I was a little disappointed in Mr. Gordon when he presented “Timber” in a master class at UMich and said he didn’t care about the type of wood used the the performers.

To me, the coolest thing about the piece is the individual wood pieces’ overtones, which vary greatly depending on the hardness/softness of the given lumber.

As a listener, this element of the music (again, the overtones of the wood) made the piece work for me, and I didn’t appreciate Mr. Gordon’s indifference, though I suppose it made sense once he admitted that he didn’t – at all – conceive of the wood’s overtones as a factor in the music.

In the interest of full disclosure, I only care about this because of a Piano Technology class I took which taught me to appreciate the role of instrumental materials more than ever. Had I not taken the class, two things would be true: 1. I definitely wouldn’t be such a “lumber snob” 2. I probably wouldn’t have had as strong a reaction to the accidentally intriguing and brilliant sound of the wood.