geiginni wrote:

GhostFace wrote:...Listen, the Piano is the most perfectly created instrument. All twelve semi tones layed out in a beutifully sequencial order...

Yes, beautiful....this Equal Temperment that we've had for the last 350 years or so.

As cool as the greek & church modes, just intonation, microtonal & Partch scales are - we are used to and appreciate the implied intervallic relationships found in equal temperment more than any other form....correct or not!

Well, solo piano (Gould, Monk, McCoy Tyner, Hampton Hawes, good performances of Satie, La Monte Young, etc.) is surely Not Crap. (Edit: oh, and Margaret Leng Tan! Whoa! Holy Not Crap! Check out her performances on Cage's The Perilous Night.)

But equal temperament...as hacks go, it's ok, I guess. But it's an enormous pain in the ass when you really want to get different instruments in tune, and just intervals sound so much better, to me anyway. You're right that many of us are used to it, though. I'm reluctant to proclaim it beautiful across the board--in some contexts, sure.

Oh, and Gould's original recording of the Goldberg Variations has it all over the later re-recording, no matter what he thought about it. There's astonishing spirit and life in the earlier one.

have you heard Gonzales' Solo Piano album on No Format? it's really great! (i was shocked to learn he had anything at all to do with Peaches, but that's another story...) check it out, it's top-shelf material: http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=15420

so anyway, i do really like solo piano.

Debussy's Deux Arabesques, pretty much everything i've heard by Satie, Schubert's piano sonata in a major (particularly part three), and yes, Chopin's Nocturnes. btw, has anyone ever notice the uncanny similarity between Nocturne No. 15 in F major and that outro track on Blonde Redhead's Melody of Certain Damaged Kumkwats? i'd be very surprised if the former hadn't influenced the latter.

i have one of those Gould recordings of the Golberg Variations (i forget which one) and it doesn't do much for me at all.

Solo Monk and the occasional Keith Jarrett album are good listens, but not realyl my sort of thing.

i really like that John Cage record with the two screws on it. maybe that doesn't count though?

geiginni wrote:So much not crap.

Debussy wrote some of the greatest music ever for solo piano - completely transcends the limitations that previously existed. Ravel too.

Chopin's Nocturnes. Beethoven's "Hammerklavier", Bach's "Well Tempered Klavier", Haydn's 52nd & 55th sonatas, Ligeti's Etudes, Boulez' first and second sonatas.

Then there's Monk's solo stuff, and Fats Waller, McCoy Tyner, Hampton Hawes. Solo and solos in the context of accompiament.

Fortepianos are cool too. Period pianos and reproductions of pianos from the late 18th century. Sound kinda like a harpsichord in tone.

Not Crap

What he said. Not crap.

Rimbaud III wrote:
Satie, my man, SATIE!

And him.

Andrew L. wrote:Thelonious Monk.

N/C.

When you hear Louis Prima or David Lee Roth sing "Just A Gigolo," you may get a little of the song's essential pathos, but mostly you hear happy bravado and bluster.

Thelonious Monk's solo version of "Just A Gigolo" is an incredibly vivid and dignified portrait, in sound, of a man who knows his foolish machinations are transparent to everybody, who knows that life will go on without him, who knows he's already forgotten.

solo piano...it's gotta be hard work

n/c for most of the reasons mentioned

Angus Jung wrote:Thelonious Monk's solo version of "Just A Gigolo" is an incredibly vivid and dignified portrait, in sound, of the old man who knows his foolish machinations are transparent to everybody, who knows that life will go on without him, who knows he's already forgotten.

well said, and true

i have one of those Gould recordings of the Golberg Variations (i forget which one) and it doesn't do much for me at all.

as mentioned, the first one is best

Solo Monk and the occasional Keith Jarrett album are good listens, but not realyl my sort of thing.

jarrett is to monk as yes is to can

i really like that John Cage record with the two screws on it. maybe that doesn't count though?

sure it does

_cartridge music_, that counts, right?

Conlon Nancarrow, but I'm not sure that counts. He completely changed my perception of the instrument. He's not really "playing" it, but it is being played because of him. What a tornado.

steve wrote:Conlon Nancarrow, but I'm not sure that counts. He completely changed my perception of the instrument. He's not really "playing" it, but it is being played because of him. What a tornado.

What he said, too.

steve wrote:Conlon Nancarrow, but I'm not sure that counts. He completely changed my perception of the instrument. He's not really "playing" it, but it is being played because of him. What a tornado.

Thirded. I agree with the "not sure it counts" statement. What really does it for me in listening to Nancarrow isn't necessarily how he used the timbre and tonal characteristics of the piano so much as how revolutionary his compositional ideas concerning rhythm, tempi, polyphony, and the interlocking of these aspects in his work.

When thinking about solo piano music, part of the criteria for me is the exploitation of the timbral capabilities of the instrument, which can be quite impressive. It seems that often the piano is treated simply a note producing device with less consideration for its actual tonal possibilites and more focus on the straightforward range and dynamic abilities of the instrument.

tmidgett wrote:

i have one of those Gould recordings of the Golberg Variations (i forget which one) and it doesn't do much for me at all.

yeah, i just looked and it's the newer one i own.