Wednesday, March 15, 2017

DEEP FREEZE WITH MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENT

Five days until spring....
This is the coldest March I can remember. An Arctic blast descended from the north and I'm freezing my dinglezoobies off.

"Dinglezoobies" is a little-known medical term that refers to regions of the body of which we are reluctant to openly discuss.


The temp dropped to 12 degrees last night (that's Fahrenheit, for those of you in Jeddah). I'm in Tennessee, which is supposed to be a southern (mild) state. Today's landscape was encrusted in ice worthy of a Shackleton expedition.

I stayed up all night to make sure the water pipes didn't freeze. 
While babysitting with the pipes, I passed the frigid hours by transferring more of my old piano tapes to mp3 files. 

An extremely rare cassette tape of one of my recitals got caught in the recorder and was ripped apart (one of many reasons why I've always despised cassettes). I'm fairly adept at fixing them, but it requires disassembling the cassette and splicing the tape together with surgical precision.

I was sitting on my bed, messing around with the ravaged cassette tape. The headboard of my bed has a bookcase and there's a heavy metal lamp on it.
Somehow -
the lamp fell and hit me right on the head. Unfortunately it didn't knock any sense into me - but it hurt like hell.

So, where is the musical accompaniment?
Here it is. I just made two more quick "videos" from my old (ancient) piano recordings.


This first one is very short. It's the Prelude in C minor by Johann Sebastian Bach - one of my very oldest recordings, which I made when I was seventeen yrs. old. Holy crap, that was about a thousand years ago.

I used to perform a lot of Bach when I was a music student, but I personally never liked to play his music on a modern piano. The harsh and overpowering mechanisms of the pianoforte (and the pedal) are in complete contrast to Baroque music. Bach should ideally be played on a clavichord or harpsichord. 
I played a 17th century Dutch harpsichord when I was in college (at that time I was the only student allowed to play it).



 My second musical selection is  Polichinelle op.3 no.4 by Serge Rachmaninov.



Polichinelle is derived from the commedia dell 'arte character Pulcinella, which (in layman's terms) is Punch from Punch and Judy.
 Confused? Heck, so am I.


Anyway, this is an early composition by Rachmaninov - he wrote it in 1892 when he was nineteen.

It's also an early recording by me. I recorded this in Los Angeles when I was either twenty or twenty-one.

13 comments:

  1. You are right Bach wrote music for clavichord or harpsichord. As he got older pianos took hold. We appreciate BACH period and liked your recording. To still have something you did at seventeen is wonderful indeed.

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    1. I still have the music book with the Bach preludes in it, and was surprised that learned that particular one when I was sixteen (and recorded it a year later). It truly does seem like centuries ago....

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  2. I never knew that about Bach and the harpsichord. These recordings really are your treasures. :)

    I hope you stay warm and all the ice had melted away for you before you need to make another scary trip to town!

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    1. Hey, I just made a trip to town today. The ice has melted, but it started pouring rain as soon as I got home. I'm glad I did this today instead of waiting until next week (I usually procrastinate).

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  3. Woefully deprived of culture, I'd not heard either of these until now. Definitely, I enjoyed Rachmaninov more so (than Bach) ... but I have to wonder if your fingers didn't cramp every now and then? Wonderful, tangible memories!

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    1. I used to get all kinds of strains and injuries in my fingers and hands. Most especially, when I practiced a lot I often got broken blood vessels in my fingers - which made the tips of them very sensitive.

      And, of course, my butt would hurt from sitting on a hard wooden piano bench. I often utilized pillows and cushions.

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  4. Again, your musical skill astonishes me, Jon. Bravo! Stay warm, wrap the pipes and I hope the weather warms for you mountain inhabitants --otherwise all the highlanders' dinglezoobies could avalanche onto the lowlands and it'd take forever to sort them out.

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    1. Thanks, Geo. When I listen to these old recordings I sometimes astonish myself. I'm glad that I've been able to salvage some of these things - - It's a shame that many of them were lost over the years.

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  5. You have too much talent to be hid away in the hills Jon. Your blog is pretty in green.

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    1. Thanks, Paula, but I seem to be all worn out lately...I prefer being hidden in the hills.
      I like the green, too. It's not my favorite color but it looks nice.

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  6. Beautiful music and playing! Do you remember the harpsichord kits you could buy to build your own harpsichord? I could see you doing something like that.

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    1. Yes! I remember those harpsichord kits when I was in high school. I really wanted one but never did get it. In retrospect, I'm glad I didn't get one then - - I think I'd be much better at putting one together now, than when I was 16.
      Who knows - I just might see if those kits are still available...

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    2. I just did a quickie Internet search and they still do make harpsichord kits, but - from what I've seen - they are MUCH more expensive than they were when I was in high school.

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