Saturday, December 10, 2005
Intro to Prepared Piano
I was driving around the other day, and I popped in a Tori Amos cd I had in my car. It was her disc, Under The Pink, and it brought back memories of the first time I was introduced to prepared piano. I was in high school and it was a few years before I had heard of John Cage.
I listened to the song Bells for Her, which is just vocals and prepared piano. I remember wondering what was wrong with the piano. I later read an interview Tori Amos talked about preparing the instrument. She said they just threw in canned goods, styro-foam, nuts and bolts into the strings of the piano until the desired results were met.
I was so surpised a person would do that to an instrument to change its sound. I thought it was pretty cool.
Has anyone else had an experienced where they were introduced to extended techniques by the pop music world?
posted by Everette Minchew
6:04 PM
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Composer Everette Minchew (born 1977) is consistently active in the creation, performance, and promotion of contemporary music. Moderately prolific, his catalogue includes small chamber pieces for violin, piano, various wind instruments, harpsichord and electronic music. Current commissions include a string trio and an opera based on an 11th-century crusades tale.
His earliest musical training came at the age of eleven when he began playing alto saxophone; it wasn’t long until he began his first attempts in composition.
He received a Bachelor’s Degree in Music History from the University of Southern Mississippi, where he studied saxophone under world-renowned soloist, Lawrence Gwozdz.
Fearing that traditional university training would hinder his development as a progressive composer, he abandoned the idea of formal lessons in favor of an intense private study of modern masterworks.
Minchew's works are characterized by their intense timbral explorations and brutal dissonance. That is not to say, however, that the compositions are devoid of beauty. In the first of the Two Brief Pieces, for example, the harpsichord chimes stringent yet haunting chords evoking a sense of loss.
Other pieces, like the Figment No. 2 "Juggler's Fancy" play upon the kaleidoscopic interaction between timbres and tones. The rapid alternation of pizzicato, arco bowing, and extreme glissandi remind the listener of Xenakis coupled with a Berio Sequenza. Minchew's Invention "Two-Part Contraption" for piano owes much to Ligeti's etudes and boogie-woogie jazz.
His music has been performed around the United States, and he was the featured composer at the 2005 Intégrales New Music Festival in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
He currently resides in Hattiesburg, Mississippi with his wife, Cheryl.
CONTACT INFORMATION
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