Culture Icons... R.I.P

Bethena is also a lovely one. Pineapple Rag, another. Also, Solace. The big hits like Maple Leaf Rag are okay but overrated IMLTHO. (Nothing against Canada, mind you) I miss being able to play some of those as well as I did before a car accident drove my hands into the dash pretty hard. (Dave Brubeck's KB style was evolved from doing the same thing, with both of his hands IIRC - he's sort of the ultimate maker of lemonade from lemons, in that respect) So this being the Culture Icons thread, I guess mentioning Brubeck makes this post slightly legit.
 
TheVat said:
I recall putting thumbtacks on the felt hammers of an old beat up upright I used to have. Great old timey saloon sound. I learned Magnetic Rag on it, and a couple others. It was perfect for Kitten on the Keys, but that piece was technically beyond me, so it sounded like the saloon pianist had a few too many. Or the kitten, whichever.
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Picric acid (2,4,6 trinitrophenol) on selected keys can be good too. Or nitrogen triiodide, if you are very, very careful when applying it.
 
Impressive performance. And all without Pickwick acid. In lieu of fireworks he makes the most of some descant-like voicing way up, C6-C8, soaring up over the Russian anthem theme. I can see a Taiwanese crowd getting into the repelling-a-huge-invasion theme.
 
TheVat said:
I recall putting thumbtacks on the felt hammers of an old beat up upright I used to have. Great old timey saloon sound. I learned Magnetic Rag on it, and a couple others. It was perfect for Kitten on the Keys, but that piece was technically beyond me, so it sounded like the saloon pianist had a few too many. Or the kitten, whichever.
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I always assumed that the tack piano was an attempt at emulating a saloon piano, say, which has drifted slightly out of tune without having to detune one's piano, but I'm not certain on that. Whereas the tack piano will add a non-tuned metallic percussive element, the slightly out of tune piano will occasionally offer beats. With the moderately fast tempo of most ragtime pieces, these beats will likely only be picked up subconsciously; but with certain rag-adjacent music, say a number of Satie's "furniture music" pieces, the tempos are sufficiently slow as to allow the beats to be heard for a few cycles. And with the Gnossiennes particularly being influenced by Javanese Gamelan, this could prove interesting.

That said, working out the particulars of how a piano might drift out of tune over time, and with moving and rough handling, might prove a challenge and working out the specific alternate tunings which might best suit these pieces would likely prove even more difficult. I'm kind of lazy, but if anyone else is game for it... And it goes without saying that I should be given a writing credit here, of course.

Reinbert de Leeuw's very slow, meditative readings are a good staring point, albeit with a properly tuned piano.
 
parmalee said:
I always assumed that the tack piano was an attempt at emulating a saloon piano, say, which has drifted slightly out of tune without having to detune one's piano, but I'm not certain on that. Whereas the tack piano will add a non-tuned metallic percussive element, the slightly out of tune piano will occasionally offer beats. With the moderately fast tempo of most ragtime pieces, these beats will likely only be picked up subconsciously; but with certain rag-adjacent music, say a number of Satie's "furniture music" pieces, the tempos are sufficiently slow as to allow the beats to be heard for a few cycles.
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Yup. Tacking is a quick dirty detuning, with the added effect of harsher more metallic tones which will cut through the tavern cacophony. You could use tuning wrenches and, say, separate all the unisons by a couple Hertz, like one concert A at 440 and the other at 442 yielding a 2 hz beat, but yeah that would be arduous work all up and down the kb. There are pros who can install a tack rail which can be engaged just when honky-tonking, and that will spare the felt from abuse and also clean out the wallet. (I just used an expendable and moribund Gulbransen)

Predicting pitch drift on an old upright sounds....impossible. Temp, humidity, pin slippage, pin block warpage, harp frame distortions, string fatigue, etc. Natural detuning is a process of serendipity, AFAICT.
 
Chris Rea - of Road to Hell fame - RIP - aged 74.
www.bbc.co.uk

Driving Home for Christmas singer Chris Rea dies aged 74

A statement from his wife and two children says he "passed away peacefully in hospital earlier today following a short illness, surrounded by his family".
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk

I was just listening to this only this morning...

Great guitarist and singer.
Battled pancreatic cancer at the age of 33, and had a few bits of organs removed, as well as some other illnesses during his life, but didn't let that stop him.
 
Sarkus said:
Chris Rea - of Road to Hell fame - RIP - aged 74.
www.bbc.co.uk

Driving Home for Christmas singer Chris Rea dies aged 74

A statement from his wife and two children says he "passed away peacefully in hospital earlier today following a short illness, surrounded by his family".
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk

I was just listening to this only this morning...

Great guitarist and singer.
Battled pancreatic cancer at the age of 33, and had a few bits of organs removed, as well as some other illnesses during his life, but didn't let that stop him.
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Driving home for Christmas on the wrong side of the road, in a very transatlantic-looking snowstorm, apparently. The A1 going north towards Middlesborough was never like that.
 
Sarkus said:
Brigitte Bardot - aged 91
www.bbc.co.uk

Brigitte Bardot, French actress and animal rights activist, dies aged 91

The 91-year-old revolutionised French cinema in the 1950s, but became increasingly controversial in her later years.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk
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Didn't know that she was even still alive, till we haphazardly watched Le Mépris a couple of months back on Tubi TV. And checked to see what age she had made it to, but then discovered she was yet an "is" rather than a "was". Can't speak for hubby, but It was probably the only significant reading up on or thought that I had ever given to Bardot or her bio in my life. So not surprised, in typical belated coincidence fashion, that she croaked a while later.
_
 
C C said:
Didn't know that she was even still alive, till we haphazardly watched Le Mépris a couple of months back on Tubi TV. And checked to see what age she had made it to, but then discovered she was yet an "is" rather than a "was". Can't speak for hubby, but It was probably the only significant reading up on or thought that I had ever given to Bardot or her bio in my life. So not surprised, in typical belated coincidence fashion, that she croaked a while later.
_
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Hubby was likely more interested ;-)
 
  • Haha
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Sarkus said:
Jesse Jackson, 84, US civil rights leader:
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He [Turnip] says it was his pleasure to "help Jesse along the way".

Reading that while sipping coffee was almost what they call a "spit-take."

(Long ago I tried to launch the Net acronym SCACK, Spewing Coffee Across Computer Keyboard, but it never caught on)

Harris's comments however were spot on. I've never quite accepted that the uninspiring and often soporific Mike Dukakis beat Jackson in the 1988 presidential primary. I voted for Jackson and had the bumper sticker.
 
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