C. Nancarrow / Tango?

[JPRitchie]

Combination of very short MIDI sequences I did using the sheet music in the thread  "Opinions on the hardest piano piece ever written"
It's too short to give anything but a sense for how the rhythm is played.
-Jim Ritchie

[thracozaag]

  Performance from one of the Baryshnikov recitals (apologies for the extremely poor sound quality)

koji

[JPRitchie]

thracozaag, if this isn't your performance, can you provide me some assurance that it's not a copyright infringement to download it ?

-Jim

[thracozaag]

thracozaag, if this isn't your performance, can you provide me some assurance that it's not a copyright infringement to download it ?

-Jim

  Well, it's mine, so it's cool with me (just don't re-post it anywhere, obviously).

koji

[Dazzer]

god this piece sounds like a load a crap... no offense to you of course koji...

just senseless... its not music.

[JCarey]

That's amazing, Koji! How long did it take you to figure out how to play a piece like that?

[JPRitchie]

Well, koji, not too sure why you didn't start your own thread, but, yes, the piano may not be the best instrument for Nancarrow, despite his association with player pianos. Maybe an orchestra is required. In any case, there's a string rendition below for comparison free of crowd noise. Strings sustain a note througout the duration of a note moreso than a piano does - that leads to a more melodic sound. 

I did this snip just to demonstrate the rhythm. It's pretty close to the sheet music, but, whether you get anything else from this style or not .. that's a matter of personal taste I suppose.

-Jim

[Etude]

That definately needs to be faster.  It just sounds like nothing (the midi, Koji's speed seemed about right.)

[Skeptopotamus]

god this piece sounds like a load a crap... no offense to you of course koji...

just senseless... its not music.

o.o  Most people learn it because it's assigned to them as an excersize in rhythm.  Me on the other hand.... I just love the piece XD  But you shouldn't judge the piece on Koji's uber low-quality recording (SOUND QUALITY).  It's really a very vast and complex piece, especially for a 2 minute one.  Also... the ending is pretty messed up in that recording as far as playing it goes.  HIS words not mine XD  It takes some warming up to but it really is a good piece in my personal opinion, and is certainly not just random noise when you look at it.

[Etude]

Listening to Koji's recording was the first time I heard anything like a tango in it.

[JPRitchie]

Koji, I listened to your mp3 several times - thanks for posting it. I definitely have the tempo too slow by at least a factor of 2. Mine needs more work.
Regards,
Jim

[thracozaag]

That's amazing, Koji! How long did it take you to figure out how to play a piece like that?

  Three weeks, 6-7 hours a day, just on that piece.

koji

[thracozaag]

Listening to Koji's recording was the first time I heard anything like a tango in it.

  And there's the rub; yet another difficulty of this piece is trying to bring out the tango-like feel (although Nancarrow facetiously puts a "?" after Tango, heh) inherent in the piece.  The problem with the Midi's I've heard of it is that while the rhythms are accurate (certainly more accurate than I could do), the piece ends up sounding like, well, crap (because of the lack of any sort of tango-feel whatsoever, imo).

koji

[JPRitchie]

MIDI renders the rhythm accurately, as noted. That is essential for getting the intended effect of a syncopated work, such as a tango. In a work as unconventional as this, MIDI (or player piano) is a reliable way to be sure the rhythm is correct, especially as the tempo increases. I'm not defending the musicality of this half-speed, 12-bar MIDI worked up in a couple of hours, but if correctly programmed, MIDI will render the rhythms in the score at arbitrary tempo.

Something off-putting is that, as mentioned in the thread, I don't see why the top two staves (3/4 and 4/8 t.s.) weren't combined into a single 6/8 one with two voices. Such needless complication leaves me leery of some gimmickry.
-Jim

[Etude]

Something off-putting is that, as mentioned in the thread, I don't see why the top two staves (3/4 and 4/8 t.s.) weren't combined into a single 6/8 one with two voices. Such needless complication leaves me leery of some gimmickry.
-Jim

Maybe because it was written from a theoretical point of view, and not for the performer. 
?

[JPRitchie]

"Maybe because it was written from a theoretical point of view, and not for the performer.  "

A good theoretician should have seen it immediately. And why would a composer purposefully make his works more difficult for a solo performance ?
-Jim

[thracozaag]

  Nancarrow did write a set of pieces for player-piano.

koji

[JPRitchie]

Nancarrow did write a set of pieces for player-piano.

I'm not familiar enough with the intricacies of a player piano to know if there's some reason therein for the complication. But, as far as MIDI goes, multiple simultaneous time signatures leads to more complications, whereas multiple voicing is as easy as a button-push.

-Jim

[thracozaag]

MIDI renders the rhythm accurately, as noted. That is essential for getting the intended effect of a syncopated work, such as a tango. In a work as unconventional as this, MIDI (or player piano) is a reliable way to be sure the rhythm is correct, especially as the tempo increases. I'm not defending the musicality of this half-speed, 12-bar MIDI worked up in a couple of hours, but if correctly programmed, MIDI will render the rhythms in the score at arbitrary tempo.

Something off-putting is that, as mentioned in the thread, I don't see why the top two staves (3/4 and 4/8 t.s.) weren't combined into a single 6/8 one with two voices. Such needless complication leaves me leery of some gimmickry.
-Jim

  The "proper rendering" of the rhythms will certainly not guarantee a successful performance, imo.

koji

[JPRitchie]

The "proper rendering" of the rhythms will certainly not guarantee a successful performance, imo.

koji

True. But, I hope that a proper rendering of the rhythms would be part of a successful one.
-Jim

[JPRitchie]

FWIW, there's a short bio. on Nancarrow in the Wikipedia
-Jim

[nearenough]

I have a LP (?Nonesuch) of a player piano performance of some Nancarrow. Interesting and amusing the first time; annoying the next.

[retrouvailles]

I have a LP (?Nonesuch) of a player piano performance of some Nancarrow. Interesting and amusing the first time; annoying the next.

Did you have to bump a 5 year old thread to give a rather useless (in my opinion) opinion? Yes, I realize the irony here.

Anyways, I happen to really like Nancarrow and his influence on rhythm is widely felt in much music that came after him. Tango? is an extremely difficult piece that takes an extreme amount of precision to really make a mark on an audience.