Musician Malcolm Kogut has been tickling the ivories since he was 14 and won the NPM DMMD Musician of the Year award in 99. He has CDs along with many published books. Malcolm played in the pit for many Broadway touring shows. When away from the keyboard, he loves exploring the nooks, crannies and arresting beauty of the Adirondack Mountains, battling gravity on the ski slopes and roller coasters.
While giving his 1750th organ recital, Virene suffered a heart attack, fell off the bench and his foot hit the low "E" pedal of the organ. Listeners thought it was part of an improvisation he was performing at the time. It took them about a minute to realize that something was wrong.
A local priest is experimenting with website and twitter teasers about his homily each week and has asked me to create these little promos he calls "Bible Blasts." Here is next Sunday's theme: GOSSIP.
I played this piece on an eight foot flute through the Choir division's
antiphonal speakers. Since they were far away I couldn't hear them so I
coupled them to the Great and added this little marimba so that I could
play to that. The people in the pews heard the flute and some thought
they heard a chiff coming from the front. This recording pretty much
only picked up the marimba since the camera microphone was closer to the
MIDI speaker.
This is a great piece for working on forearm
rotation, relaxing the hand, not playing from the fingers and playing
from the elbow.
I am going to catch flack for this rendition but let me 'splain. When I
was 16 and had been playing for only two years, I was asked to play
this piece for a wedding. I didn't have time to learn it as my reading
skills were poor and it was over 16 pages long. I reduced it to a lead
sheet and faked it. I call it my "Widor's 4.5." I've been playing off
the same lead sheet ever since and because I only do this piece for
postludes and recessionals, I never took the time to look again at the
real music. Every time I play this piece, people get up and walk out.
Hey, where's everybody going?
Just as rap, disco or a waltz can be recognized by its style or structure, so can a fugue if you know what to listen for.
In
layman's terms, a fugue begins with a solo line which states the
melody, usually in one of the hands. Then the other hand comes in and
imitates the same melody while the first hand goes off wandering by
itself. The two hands then come back together, they frolic a bit, then
one of them may restate the melody. The restatement is like a mating
call because this usually attracts the attention of the feet who then
enter into the fray. Then the hands, like a tease, go scattering.
After the feet have their say, all the body parts play tag for a while
until one of them states the theme one final time, usually the feet get
this honor since they were the last in.
Chorally, in this
fugue, the voices enter first in the soprano, then the alto, the tenor,
then the bass. They continue: T, S, A, B, S, B.
