[CAUT] Prepared pianos. etc. Was "Agraffes and dampers"

[Jim Busby]

Hi Ric,

 

I agree with you. The first time I heard a particular John Cage piece (I
can't remember the name) it blew me away! It sounded like an African
percussion piece and piano, all played by two pianists. 

 

Ric, FYI I tuned a temperament for a fellow with some notoriety, James
Tenney, from California who had a tuning that was based on an extended F
harmonic series. Sounded like hell... until you heard the piece. Wow! He
played about every note on the piano and let it ring out. It's one of
those things that is hard to describe.

 

Here is the tuning (You can't really call it a temperament. He didn't.)

 

A          -14

A#        -29

B          -49

C          +2

C#        -27

D          -49

D#        -31

E          -12

F           0

F#        +5

G          +4

G#        -2

 

If you want to hear something different but intriguing look up his
piece.

 

Regards,

Jim Busby BYU

 

________________________________

From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of
Richard Brekne
Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 3:45 PM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: [CAUT] Agraffes and dampers

 

Hi Jeff

I agree... to some point :)  Lets face it... the only piano that even
remotely has any design features that lend themselves to prepared piano
music is the Sauter... and it only has some lines on the soundboard that
indicate the position of a couple harmonics. The instrument was not
designed at all for music involving all maner of foreign objects stuck
in the strings or various hammering tools used to bang, pluck, zing or
zang the strings into some kind of vibration. Nor were they designed to
deal with heavy weights layed across string sections  or pianists
dinking around with the damperheads. 

That said... and this is where the to some point bit comes in..... as
long as whatever preparation and useage does not result in a detriment
to the design useage of the instrument.... I have no problem with any of
it.  Quite the opposite.  The (carefull) exploration of sound that the
instrument is capable of is a fascinating world.  What I dont understand
is why this doesnt include temperament / tuning experiementations to any
real significant degree.... but thats another issue.

Cheers
RicB


I'm sorry.  I must disagree to some point.

Performers seem to be of the opinion that the composers of this music  
are more the authority of piano design than are manufacturers and  
technicians.

Fuddy-duddie or not, there must be some education that much of this  
stuff is quite damaging to the piano.  Some of it doesn't even make  
sense - like using a wedge mute for single unisons -- even the  
largest ones just fall through to the soundboard.  I don't care how  
much some of you respect some of the composers or how "cool" some of  
that music sounds, it is my opinion that those who compose this type  
of stuff are guilty of negligent vandalism, if there is such a  
thing.  When some music departments require some form of this stuff  
for composition students to graduate, so that framming on a $100,000  
piano with a beer can is all one can come up with to meet the  
requirement, there are serious problems with this form of composition.

Jeff

-- 
 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/caut.php/attachments/20070515/93bad587/attachment.html 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 6216 bytes
Desc: image001.jpg
Url : https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/caut.php/attachments/20070515/93bad587/attachment.jpe