The here and now... and what and why

Complacency is a trap. At least that’s what I was thinking when I up and left the comfort of a Yankee prep school gig, where I taught music, amongst other things, for 28 years. There was also that life long career as a composer, musician and artist.

First, it was a year in St. Thomas, USVI, working as a reporter and shooting photography and then, a year in San Agustin Etla, Oaxaca, Mexico.
Time passed.
More time passed and a year back in the Athens of America followed by a hasty return to Oaxaca where it is all happening.
A couple of years in San Sebastian Etla and now, just down the road in San Pablo Etla. Life is good.

Click on an image to see it larger.
For additional photography please visit my flickr page.
You can find my music on Jango (World & latin - Worldbeat) and at iTunes and most online stores.
¡Soy consciente de todas las tradiciones del Internet!
If you are coming to Oaxaca, please contact me for tours or advice.

Santo Domingo

Santo Domingo
The view from Corazon del Pueblo

The hereafter re me

My photo
Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico
Musician, photographer, videographer, reporter, ex-officio teacher, now attempting to be a world traveler

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Conlon Nancarrow's piano

Yesterday I was lucky to visit two exhibitions, both in the San Paulo complex.  One was in the beautiful Textile Museum and I will get to that shortly.  However, the other contained one of my Holy Grails, one of Conlon Nancarrow's player pianos.  In an installation by Berenice Torres which utilized player piano rolls, there it sat, the piano.
Because I have been involved in music, in particular, electronic music for most all my life, I was always fascinated by Nancarrow's music, which used an early form of programming, punching holes in paper rolls.  He made the piano do the most wonderful and crazy things.  When I was doing grad work at New England Conservatory, I spent days listening to his stuff.  Check out these wonderful quotes from people far more knowledgeable that your humble blogger.
"Every time Conlon punched a hole, the world got more interesting." —Robert Willey.
 His life story is a fascinating one.
  Early performances of his highly complex work were failures, often due to incompetent musicians, and his attempts to relaunch his compositional career ground to a halt in the (understandably) underfunded and ill-equipped Mexican contemporary music scene of the day. Frustrated by years of indifference and incompetence, Nancarrow withdrew from 'normal' musical circles, and, inspired by the writings of Henry Cowell, ordered an Ampico Reproducing Piano and the required hole-punching equipment for the pianola rolls. The player piano became his sole musical outlet, and he wrote over 50 'Studies' exclusively for the mechanical instruments until a sudden explosion of commissions in the 1980's and 1990's saw live musicians once again tackle his formidably polyrhythmic works.
I can relate to hearing musical parts being played perfectly by computers and watching humans struggle to match the speed and accuracy, I think most composers today deal with that.
 
Ain't no human gonna play like this.  Here is a link to his Piano Player No3a.
So it was a wonderful experience to wander through the interesting exhibit while his music played in the background.  You can see the piano behind all these rolls.
 Ahhhh.... at last, in all its glory, an Ampico Reproducing Piano.
The maestro and the required hole-punching equipment for the pianola rolls.
 ¡Viva Nancarrow!

1 comment:

jcs said...

Pretty cool, you have to wonder how he composed it. I mean, he couldn't just highlight and delete or copy and paste. He must have made thousands of rolls just to hear the piece during its creation.