this made me smile

[quantum]

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Virtuosic page turning if you ask me 

[counterpoint]

whoa       

[m19834]

ha ha ha .... all I can say is that I felt so relieved it wasn't me who was trying to turn pages for that circus act  !   Okay, I watched the video without sound ... I particularly enjoy how she beat him in getting off the stage  .


Quantum, how did you find this particular video ?

[mcgillcomposer]

That was intended as a joke, right?

[tompilk]

That was intended as a joke, right?

i fear not, as the composer has a wikipedia page and the artist has more recordings here: https://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=321483
He has some sorabji on there...

[Bob]

I think I found a nice piece for church there.

I was waiting for him to punch the page turner and smash the piano lid down.  Just blind rage.  Do some arm flexing wrestling pose and grunt at the audience.




Doesn't sound that far-fetched to me.... except for the little screams.  Sounds modern.  It did look like he was justing hitting random notes at first.  And he couldn't have memorized it?  tsk tsk  (shakes head)  If someone said it was a joke, I'd buy that.  If it's real, it seems legit enough though too.

Haha...  Some of those screams sound like he got something caught in the piano key cover lid.


Yes... a new church piece.  Including screaming and a little stamping/hopping.  Meditate this church people!


There should have been a fist at the end.  A beating of the chest maybe.

I wonder what his hands look like after that.  Being that aggressive, doing glissandi like that... I hope that piano doesn't bite much.

[rachfan]

He needs to turn over a new leaf.   

[allthumbs]

What a cacophony! I think the pianist is a phych ward inmate, if I'm not mistaken.

[Bob]

I suggest everyone try adding a few screams to their upcoming performance.  Then report back to us on the results.

[thalbergmad]

Complete trash.

Bruce Lee playing the piano.

Thal

[tds]

where is the climax in this piece?

composer: ??/10
pianist: ?/10
pianist's adrenaline: 9.999/10 ( lost the 0.001 point for not raping anyone at the end )
page turner: 1.5/10
audience: 10/10

[tehpro]

modern orchestral music at it's finest!

[mcgillcomposer]

Haha...this is the kind of self-indulgent bullshit I was talking about in the Rachmaninoff thread. Whoever thinks this has any artistic merit whatsoever is, sorry to say, a bloody idiot.

[Bob]

Complete trash.

Bruce Lee playing the piano.

Thal

Is Bruce Lee Karate?  I think some Karate and other performance moves would have been appropriate.  A nice sharp "Ha!" with a palm hit to the piano.

where is the climax in this piece?

composer: ??/10
pianist: ?/10
pianist's adrenaline: 9.999/10 ( lost the 0.001 point for not raping anyone at the end )
page turner: 1.5/10
audience: 10/10

Would it be the world's greatest most ultimate climax though?  Maybe we should start a poll.

I thought the raping of the piano was enough.  I would not have been surprised if he was a little more literal about it either.  And you know, someone is just going to step it up and push the edge of this type of performance.  (Is that music?...)

I thought the page turner did a good job staying out of his way.  He need some type of "display of dominance" move though at the end.  A nice Drum Corp style salute/f-you to that piano maybe. 

[quantum]

Quantum, how did you find this particular video ?

Related video links from watching vids of this thread:
https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,21829.0.html

It was a pleasant surprise, as I like hearing this sort of stuff every once in a while.


I'd give the page turner a 9/10.  She avoided getting a KO throughout the whole thing.

[Etude]

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I admit to skipping quite a bit of this particular piece.

We can't even say an abbreviation of "what the ***"  anymore??? 

[thalbergmad]

How can a score possibly exist for this horsecrap?

I think it was a Magna comic.

Thal

[tds]

as instructed by the composer, page turner needs to prepare a big bucket of water put beside her on the stage.  And as in the last 10 measures of the piece, the composer has written: "POUR THE WATER ONTO THE PIANIST NOW!!", she totally didn't observe that....

she ruined the climax in this piece...

[0range]

modern orchestral music at it's finest!

Sounds like a herd of exorcisms.

[minor9th]

He played a wrong note at :37.

[thalbergmad]

Did not like the phrasing @ 1.40

[Bob]

Sounds like a herd of exorcisms.

Nice. 

[ahinton]

Mild stuff, really - and, frankly, not wildly interesting either intellectually or emotionally (to me, at least). The ability to get around the keyboard with at least as much - indeed, far more - facility, energy, etc. nevertheless remains vital, provided that what is being expressed is of sufficient intensity and intellectual and emotional interest. I look forward to the time when this kind of physical virtuosity - or indeed Marc-André Hamelin's - becomes accepted as the norm for college entrants (and I do not at all mean to undermine either in so saying). We composers will always push the boundaries of expression farther and farther (if we're doing our job properly) and it will accordingly be as important now and in the future as it was when Alkan did it that pianists (and everyone else) catch up with that. Noda has also given the world première of the last two of Sorabji's One Hundred Transcendental Studies which, I suggest, taxed his faculties rather harder, albeit in quite different ways (these two pieces are a prelude and fugue, of which the prelude is a kind of offshoot from the J S Bach Chromatic Fantasia); he got to these before Fredruik Ullén did (Ullén is the phenomenal Swedish pianist who is recording all 100 studies - all seven hours or so - for BIS).

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

The "Beards" will be on later to explain to us the structure and beauty of this musical abortion.

Thal

[ahinton]

The "Beards" will be on later to explain to us the structure and beauty of this musical abortion.

My beard is very short and my "explanation" (were I to make one) would be shorter still, but don't you think that any reference to "abortion" should be in that other thread?

Best,

Alistair

[lisztisforkids]

Fairly insulting.

 Anyways, I think that this is perhaps a joke. How can any human being actually learn the notes for this monstrosity?

[Bob]

It doesn't all have to be written down and calculated.  Different but I'm not suprised.



Heeeeeyah!  *cracks a whip and drives a herd of exocisms out of the thread*  If you ever see someone just standing around screaming, that must be a little doggie who got lost from the main herd.

[iumonito]

I liked it.  Nice connection between Alkan's Allegro Barbaro and Rzewki's Cotton Mill Blues, via Gerard Depardieu.

This is hardly avant gard these days, though.

Thanks for posting.

P.S.  The music I have played in this style had approximate notes, gestures or registers only, so no specific pitches were called for.

P.S.2 This is certainly music.  Rather straight-forward in rhythm and sound approach.  Life is not less chaotic and driven in its absurdity, although like always with art, much more polifaceted.  Bravo to Kijama, and peace to your soul.

[mcgillcomposer]

The point is that it all sounds the same and is nothing more than a ridiculous circus act. The ear isn't capable of distinguishing between much of what is here; he is just banging on the piano the entire time. There is nothing for the ear to compare and distinguish between - no contrast. It is stuff like this that causes people to laugh in the face of contemporary music...makes me feel bad for all of the really good composers who deserve to be heard and aren't.

[Derek]

I enjoyed it because it was absolutely hilarious. Me and my fiancee really enjoyed watching that together...thanks for posting it!     And honestly, there were some catchy double octave riffs in multiple spots.  I loved the screaming and hopping, not unlike Keith Jarrett! (almost as funny too)

[quantum]

Why would you attend a circus?  Because performances defy logic and we wish to criticize that, or because you want to chuckle at the ridiculousness of the clowns. 

Does all music have to be serious music? 

[michel dvorsky]

The point is that it all sounds the same and is nothing more than a ridiculous circus act. The ear isn't capable of distinguishing between much of what is here; he is just banging on the piano the entire time. There is nothing for the ear to compare and distinguish between - no contrast. It is stuff like this that causes people to laugh in the face of contemporary music...makes me feel bad for all of the really good composers who deserve to be heard and aren't.

I fully agree with this.

It really bothers me when people, in an attempt to be sophisticated and erudite, defend the musically indefensible and castigate those who won't call crap by its true name.  Pablo Casals came straight out with it and basically called this type of music garbage...basically that it was an attempt by composers to simply do something that no-one else has done in lieu of actually obtaining a real compositional craft. 

[quantum]

The fact that this music is receiving polar responses probably signifies the composer is doing something right.  There are those who like, and those who don't - which is quite acceptable. 

[michel dvorsky]

Not at all. There were people who thought that Weber was a greater composer than Beethoven, and there were those who didn't. 

[thalbergmad]

There were people who thought that Weber was a greater composer than Beethoven

There still are.

Thal

[iumonito]

I enjoyed watching the video, and not for its hilarity.  In fact, what I felt the music conveys is a great sense of chaos, anger, and desperation, some alienation too.

I have not done analysis, and am unfamiliar with the score, but I am very skeptical of those who call this garbage, as I recall the same reaction meeting great works of Beethoven, R. Strauss, Stravinsky, Antheil, Boulez, Ligeti, and a myriad of other great composers.  Eerily, almost the same words: this is not music, it is cacophony (on Beethoven's 9th); this is the music of a madman (on Stravinsky's Rite of Spring); the ear cannot comprehend garbage like this (on R. Strauss Salome); this is not music (too many to single out, but certainly Antheil's Ballet Mechanique fits the bill).

You may not like it, you may laugh at it, and you may choose not to subsidize it, but I find it limited to not aknowledge it is art.

[michel dvorsky]

QUOTE: In fact, what I felt the music conveys is a great sense of chaos, anger, and desperation, some alienation too.

Gimme a break. I could say that about the sound of my uncle using his electric paper shredder.

One can come up with artistic and musical justifications for any irrelevant thing.

[iumonito]

If your uncle used his shredder to express his inner turmoil, that would be art too.  Look at Antheil and Ligeti, just to mention two that are fairly main-stream.  Rauchberg et Co. in the visual arts have done this extensively.  You may not like it, but it is art.

I gather you not a fan of, say, Cage's 4'30"?  Boulez Second Sonata also trash?

"Outrageous.  A Bassoon does not sound like that!"  (Saint-Saens, upon the first few notes of Rite of Spring).

"...even an ambulance siren.  Noise passed off for music." (On Antheil's Ballet Mechanique).

[gerry]

...as I recall the same reaction meeting great works of Beethoven, R. Strauss, Stravinsky, Antheil, Boulez, Ligeti, and a myriad of other great composers.  Eerily, almost the same words: this is not music, it is cacophony (on Beethoven's 9th); this is the music of a madman (on Stravinsky's Rite of Spring); the ear cannot comprehend garbage like this (on R. Strauss Salome); this is not music (too many to single out, but certainly Antheil's Ballet Mechanique fits the bill).

You may not like it, you may laugh at it, and you may choose not to subsidize it, but I find it limited to not aknowledge it is art.

Specious arguments like these tend to leave one in fear of exercising judgment. While it may be hard to believe that some of the works cited above assaulted the senses of any thinking person, the fact remains that they did. Who really knows how we would have reacted at the time. It's comforting to look back and fantasize that we might have been one of the enlightened ones who recognized the beauty in these works but chances are we wouldn't have been.

That said, I'm damned if I will be cowed into labeling every piece of crap that comes my way as "art" just because I'm afraid that 50 to 100 years hence a future society may do so. I think to do so is intellectual cowardice. To me, this particular work is an exercise in adolescent, immature self-indulgence in spite of the intensity or seeming technical difficulty. The reason I don't like this piece is that it takes away without giving anything back--that, along with portraying "anger, chaos, desperation, and alienation," it leaves me in the end with only these feelings, with no glimpse of a light at the end of the tunnel or hope. True art is able to express these same emotions poignantly and in a way that helps us to see them for what they are and what their role is in the human condition.

[Bob]

I watched it again.

I think he could have a "bench kick" at the end.  I'm not sure if the bow was appropriate for the style.


I could hear that as the background music during a movie chase scene.

It didn't sound as random as it did the first time.

[iumonito]

Gerry, kudos and due respect for your intellectual courage.  I think your premise that one can honestly dislike something and consider it worthless (or nearly so) without backing away simply because we may have misunderstood it is a fair one.

That said, I do like the piece, so it is not without advocates.  The pianist, and those in the public who applauded arguably agree with me.  Art does not need to please everybody in order to be art.

I hear you about the redeeming value of some art.  I pose to you that not all art has such effect, and that this particular piece has that effect for some, as it spoke to me.  It has always bothered me that Brahms' Opp. 117, 118, and 119 end in such gloomy mood, but alas they do.  That's what Brahms had to say, and he did.  Suffering without hope.  Maybe you hear the pieces differently, as art often awakens different emotions in diferent people.

My four-year old son today asked for "the one with the puppet that likes the moon."  He is referring to Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, which he finds "a little scary and a little funny, but it is all pretend, so it is OK."  You may think the work is garbage, or a masterwork, and that it is poignant and redeeming, or not.  He may grow to think the work is a melodic as I think Rite of Spring is, which my father still questions as seriously music.  Who is to say?  In art 2 + 2 is 4, and 5, and 6 ...

Here is some more context.

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&feature=related

[gerry]

I'm open to any intelligent argument in support of a work of art, however, I have to admit that audience applause is not always one of them. These amateur venues are often peppered with if not filled by "sewing circle", i.e. friends and family who would applaud any effort by their boy. I'm sorry to say that, in general, I distrust the judgmental capacities of audiences today as they too often seem easily impressed by flashy displays of virtuosity at the expense of content, often clapping, hooting, and whistling indiscriminately for most any effort on a stage--often too polite and/or embarrassed (or too confused by what they experienced) to boo or hiss or express displeasure. I still maintain that this was nothing more than a self-indulgent temper tantrum rendered barely entertaining by his technical ability.

I fear art-related arguments approach the delicate areas occupied by politics and religion. We often just have to agree to disagree.

[iumonito]

Certainly.

And even the fact that the composer (Hikari Kiyama, b. 1983, I believe now a composition student in the Netherlands, winner of several international prizes for composition) and the performer (Mr. Noda seems to have a serious approach to other no-so-often played music) are bona fide artists quite far from dilettantism and amateurism, is no guarantee that the work of art (honest as it may be) has enduring qualities.

Nevertheless, just like Descartes' Cogito, ergo Sum (I know, that's not the correct quote, but that's the Play it again, Sam line), I do know that the work spoke to me when I heard it, and therefore I know it to be a work of art.

Also, that a circle is small is not indicative that it is wrong, or dishonest.  Christianism started with 13 people or so.

[quantum]

One can come up with artistic and musical justifications for any irrelevant thing.

Just as one can pass judgement for any relevant thing. 

[gerry]

Here is some more context.

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&feature=related

Thanks for the links, they served to remind me of the value of silence.

[indutrial]

I fear art-related arguments approach the delicate areas occupied by politics and religion. We often just have to agree to disagree.

Your fear will remain well-founded as long as people on this forum remain drunk on their own opinions and hooked to the notion that they have to say "yes" or "no" to every phenomenon, leveling incredibly important judgments at every turn.

I think that this post and the flurry of masturbatory and snide comments reflects poorly on the lot of you as students of music. Now I'm not arguing for or against this work. I haven't given it much thought at all. But nothing has stopped the rest of you. The only tangible intent behind posting something like this here seems to have been to spur the forum equivalent of a bunch of grade-school kids ganging up on a deviant. With the exceptions of Alastair and Iumonito, nobody here has presented a balanced opinion and some of you seem to be more preoccupied in underscoring and cementing your aesthetical outlook instead of actually looking upon the piece with any constructive criticism. Issues of intellectual courage or cowardice are distracting and counterproductive to the discussion of any artistic phenomena because its all just a bunch of fluff that boils down to "I like" or "I don't like." Whoop-de-doo...

If we were all tightly-knit friends or associates in some kind of organization or society that involved real group decisions and interdependence, then maybe everyone's glorious opinions would have some real bearing and value. As it stands, we're a bunch of anonymous users from all over who tangibly share an appreciation for piano music and the intellectual/spiritual pursuits related to that music. The least we could do is once in a while have a discussion that helps push forward some aspect of that music. It would nice to talk about something...anything...that DIDN'T quickly boil down to a bunch of politics, self-righteous opinions and intellectual/philosophical dick-swinging.

Now I'm aware that I'm sounding like the above-mentioned intellectual coward, but I think that the terminology of intellectual coward/crusader that seems to be such a big deal here grants no space for humility, something that the "me generation" seems to have trouble remembering amidst all of the self-assertive blathering.

[indutrial]

Just as one can pass judgment for any relevant thing. 

Judgment is an overrated tendency, especially when it's painfully obvious that there's no trial, defense, courtroom, original crime, or real punishment for that which is being judged. It's just a bunch of steam.

[quantum]

The least we could do is once in a while have a discussion that helps push forward some aspect of that music. It would nice to talk about something...anything...that DIDN'T quickly boil down to a bunch of politics, self-righteous opinions and intellectual/philosophical dick-swinging.

Quite so.

But as you have outlined politics in such cases does exist.  The way people perceive and react to a piece of music is just as important to contemplate as the the music itself.  The latter inherently connected to the former.

[Kassaa]

There still are.

Thal

I hope you aren't, Weber compared to Beethoven is this compared to Chopin.

[thalbergmad]

I hope you aren't, Weber compared to Beethoven is this compared to Chopin.

Indeed, i would never suggest that. I don't think that Weber is better than Beethoven.

I think Dussek is.

Thal