Orchestra that plays wrong notes intentionally
vl
It seems that a famous classical orchestra (could be a symphonical) recorded
some well known pieces containing very strange arrangements including
voluntarily wrong notes.
Could any one help me finding out the name, reference, ...
Thanks in advance.
RG
r...@cetia.fr
Peter T. Daniels
>
> It seems that a famous classical orchestra (could be a symphonical) recorded
> some well known pieces containing very strange arrangements including
> voluntarily wrong notes.
> Could any one help me finding out the name, reference, ...
The Chicago Symphony recorded Morton Gould's arrangement of Ives' Variations on America
(God Save the Queen, to you guys) for organ, and it would fit that description.
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@worldnet.att.net
heck5
"Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> The Chicago Symphony recorded Morton Gould's arrangement of Ives'
Variations on America
> (God Save the Queen, to you guys) for organ, and it would fit that
description.
almost. Actually, M. Gould conducted the CSO in Wm. Schuman's
arrangement of Ives' "Variations on America". The bi- or poly-tonal
chorale is really something. Must have gone over great when Ives played
it in church!
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Brendan R. Wehrung
> It seems that a famous classical orchestra (could be a symphonical) recorded
> some well known pieces containing very strange arrangements including
> voluntarily wrong notes.
> Could any one help me finding out the name, reference, ...
Not for recordings, but the 1940's New York Philharmonic-symphony
reputedly used to challenge each new guest conductor with a few
well-chosen clinkers to see if he spotted them. Those who failed the
test had a very hard time on the podium, I was told.
Brendan
Bernard Hill
writes
>
>It seems that a famous classical orchestra (could be a symphonical) recorded
>some well known pieces containing very strange arrangements including
>voluntarily wrong notes.
>Could any one help me finding out the name, reference, ...
>Thanks in advance.
>RG
>r...@cetia.fr
>
>
Not sure about Famous, but rather infamous. The Portsmouth Sinfonietta
was a scratch orchestra formed in the 70s and gave concerts and made
records. They were all accomplished musicians but playing the "wrong"
instruments, eg brass players on violin. The musical piece was
recognisably there but the sound was *horrendous* and absolutely
hilarious. I have a feeling they are still around, or were recently.
Bernard Hill
Braeburn Software
Author of Music Publisher system
Music Software written by musicians for musicians
http://www.braeburn.co.uk
Selkirk, Scotland
01750 21854
+44 1750 21854
Richard Schultz
: Not for recordings, but the 1940's New York Philharmonic-symphony
: reputedly used to challenge each new guest conductor with a few
: well-chosen clinkers to see if he spotted them. Those who failed the
: test had a very hard time on the podium, I was told.
I heard a story about Andre Previn (probably apocryphal -- and probably
told about just about every conductor ever): supposedly at his first
rehearsal with the LSO, the entire orchestra played a half-tone flat
to see if he would notice. Supposedly, he let them play through the
entire piece, and then said "that was fine, but let's try it again,
a half-tone higher this time."
The other story I remember in this regard was told by Previn himself in
a New Yorker interview back in 1981 or 1982. Supposedly, there was one
LSO member (I think it was an oboist, but it might have been the
English Horn player) who bragged that he always came in at the right time;
not necessarily with the right note, but always on time. Previn bet the
guy a fiver that he (Previn) could get him to come in at the wrong time.
As they were playing, Previn saw the musician mouthing the number of
bars of his rest ("two, three, four. . .") and Previn started mouthing
simultaneously the wrong numbers ("three, four, five. . .") and succeeded
in confusing the musician, who came in at the wrong time and was not
amused.
-----
Richard Schultz sch...@mail.biu.ac.il
Department of Chemistry tel: 972-3-531-8065
Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel fax: 972-3-535-1250
-----
It's a bird, it's a plane -- no, it's Mozart. . .
Nils-Eivind Naas
<8e97jj$pde$2...@cnn.cc.biu.ac.il>:
>I heard a story about Andre Previn (probably apocryphal -- and
>probably told about just about every conductor ever): supposedly
>at his first rehearsal with the LSO, the entire orchestra played a
>half-tone flat to see if he would notice. Supposedly, he let them
>play through the entire piece, and then said "that was fine, but
>let's try it again, a half-tone higher this time."
When the story was printed in a Gramophone interview, the occasion
was his first encounter with the seasoned conductor-eaters in a
Hollywood studio orchestra at around the age 17.
The oboist tested his ears with this wrong note, Previn pretended not
to notice and let the orchestra tune to the note, and then
accompanied his downbeat with "and let us play a half-tone higher".
Apparently he had no further trouble with _that_ band :-)
There could well be other variants of the story.
Victor Eijkhout
> Not for recordings, but the 1940's New York Philharmonic-symphony
> reputedly used to challenge each new guest conductor with a few
> well-chosen clinkers to see if he spotted them.
Then there was the new conductor who wanted to impress the orchestra, sa
on the night before the first rehearsal he changed the parts a bit....
"Mr third horn, what note are you playing there?" "Well, some idiot
pencilled a sharp into my score, but I'm playing a C natural anyway!"
--
Victor Eijkhout
"the time comes for everyone to do deliberately what
he used to do by mistake" [Quentin Crisp]
Peter T. Daniels
"Transpose it up a semitone."
D.G. Porter
Ives's father wouldn't let him play the polytonal interludes in a second
set of concerts because it "made the boys laugh." The interludes
weren't included in either Ives's ink copy of his father's ink copy,
since the elder Ives was trying to get the piece published and they
just wouldn't do. Ives penciled them back in years after his father's
death. Apparently they had been in the original version as Ives said in
one letter (to Biggs) that he and the music both got scolded severely
for them after the first set of concerts. There is also an account by
Ives about a third polytonal interlude that is lost.
Mark Jordan
the London Symphony who claimed that for years he and a few other wind
players in the orchestra had always thrown what if he described (if I recall
correctly) as "an extra flourish" in the woodwind notes in Tchaikovsky's 5th
Symphony, near the beginning of the finale's coda. He said that in twenty
years, no conductor had ever caught it, and that it had even made it on to
recordings. Has anyone heard one of these? IIRC, the book was published in
the late seventies or early eighties, so we're talking about LSO Tchaikovsky
5ths from the 60's and 70's.
Mark
Dan Schmidt
| I heard a story about Andre Previn (probably apocryphal -- and
| probably told about just about every conductor ever): supposedly at
| his first rehearsal with the LSO, the entire orchestra played a
| half-tone flat to see if he would notice. Supposedly, he let them
| play through the entire piece, and then said "that was fine, but
| let's try it again, a half-tone higher this time."
I used to have a fun time in junior high school orchestra on the piano (it
was a junior high orchestra, so we had a piano) by, during breaks between
pieces, quietly playing the first few measures of the piece we were about
to play - transposed by a semitone. The look on the conductor's face when
he brought down the baton and the whole orchestra began the piece in a
different key from what he was expecting was priceless.
--
Dan Schmidt | http://www.dfan.org
Peter T. Daniels
Wow -- an entire orchestra of 13-year-olds had good enough ears that they
could transpose into your key? No wonder arts funding is the first to go ...
Brendan R. Wehrung
> sch...@gefen.cc.biu.ac.il (Richard Schultz) writes:
>
> | I heard a story about Andre Previn (probably apocryphal -- and
> | probably told about just about every conductor ever): supposedly at
> | his first rehearsal with the LSO, the entire orchestra played a
> | half-tone flat to see if he would notice. Supposedly, he let them
> | play through the entire piece, and then said "that was fine, but
> | let's try it again, a half-tone higher this time."
>
> I used to have a fun time in junior high school orchestra on the piano (it
> was a junior high orchestra, so we had a piano) by, during breaks between
> pieces, quietly playing the first few measures of the piece we were about
> to play - transposed by a semitone. The look on the conductor's face when
> he brought down the baton and the whole orchestra began the piece in a
> different key from what he was expecting was priceless.
>
> Dan Schmidt | http://www.dfan.org
Some years ago a U.S. militry band refused to play for its director and
was court-martialed. A friend who had studied trumpet at the University
of Michigan and served time in the military discussed ways that players
might express their displeasure with their leader and suggested, instead
of a "no blow" they should have given him a "bad blow" (poor intonation,
etc.) in front of a reviewing stand full of his superiors.
Ever heard of that being done?
Brendan
Dan Schmidt
| Dan Schmidt wrote:
| >
| > I used to have a fun time in junior high school orchestra on the
| > piano (it was a junior high orchestra, so we had a piano) by,
| > during breaks between pieces, quietly playing the first few
| > measures of the piece we were about to play - transposed by a
| > semitone. The look on the conductor's face when he brought down
| > the baton and the whole orchestra began the piece in a different
| > key from what he was expecting was priceless.
|
| Wow -- an entire orchestra of 13-year-olds had good enough ears that
| they could transpose into your key? No wonder arts funding is the
| first to go ...
Um, no, the correct key would be E, say, and I would fiddle around
in Eb, and then the conductor (not having absolute pitch) would
unconsciously expect to hear the piece begin in the key I had been
playing in, but everyone would play in the correct key instead.
Which threw him off, see.
Peter T. Daniels
I actually grasped the scenario ... I thought I could raise a chuckle,
and maybe you would respond with another level of absurdity ...
Richard Schultz
: Um, no, the correct key would be E, say, and I would fiddle around
: in Eb, and then the conductor (not having absolute pitch) would
: unconsciously expect to hear the piece begin in the key I had been
: playing in, but everyone would play in the correct key instead.
: Which threw him off, see.
Another fun party trick is to offer to play the upper part of "Heart and
Sould" for someone who can plink out the chords and thinks that that
makes him hot stuff, and then to play it in F-sharp (or D-flat).
Dan Schmidt
| Another fun party trick is to offer to play the upper part of "Heart
| and Soul" for someone who can plink out the chords and thinks that
| that makes him hot stuff, and then to play it in F-sharp (or
| D-flat).
I discovered as a kid that you can get some excellent-sounding results
out of playing a standard tune on the piano with your two hands playing
in keys a tritone apart (it's good practice for your musical brain,
too).
Much later on I discovered the concept of tritone substitutions in
jazz, which is basically the same idea.
Richard Schultz
: sch...@gefen.cc.biu.ac.il (Richard Schultz) writes:
: | Another fun party trick is to offer to play the upper part of "Heart
: | and Soul" for someone who can plink out the chords and thinks that
: | that makes him hot stuff, and then to play it in F-sharp (or
: | D-flat).
: I discovered as a kid that you can get some excellent-sounding results
: out of playing a standard tune on the piano with your two hands playing
: in keys a tritone apart (it's good practice for your musical brain,
: too).
I agree with you that it sounds pretty cool. But most people who think
"Heart and Soul" sounds pretty cool don't agree with us, ha ha.
-----
Richard Schultz sch...@mail.biu.ac.il
Department of Chemistry tel: 972-3-531-8065
Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel fax: 972-3-535-1250
-----
"How many boards would the Mongols hoard if the Mongol hordes got bored?"
Mark Jordan
"Chopsticks" in 5/4 time.
"Chopsticks" with the upper note of the closing octave raised half a step.
(Even tone-deaf people turn and look when you hit that lovely minor-ninth).
Playing any familiar tune with a few different notes here and there to see
if anyone notices.
Mark
Dan Schmidt <df...@harmonixmusic.com> wrote in message
news:wkpur56...@turangalila.harmonixmusic.com...
> sch...@gefen.cc.biu.ac.il (Richard Schultz) writes:
>
> | Another fun party trick is to offer to play the upper part of "Heart
> | and Soul" for someone who can plink out the chords and thinks that
> | that makes him hot stuff, and then to play it in F-sharp (or
> | D-flat).
>
> I discovered as a kid that you can get some excellent-sounding results
> out of playing a standard tune on the piano with your two hands playing
> in keys a tritone apart (it's good practice for your musical brain,
> too).
>
Peter T. Daniels
>
> Other fun ones:
>
> "Chopsticks" in 5/4 time.
>
> "Chopsticks" with the upper note of the closing octave raised half a step.
> (Even tone-deaf people turn and look when you hit that lovely minor-ninth).
>
> Playing any familiar tune with a few different notes here and there to see
> if anyone notices.
A good one: When the Cornell University Glee Club and Chorus is rehearsing the
Brahms Requiem (accompanied on organ), alter the tune in the introduction to the
first movement (just slightly) into the Alma Mater ("Far above Cayuga's waters
...," and watch the whole room dissolve into laughter.
Of course it can only be done once per performance.