Crumb's "Makrokosmos"

[McNeilTom@aol.com]

Kent is right, that this piece is fairly innocuous as far as damage to the
piano is concerned.  The trouble is that no one who's watching the performance
knows benign from disastrous in this realm.  One would need a very rare level
of close control over piano use to monitor all the alternative performance
practices of all the pianists, let alone 'composers',  wherever they do their
business.  Better to open Pandora's Box with maximum caution, it at all.

       -   Tom McNeil   -
Vermont Piano Restorations


In a message dated 99-03-05 23:50:56 EST, Kent Swafford wrote:

<<  The work is fairly tame in terms of "prepared piano." As I recall, the 
 worst thing is that string nodes need to be marked, and some notes 
 probably need to be marked so the pianist has some "bearings" inside the 
 piano where there are no familiar black/white key patterns.
 
 In this day and age I would suggest Post-it type stickers and/or 
 _removable_ tape, neither of which were available way back when. Stickers 
 cut from the sticky part of Post-its should stick but will be easily 
 removable with little or no residue, especially if removed immediately 
 after the performance.
 
 I think this piece can be performed with no damage to the piano, dampers, 
 or strings, especially if you can suggest that only removable adhesives 
 be used.
 
 Kent Swafford  >>