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- Title
The Editing and Arrangement of Conlon Nancarrow's Studies for Disklavier and Synthesizers.
- Authors
Willey, Robert
- Abstract
Over the last three decades a number of approaches have been used to hear Conlon Nancarrow's Studies for Player Piano in new settings. The musical information necessary to do this can be obtained from his published scores, the punching scores that reveal the planning behind the compositions, copies of the rolls, or the punched rolls themselves. The most direct method of extending the Studies is to convert them to digital format, because of the similarities between the way notes are represented on a player piano roll and in MIDI. The process of editing and arranging Nancarrow's Studies in the MIDI environment is explained, including how piano roll dynamics are converted into MIDI velocities, and other decisions that must be made in order to perform them in a particular environment: the Yamaha Disklavier with its accompanying GM sound module. While Nancarrow approved of multi-timbral synthesis, separating the voices of his Studies and assigning them unique timbres changes the listener's experience of the "resultant," Tenney's term for the fusion of multiple voices into a single polyphonic texture.
- Subjects
PLAYER piano; MUSICAL composition; PLAYER piano rolls; TONE color (Music theory); PIANO
- Publication
Music Theory Online, 2014, Vol 20, Issue 1, p1
- ISSN
1067-3040
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.30535/mto.20.1.8