If Christmas music hasn't driven you crazy yet, this arrangement just might. I've been toying with the idea for a while, of changing the key repeatedly during a musical piece. There are 12 different keys in European scale, and so I wanted to travel through them all, one after another, making a change every few bars.
In “Silent Night” I found an ideal song for my experiment, since it consists of exactly 12 little phrases. In this arrangement each one is played in a different key, half-tone up or down: ascending in the first verse, descending in the second.
The effect is bizarre, but interesting (and even catching - or may I say intoxicating?). Listen to it long enough, and your ears will begin to accept and anticipate and finally welcome the change -- until the whole idea of tonality is eroded.
By the way, for some reason, going up seems more natural than coming down. Maybe it's like the different effects of jetlag, when traveling westward rather than eastward across the Atlantic?..
At the end of the piece, for a contrast and as a reward for patient listener, I play a third verse in just one steady key of C-major. What a relief!
Comments are welcome. Fresh - and bizarre - ideas for other variants and mishaps are welcome too.
~ Pianist Alexander Zlatkovski
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Alexander Zlatkovski is an Alaskan pianist, born in Russia. His repertoire includes classical pieces, waltzes of all sorts -- from Tchaikovsky to Chopin to Strauss -- as well as his own arrangements of Russian, Italian, Jewish, and French songs. For information on weddings and other events, visit www.AlaskanPian.... For more information about Alexander's concerts and his unique "Tales from the Keyboard" series, or to buy CDs or MP3s by Alexander Zlatkovski visit www.TalesFromTh....
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