-
Graphic Scores
·
A musician’s eye is primed to see, then hear, anything as a score: the contour of distant hills can be played as if it were a melody from left to right. Scrabbly tree bark conjures scrabbly sounds. And birds on a wire might as well be notes on a staff. In medieval religious and secular…
-
Listening at the Museum
·
These are the rare, cross-sensory sensations I have experienced: seeing glistening, colorful globes dance above me, as I performed a Scarlatti sonata in college; and, in Los Angeles, the vocal harmonies of two corrido singers outside the house and the sound of water running in the shower inside the house magically became one sound, and…
-
Pianos, PSO’s, and the Practicing Pianist
·
… Countless times I have arrived at a venue for a performance, wary of the instrument I am to play, hoping for a piano I could make friends with. My colleague Raj Bhimani introduced me to the concept of the “PSO,” that is, the “piano-shaped object.” Sometimes it’s the only way to describe the heap…