Steinway D : NOT for half stochastic music !

[Stéphane Collin]

Hello list.

Funny story.  I'll try to make it short.
Big event for the 50th anniversary of the media library in Belgium.  They 
asked a renown (in Belgium) composer to write a commemorative piece.
We rehearse the piece, written for piano, orchestra and electronics, at the 
usual rehearsal room of the orchestra.  The composer comes with a ping-pong 
ball and let it rebound on the trebble strings of the piano (with dampers 
lifted), a very common Yamaha C3.  The guy, most seriously, takes about 10 
minutes to try out things and to ascertain the exact position and heigth 
from which to release the ping-pong ball in order to obtain the special 
rebound pattern that he was looking for.  We decide to chose to release the 
ball from the heigth of one hand above the middle of the speaking length of 
C6, which produces a most lovely rebound pattern.  The guy calls this half 
stochastic music (because you can't really predict on which strings the ball 
will actually rebound).  We start rehearsing the orchestra and electronic 
parts, and wow ! the guy had composed a very clever piece all based on that 
very rebound pattern, with violins imitating the pattern quite precisely, 
and electronics responding with nice complementary structures, etc.  Nice 
piece for sure, full of imagination.
Now the D day, in the largest venue of the land, in presence of her majesty 
the queen, and a very large audience, hence the very best Steinway D in 
town, etc.  For some reason, we couldn't do a last rehearsal on location, 
and we only had a quick sound check.  So, we played the piece in front of 
the audience.  One hand above middle of speaking length of C6, one look at 
the conducter, smiling, release the ping-pong ball, which after the first 
rebound jumped ridiculously toward the front, on the dampers, ending it's 
movement having only produced one "ting" (C6) and a short woody blurr.  It 
was a total disaster.  All the logic of the piece was destroyed. 
Fortunately, only the composer and the musicians noticed the anomaly.
Only after everybody was gone, I noticed how much the strings are out of 
horizontal in a Steinway D (like Dale pointed out when we were talking about 
hammer bore distance), making it impracticable for half stochastic music.

Sorry for length.
Best regards.

Stéphane Collin.