[CAUT] Rzewski forearm smash

[Zeno Wood]

Agreed.  It's a diagnostic tool, and I like the definition you added there,
of pounding the tuning out, not in.

That said, my original post was more a comment on the physicality of
Rzewski's piano works.

-Zeno W


> This appears to be a variant of the way too common misinterpretation of
> "pounding". Jim's description seems to be of the most common. It's not a
> tuning technique, or shouldn't be. It's a test of the tuning technique that
> got you to this test. I almost said something about it a few days ago when
> someone mentioned pounding a tuning in. That's exactly the wrong approach.
> You don't pound a tuning in. Any pounding done is an attempt to knock the
> tuning out, to find out how you did. It's a small flash of light into a big
> dark place, that might just tell you something important. The "smash"
> doesn't stabilize a piano, it's just a committee test blow after the fact.
> It also won't destabilize pitch any more than a test blow does, and won't
> cause a note to go out of tune the next time it's played any more than will
> a test blow. It's a diagnostic tool that, like a test blow, is one of the
> very very few indicators we have of how close we got to equalizing segment
> tensions during the tunings.
>
> Ron N
>
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