More up to speed, perhaps.

One of the biggest issues of this ossified study of hundred-some year old music is that our university students are being taught that Beethoven, for instance, is forever… or at least his music is.  We play them wonderful excerpts recorded on Steinway 9-footers of his Sonatae, and it never occurs to the young initiates that this music invites a more curatorial perspective.  Jan Swafford at Slate has a wonderful article with sound examples of the difference a period instrument can make.  After all, Beethoven had only 5 and a half octaves, and timbres that varied widely!  No wonder he treated each hand as a different instrument — the timbral differences in the high and low ranges made them sound quite constrasting indeed.

RIP Porkins.

Not only does pitch exist, it’s part of the trifecta of all music (the other brothers Timbre and Rhythm will have their day).

Sound is a giant pitch. Not just one, but lots of pitches. Big pitches, small pitches, pitches you can pick out in a crowd, and pitches that don’t sound like a pitch but actually are pitchy, if you look closely enough.
Double entendre’s aside, every sound you hear is a note: music just organizes all those sounds into something kind of pretty, sometimes. Identifying these discrete things we call pitch and manipulating them allows us to make what most people call music.

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Also, take a listen to all the unison used, and the way things are arranged.  The piano licks are also quite perfectly suited.  Listen for the bass voice occasionally peeking out!  Good stylistic lessons here.

Also with video goodness, and the price is right!

His general lack of available recordings has made him a less celebrated pianist than perhaps he deserves, as well as his unwillingness to fit squarely into the burgeoning bebop style of his contemporaries.  Jeff would certainly whine about Lennie’s big fat 10-note piano chords, and this recording showcases plenty of these in all of their crunchy glory.  What’s maybe most interesting to me about this particular recording (and I don’t have a title for it) is the way that Lennie’s chords are so very dense that they almost constitute entire modes or scales played at once.  The motion between them is difficult to decipher, but the movement is clear.

His melody lines are clearly articulated but tend to refuse to gravitate to the usual tonal homes of bebop.  I enjoy how chromatic his playing is; it certainly foreshadows his atonal ventures to come.  Such a strange syncopated jaunt this is!  And though it’s clearly in C minor, do I hear an Eb as the final bass note?

Also, seriously, is that drummer playing straight eighth notes?  Those wacky Germans!

I will have to study his educational methods more fully very soon.

He's on a mission from Gad.

From The Well Tempered Clavier.  Two tracks:

These two are particularly charming!  They are the fifth and sixth pieces within the Well-Tempered Clavier, and carry with them a certain spunk and personality — Bach was clearly writing with the intent of showcasing the tonal possibilities of all twelve keys, and accordingly the merits of well temperament.  Immediately after the very famous preludes and fugues in C major and C minor, the C# major counterparts showcase a glib, enthusiastic, thorough, and entirely endearing peek at the possibilities of what Bach must surely have considered extended tonality.  The Prelude is almost a taunt, an excited dance which dares to challenge, but never loses its friendly optimism.

In this recording, the notes sound conspicuously like sharp notes and not flat notes, akin to Db major.  I am yet to discover if the particular chord changes of Seventeenth Century works as compared to those of the Ninteenth Century in fact match these — however, I get the distinct sense that this prelude in particular is “sharp” in nature, and constantly strives upward along the circle of fifths .  It might be due to the tuning of the particular piano, also.  Nonetheless, the persistent presence of an E# sounds like Bach’s biting his thumb quite deliberately.

In any case, enjoy this set, and see it as Bach’s joy at having discovered a system of intonation which allows him to play such unexpected games centered around an impossible tonic.  This prelude is purely a delight in a new discovery, altogether with a good-natured teasing of the nay-sayers, who still can’t quite comprehend the enlivened frolick.

These two are played by Glenn Gould in 1965.  It’s noteworthy that Chopin would always play Bach prior to public recitals; nothing else could adequately prepare him for the independence of melodic line he would require.

I cannot imagine a more captivating talk on music appreciation — he accomplishes so much in a very very short time period.

It is the most successful solo jazz album of all time, but Keith Jarrett wants to see each of the 3.5 million copies of “The Köln Concert” stomped into the ground.

(via Metafilter).

More here.