bars.

[Avery Todd]

Fred, List,

"Whale" was performed here a year or two ago and if I remember correctly,
we moved a Yamaha C-3 Disklavier from the pianist's studio for it. To my
knowledge, there were no problems with it.

He's also performed that piece on a D at A & M Univ. but as he said, with
great difficulty. Something about having to find different nodes and
sounding an  octave higher. In this case, there was just no other
alternative.

Avery

>Just to expand and be more specific as to some places a D won't work for
>Voice of the Whale (which I performed a couple months ago on a Steinway
>A - the only available house piano in the venue - so have a recent
>memory of the problem spots). The most prominent places where a D/B/A
>won't work are
>1) Second movement (Theme, I think called "Sea-Time"). The octaves with
>included 5th held silently by left hand while strummed by right include
>F2 and F#2 as upper notes. These are, of course, on the other side of
>the break, so are practically speaking impossible to include in the
>strum. And the highest note is part of the theme, hence absolutely
>essential.
>2) Last movement (Coda, something about "End of Time"). At the beginning
>of this movement there are several three note clusters (adjacent
>semitones) played by the left hand while the right touches nodes at the
>5th partial - just beyond the dampers. A couple of these nodes are
>inaccessible on the D/B/A. Also, toward the end, the final echo of the
>tympani from Also Sprach Zarathustra requires a similar touching of
>inaccessible nodal points. And it's one of the highlights of the whole
>piece, IMO.
>	There are a couple other spots, but this should be enough to make the
>point to a doubter that a D is definitely not the right instrument for
>Crumb, even if he is a distinguished guest and "therefore worthy of the
>best the venue has to offer."
>Regards,
>Fred
>
>Fred Sturm wrote:
>>
>> I'll just repeat here what I have written a couple times previous, and
>> which others have confirmed. Crumb's music for inside the piano was
>> written at the model L in his office. The layout of the strings
>> (particularly the bass break) makes many of his effects specific to this
>> or similar model pianos (eg, Steinway M, Baldwin M). A model D (or A or
>> B) Steinway is problematic for many effects. So if it were me, I would
>> inform the powers that be (starting lower on the totem pole with piano
>> faculty, and pointing out in a couple scores how this is so - Vox
>> Balaenae and Makrokosmos are good) that an alternate piano would serve
>> the purpose better. (And, BTW, it is likely that a small Yamaha or Kawai
>> might _not_ be a good alternate, due to cross struts at the far side of
>> the dampers. Makes it hard to obtain 5th partials and to do "chisel on
>> the strings" among other problems).
>>