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La Monte Young's "The Well Tuned Piano" 1/5

submitted by shagen454

1 decade 3 years 6 months 1 week ago

Where to even begin... So few musical pieces have any sort of effect on me as this piece of work. Few recordings have ever made me bawl my eyes out. But, this recording is not necessarily sad. If you are in the right mood and have a little time put a set of headphones on and begin a journey into a cathartic & magical realm that will catapult you through the universe and back again.

This work had been called a "monumental modern marvel", been tragically overlooked and out-of-print since the mid-late 80's. La Monte Young began working on this in the early 60's and was said to haae had a tremendous influence on noise-rock dronesters from the Velvet Underground's John Cale and their early drummer/avante gardist Angus Maclise. But, after you hear this you may very well forget about anyone who ever played rock & roll. The drones & dissonance create an otherworldly environment for your mind. Many of the notes that you hear were never played a product of the tuning system that is Just Intonation.

Rykodisc the label that put the work out was bought out in the late 80's and the Well Tuned Piano was dropped from the catalog only to end up on file-sharing networks and now, luckily for those that have not heard it yet - Youtube. A couple of years ago I heard that it was going to be repressed but to my knowledge it has not and unfortunately if you do not have $2,5000 to spare you will have to suffice with the mp3s & youtube versions.

That said - I really, really do hope that you enjoy this as much as I do. This.is.INCREDIBLE!!!!!

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FXuL5aN6p4&feature=related
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J_kEAFnIwk&feature=related
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCxO0YBjaIU&feature=related
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvdiCAvf9qc&feature=related

Also as a little bonus - since I know Just Intonation is fairly difficult to figure out (I don't understand it, either) I found a Max plugin that let's you play with a midi Just Intonation synth on the Cycling '74 forums!!!!! This application was designed by someone who has programmed software for Brian Eno and Bjork & who programmed much of the Max program! http://cycling74.com/forums/topic.php?id=5486

Playing around with it made me realize that I think Panda Bear used this very application on his new album "Tomboy". When I saw him play "drone" live it sounded very much like some of these JI chords.