String breakage

[Otto Keyes]

We just finished the Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival here in
beautiful downtown Moscow, ID, so I've been out of the loop for the last
week & a half.  I had heard rave reviews about the festival before coming
here, but I grew up in Idaho -- you know, potatoes & all -- what could be so
great -- but it is a pretty incredible event by anybody's standards.  Last
week we had more than 18,000 students (yeah, count 'em all - almost as many
as the whole population of Moscow w/UI students) competing; about 20 new
pianos in here for concert, competition, clinic & workshop sites; and most
every big name in jazz you can think of.  Whole lot of work, but lots of
fun.  I'm not a real jazz fan, but this is a pretty eclectic festival with
some pretty fantastic musicians & kids of all ages competing.  If you ever
get out this way in mid-Feb., it's a real treat.

However, to the point.  The festival's main stage piano was a pretty nice
GS-100 that Kawai sent in.  There were so many artists that 6-8 players
might get to it in the course of an evening concert.  The differences in
players at the festival sure played hob with the sound system, to the point
that it was almost impossible to compensate for the differences in style &
attack.  Miking (sp?) the thing is always a bit of a challenge, but
necessary in light of the fact that it's held in the Kibbie Dome (football
stadium) in front of 6-7,000 spectators.  With mic. placement, we finally
got a good mix in the house, but it made it tougher for the recording
engineer.  Even so, some players would produce a nice, round, full sound, &
others would sound like a xylaphone no matter what the sound guys did.

Back on the other side of the musical fence, our piano duo team here at UI
recently did a Crumb piece with percussion.  (I almost said perdition,
giving away my prejudices toward new music.  Actually the Crumb is a fairly
innocuous piece, well done, and was interesting.)  As I say, this piece is
pretty mild as new music goes, but interestingly, Jay broke a couple of
strings in the capo area while strumming lightly across the strings
(fortunately in rehearsal only).  My theory here, is that the strings were
probably about ready to go anyway (this one's due for new strings in the
capo area, & new hammers this summer), and the strumming across the strings
set up an abnormal vibration pattern that was the proverbial straw on the
camel's back.  Of course, I have lots of other bogus theories too, but we
won't get into that.  Not deep, but I just found it rather interesting.

Otto