22.8.05

New Directions in Lounge Music

I went to lunch last Friday with some new colleaques. The restaurant had a grand piano that was outfitted with a device (several generations [technologically speaking] old) that sent MIDI signals to the piano, causing it to play standards and pop songs. For minutes at a time, however, the device would malfunction and send out MIDI signals that would play isolated chords (triads up through 9th chords) and brief (two- or three-notes) melodic fragments with long, pregnant pauses between them. I dropped a chip into the tip jar and wondered how much it got per Gig.

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:15 PM

    How do you know it was a malfunction?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Because the quality of the "interludes" was statistically outside the range of probability set up by the main selections.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous2:12 PM

    The first time I heard Phil Glass in the 70s I thought "malfunction", too.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You may have misunderstood my point in this post.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous3:10 PM

    No, I don't think so. It was amusing.

    ReplyDelete