Honky Tonk attachment

J Patrick Draine draine@attbi.com
Fri, 17 Jan 2003 19:51:30 -0500


On Friday, January 17, 2003, at 05:32  PM, David Ilvedson wrote:

> List,
>
> The SF Ballet is going to do a ballet based on a Scott Joplin piece
> and they want a honky tonk sound.

Reminds me of a tuning a couple weeks ago.  15 year old Young Chang 
upright, "last tuned 8 years ago", half tone flat, wildly out of tune 
with itself. When I got there the young (20ish) man had some Joplin on 
the music stand. Somewhat sheepishly he volunteered, "Some of his music 
states 'play on untuned piano'." (I don't doubt that some delightful 
music publisher might have inserted that piece of wisdom; do others 
know if Joplin actually made such an instruction?)
I intoned "Believe me if Scott Joplin or Eubie Blake could heard this 
thing they would shout "Tune this thing NOW!"
End of today's rant,
Patrick D


This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC