Hi. If the composer of this piece gets to read this, I would like to ask a question, and would be interested to get an answer.
I was just wondering if these pieces are actually playable. They look pretty close to unplayable to me.
For one thing, there are impossibly complex rhythms involving tuplets of 7, 11, 15, and other odd numbers, with not all the sections of the tuplet represented by separate notes, but just some of them, so that jagged rhythms occur. For example, just looking randomly, one 11-tuplet appears thus: semiquaver - quaver - semiquaver - demisemiquaver - semiquaver - which adds up to 11 demisemiquavers. An even more difficult one is: demisemiquaver rest - demisemiquaver - dotted semiquaver - demisemiquaver - demisemiquaver - dotted semiquaver - demisemiquaver - which again adds up to 11 demisemiquavers. There are doubtless many other variants, and not all of them 11-tuplets either - I just picked a couple at random. I don't know if it's totally impossible for any human to play these with complete accuracy, but I think most people wouldn't be able to even approach it, especially in a fast tempo, as some of the pieces seem to be.
Perhaps more significantly, one of the pieces contains stretches which no human hand can span. In some cases, the hand other than the one whose stave the notes are in may be able to help with some of the notes because it is resting at that time, or because the pedal may be holding longer notes it played earlier. But in some cases the other hand is a couple of octaves up or down the keyboard, and busy with other notes, and thus unable to help out. So maybe you just break the chords - arpeggiate them as quickly as possible. But some of the passages are quite fast, and this is going to slow down the music too much, and distort the rhythm - which doesn't somehow seem acceptable.
I'm just curious to know how a performer is meant to handle these difficulties. Does a recording exist of these pieces being played? If so, I would be interested to hear it.
I asked someone else on this site similar questions about how a seemingly unplayable piece was meant to be performed, and the composer replied, telling me that it was not intended to be played by a human at all, but by a computer - something I must admit I hadn't thought of, and something which my old-fashioned musical sensibility regards as less satisfactory than performance by a real person. So is it the same here? - are these pieces intended to be performed only by a computer?
Just curious to know, if the composer gets to read this. Thanks. M.J.E. 17:05, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
