Goodbye Halberstadt
Listen to
GOODBYE
HALBERSTADT
"The modern piano
keyboard has seven white keys in a diatonic scale
pattern interwoven with five black keys in a
pentatonic pattern. This keyboard layout was first
seen on the cathedral organ in Halberstadt, Germany,
in 1361. Because of this, the formal name of this
style of keyboard arrangement is the Halberstadt
keyboard."
- From X.J.Scott's "Glossary of Music Tuning
definitions"
The reason to present this collection of tunes is to
show my skill as piano player and arranger in the
environment of 12 tone equal tempered (12tET) tuning
system using an "Halberstadt keyboard".
My performances have been MIDI recorded and edited to
my complete satisfaction (not easy for a "control
freak" like me). Sometimes using a bit of
quantization (always trying to preserve a human
feeling), sometimes playing with a click but without
quantization, sometimes playing "rubato", sometimes
adding a few notes I had missed or deleting some
wrong ones, speeding up or slowing down the tempo
and, in general, using all the techniques available
to a seasoned MIDI engineer.
My aim isn't the presentation of a perfect (but fake)
performance but to give the listener the opportunity
to catch a glimpse of my musical taste. Of course, on
this web site it is possible to catch many other
facets of my musical personality but I consider this
one a very intimate one. The piano was my first tool
for musical expression and my first musical "love".
My performance is far from memorable but excellent
for a "nonprofessional" piano player like myself (if
someone asks me which instrument I play I reluctantly
reply: "the piano" and then add: "...keyboards,
computers et cetera").
Nonetheless, being a "Halberstadt keyboard player" is
a big part of my own identity, of my self-image (I
think I have invested more time in playing/practicing
the piano than in any other single activity in my
entire life).
I started playing keyboards when my younger brother
got a little organ for Christmas. He forgot about it
in a matter of a few weeks. My parents saw that I had
showed interest for it and sent me to a piano teacher
(I was 16). Thanks Mom and Dad! He wasn't classically
trained but was a good teacher and I learned a lot
(after a few years he asked me to teach him some of
those tricky jazz voicings I had learned by myself!).
I played "professionally" for a few years, pop and
jazz gigs around my home town of Florence, Italy. I
taught piano to beginners and intermediate students
privately and in music schools. Then MIDI arrived, I
attended the Music Synthesis Department at Berklee
College of Music. MIDI technology freed me. I had new
tools to express myself besides my keyboard skills. I
had previously used multi-track tape recording
technology but MIDI was a whole new ball game!
I started questioning the use of the Halberstadt
music interface many years later, when I began
studying tuning systems other than the ubiquitous
12tET. A soon as I started experimenting with less or
more than 12 notes per "repeat ratio" (being it an
octave or any other interval), the usual layout of 7
white and 5 black keys started looking more as an
inconvenience than a help.
I am writing all this because I am about to jump to a
new musical dimension and before leaving the beaten
path I wanted to stop a moment to take a snapshot of
my musical being before this technological "leap of
faith". I am not saying that this coming endeavor
will force me to quit playing the piano but I am
trying to detach myself from this image of "piano
player" that I created a long time ago, a reassuring
but exhausting and incomplete image of myself.
Leaving a well-trodden path is never an easy task. I
will keep you posted!