Unsubscribing

[Susan Kline]

Dear Avery,

In the summer of 1996 the Bloch Festival had George Crumb as a visiting
composer, and the Voice of the Whale was performed on a Yamaha C3, with no
evidence of trouble. It was in good condition, especially for a rental.

The pianist was Linda Lorati Barker, who teaches in Portland, Oregon. She
did a fanstastic job. If you want to discuss the preparation of the piano,
I'll try to find her phone number for you. 

The preparation included marking damper heads with tape, laying something
metallic across the middle treble strings, and rubbing the wire of a few
notes in the middle treble with a chisel (but not roughly) from one
particular spot on the string to another. The spots were marked with a
short line (1/3" or so) of magic marker on the treble wire itself. I
cleaned it off immediately after the concert with a pencil eraser, removed
the tape, and could find no evidence of any damage.

The effects were quite fantastic. The marked damper heads, mainly in the
extreme bass, showed the pianist where to place a finger on the bass wire
(either in front of or behind the damper head) to make harmonics when the
notes was played with the hammer. 

There were also deep blue lights, and the performers worse half-masks. It
was very strange tuning as they tested the lights. (in a hurry; there had
been an auto accident on the highway, and my car sat stock still for 45
minutes ...)

I hope your performance is as satisfying as this one was for me. It was
kind of appropriate to the area, near Depoe Bay on the central Oregon
coast, since it is a prime spot for whalewatching.

Susan

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At 05:58 PM 6/4/98 -0500, you wrote:
>List,
>
>   Unless something changes, I will need to be off the list for a week,
>maybe two.
>   During our Texas Music Festival in June/July a George Crumb piece (Voice
>of the Whale) is being done that, according to the pianist, requires a
>Steinway L. Or at least a piano with basically the same scale breaks.
>   So today, I suddenly find myself in the position of probably having to
>rebuild one of our Steinway L's and have it performance ready by June 26.
>   The Steinway dealer doesn't have one that size in his rental fleet and
>he won't take a new one off his floor to rent (I can't really blame him).
>   I'm ready now to start letting down the tension to remove the strings,
>so in order to get more work done more quickly, before I leave tonight I'm
>going to unsubscribe for a while.
>   If anyone wants to get hold of me, just click on: mailto:atodd@uh.edu
>or address it to: atodd@uh.edu (I didn't know you could do the "mailto"
>thing either, in certain programs anyway, until someone sent me a message
>yesterday with that in it.)
>   Enjoy the list. I'll miss it.
>
>Avery
>
>P.S. Has anyone ever done/heard/tuned for that Crumb piece? How "prepared"
>is the piano. The pianist says it's nothing damaging.
>
>___________________________
>Avery Todd, RPT
>Moores School of Music
>University of Houston
>Houston, TX 77204-4893
>713-743-3226
>atodd@uh.edu
>http://www.music.uh.edu/
>
>MUSIC DEFINITIONS:
>   Accelerando : what happens when drummers have to keep a steady beat. 
>
>
>
>
>
Susan Kline
P.O. Box 1651
Philomath, OR 97370
skline@proaxis.com		

"The closest you will ever come in this life to an orderly universe is a
good library."
		-- Ashleigh Brilliant