{"id":352,"date":"2006-06-24T14:33:00","date_gmt":"2006-06-24T14:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cookylamoo.com\/wordpress\/?p=352"},"modified":"2010-01-09T16:35:28","modified_gmt":"2010-01-09T16:35:28","slug":"filler-by-proxy-xxxiv-another-great-italian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cookylamoo.com\/boringlikeadrill\/2006\/06\/filler-by-proxy-xxxiv-another-great-italian.html","title":{"rendered":"Filler by Proxy XXXIV: Another Great Italian"},"content":{"rendered":"
In one of the later, more indulgent passages of Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker” novels, he describes an out-of-it band’s music (from dim memory) as one muso playing in 3\/4, another in 5\/8, while a third played in \u03c0r<\/span>\u00b2. It seemed like a far-out joke to your callow, nerdy self, right up until you heard the music of Conlon Nancarrow<\/a>.<\/div>\n
Nancarrow’s Study for Player Piano No. 40<\/span> is written entirely in the rhythmic relationship of e<\/span><\/a>\/\u03c0. How do you play something like that? You can’t, so you get a machine to do it for you. If you’re living in 1948, in an earthquake-proof bunker in Mexico City, in exile from your native United States without a passport because of your socialist beliefs, the machine in question is a battered 1920s player piano, and you punch the notes for its piano rolls by hand, one at a time.<\/div>\n
Nancarrow was obsessed with hearing polyrhythms of a complexity the mind could perceive, but not imagine. He resorted to the player piano when musicians couldn’t, or wouldn’t (“they’ll think I’m playing wrong notes!”) play his music, and so expanded the realm of rhythmic and temporal possibilities beyond anyone’s previous expectations.<\/div>\n
I’m only bringing this up now because 2 Blowhards<\/a> (a propos<\/span> of drugs) has linked to a page of audio samples of Nancarrow’s music<\/a> at Minnesota Public Radio, including photos and more neat biographical material. Listen up, he’s fun.<\/div>\n
Wait:<\/span> more Nancarrow links.<\/div>\n