aworks :: "new" american classical music

The Well-Tuned Piano (1964-81). La Monte Young /on youtube/

Jen Weng Jen Wang points out YouTube has all of La Monte Young's The Well-Tuned Piano, albeit in 30 separate chunks.

Update: Apologies for incorrectly spelling Ms. Wang's name. Her composer bio here; her well-designed music page here.

The Well-Tuned Piano (1964/73/81/present). La Monte Young /into the cloud legally?/

Both Lala.com and nuTsie have just provided mechanisms to put your music into the Internet cloud allowing you to play your music from any browser. And in theory, with nuTsie, you can play your music on your phone (although it doesn't work on mine for some reason).

I haven't actually tried this with lala but I think it uploads compressed versions of your music files found on your hard disk, if it doesn't already have them. nuTsie on the other hand just reads your iTunes XML library file and matches what it can with music it already knows about, which presumably excludes much of what I actually listen to. But I'm still fascinated by the concept, as I was back in the day with mp3.com (?) where you registered what music you could stream by physically placing your CD in your computer first.

I have to say it's becoming harder these days to be a consumer without legal counsel. I skimmed through the nuTsie click-through agreement but I have no idea if it is really legal to play my music in this manner. And what if I want to share my playlist to the world, including access to those rare La Monte Young Well-Tuned Piano MP3s? While I'd like to spread the word on that music, I'm not yet willing to be placed in financial jeopardy by my enthusiasms.

current listening: (white man) in hammersmith palais - the clash (via nutsie)
current shopping: the well-tuned piano - 1 used & new available from $859.00 (via amazon)

The Well-Tuned Piano (1964-73). La Monte Young

Kyle Gann blogs about his external hard drive and the challenges and joys of filling it up with music, including La Monte Young's 5 CD set of The Well-Tuned Piano. Note to self: find said CD set so I can rip it to MP3, although if it shows up as hour-long tracks, that may not work so well in shuffle mode. Note to family: I've been eyeing an external hard drive for Christmas.

I searched five years to find the La Monte Young recording after reading an intriguing article about the composer in downbeat magazine. Eventually, Rhino Records in Westwood had it, although by the time I got it, CDs had supplanted LPs. Amazon has a used CD copy at $199, although the comments may indicate it is Just Stompin' instead, a blues improvisation 2-CD set by La Monte Young and the Forever Bad Blues Band. Unlike that guy who is blogging his entire record collection, album by album, I don't remember where I bought Just Stompin''.

I also agree with Gann about not abandoning CDs after ripping. In times of need during college, I sold parts of my LP collection and I vowed never again. 

Kyle Gann on the tuning of The Well-Tuned Piano:

The premise of this tuning is actually very simple, and analogous to the tuning from which European classical tuning evolved. Young's tuning can be arranged in a grid in which the perfect fifths (3/2 ratios) run in one direction... and the pure minor sevenths (7/4 ratios) in another...