Jacob's "Foum"

Jacob,

Damn that was fun!

What a great piece of work (as in the work it took to do it). A very public appreciation for the craft and skill that went into all the variations, and then on top of that to have the gall to have a ripping good time of it! The flow of the variations is well-paced, and the compositional styles and techniques add to the strength of the piece.

I have to take issue with calls for a different piano timbre. Why? Well, I've been listening to recordings of Nancarrow's music for 30 years, and am pleased to own the complete box set of the player piano works. What strikes me about the patch you used is how, in it's less-than-hi-fi reproduction, and with various quirks and anomolies (due, I'm sure in some part, to tuning), it very much has a flavor of his hoary old beasts down in Mexico. I'm not saying this wouldn't do well in another version, either with 'better' sounds, or (someday, somehow) on an acoustic deal. But just as I have no interest in hearing Tom Waits on a pristine Bosendorfer, I'm more than pleased with your current version.

Except the exposition sounds real stiff.

You made my afternoon (not bad to have your goofily cheerful variations play for me just after coming back from a great performance of Verdi's Requiem!). I hope Prent will pick this up for his Podcast, and if Kyle is listening I think it would fit well on his PostClassic station too.

You never posted a decent link, so if anyone else wants to hear it, look for FoumComplete at:

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/2/funwithxenharmonicitymusic.htm

(I didn't have the time to try the simultaneous version. I think you must be a pretty sick person...)

Cheers,
Jon

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan M. Szanto"

/makemicromusic/topicId_8048.html#8048

> You never posted a decent link, so if anyone else wants to hear it,
look
> for FoumComplete at:
>
> http://www.soundclick.com/bands/2/funwithxenharmonicitymusic.htm
>

***Thanks, Jon... that's what it took... This is great. I
particularly like the idea of stating the "straight" theme in 12-tET
first... Actually, I can't recall anybody else doing a theme and
variations like this. There may be examples, but I can't recall
them...

J. Pehrson