- I haven't heard microtonal music on piano since my 1990
Electronic music theory class at Hampshire College so it's been
25 yeas for my ears smile emoticon I was judging the piano
itself and the nature of hearing 1/4 tones in a novel context
rather than the musical piece, as the video was about the piano
for me and not about a 20 second portion of a longer song. Ok,
this will cause 99.999998% of you to go screaming in terror
but... it makes beautiful beats and harmonics - although its
hard to hear at first. Just create some extra slots inbetween
the tones in your mind and listen to the dissonance playing with
itself. But... THEN they had to add the violins. I'd omit the
violins completely. They were smearing it.
I expect a LOT of disagreement on this. I'd love to play it, so
long as I had a rotten tomato shield around me. === [two notes
disagreeing with my hacking of the piece] === I'm part of a
group for people with Perfect Pitch: I have perfect pitch - both
kinds - and in the comments I saw 20 different people cringing
in their comments. A lifetime ago (22 years), my friend took me
to various places to play pianos. I wrote about it in 1994 in a
writing exercise that was mainly focused on my amazement at the
potential for human interconnectivity on the Internet. :Meet a
younger me: ===Ken's Skills, Mar 23, 1994=== These years of
being jacked into the telephone lines, talking with people from
around the world, has made me a better thinker, and a better
writer. I am at a point now, with my writing, that I have
successfully transmitted my feelings and empathy to people whom
I will never meet. I have gotten compliments on my writing,
which isn't a common occurrence on the Internet. Years of
practice communicating on similar forums have given me the
ability to motivate people as well. For example, for a period of
a month and a half, I went to various piano stores around the
New Jersey area to try out the many different makes of grand
pianos out there. Every time I came back from a trip, I posted a
message to a forum where people interested in pianos and piano
playing participate, describing my feelings on the pianos that I
played, and include contact information if interested in trying
them out themselves. One of my trips was to try out a new,
almost legendary piano, the Fandrich piano. The Fandrich piano
is a small upright piano that has been designed to sound and
feel like a grand piano. Many people in that group were quite
interested in my findings. Because of my review of the Fandrich
piano, a man in Texas contacted the Fandrich people, and is
buying a Fandrich piano! He is spending $11,000 because of my
advice, and he hasn't even played the piano for himself yet.
Needless to say, Barb Fandrich, the wife of the designer, was
very pleased and called me from Washington State to thank me for
my positive review (which the gentleman from Texas faxed to
her). Ken's Skills, Mar 23, 1994. Part of the exercises.
======== So, that's why I would hack at the piece in this case:
I wanted to review the piano as well as the subjective cognitive
switch from hearing a piano in its typical
tempered-but-always-not-quite-perfect pitch, into a 1/4 tone
split. I enjoy dissonant music as well as microtones, particular
in indian music with the Sitar. So, that's why I would want to
leave the violins out. They smeared the tones and made it
difficult to distinguish the violin from piano for a few
seconds. Before then, I was hearing the overtones ringing which
the violins cut short. == In another vein, I can also hack at
music pieces I listen to: "How I would've done it differently"
if it was my piece. I can also appreciate the intent of the
composer, the abilities of the performers, the technical quality
of the instruments, and the experience of the piece itself in a
few ways. Honestly, what I want is to get my hands on this piano
and make some music with it. I can imagine many possibilities
with it, including a piece with swirling dissonance, as well as
one with an awkward purity.
