with the same use of the pedal would be a disaster, but it works in continuous music. This does not characterise the music - it is not simply the act of playing fast, doing a few scales and mashing the pedal while you're at it, in the same way that Beethoven's music is not the simple act of pressing a few keys quite well and flashing a few pretty chords. It has proven very difficult for both Lubomyr and myself over the years to exactly characterise the music, and one is almost better off not trying!