Pitchfork
3 HN recommenders · recommended in 3 months, 2013–2019
30:16 · 74K views · Apr 11, 2012
A Pitchfork TV documentary following Dan Deacon in Montana as he finishes his album Bromst. It shows the experimentation behind it, including pieces written for MIDI-driven player pianos.
HN points to it in threads on black MIDI and player pianos as a look at an artist writing tuneful music beyond human playability.
3 comments from Hacker News
A normally electronic musician, Dan Deacon, has used some very complex player piano arrangements. When he recorded his album Bromst, they set up multiple MIDI player pianos to play the midi arrangements. What I found very interesting is that the density of the notes actually builds up to a very full and soothing (to me) sound, when played on the analogue instruments rather than on a computer. This is an album I play when driving through the woods or staring at the stars. There is texture to be heard from all of the hammering keys, but the notes all combine to a smoother and very meditative, calming, uplifting sound. I feel like like that fullness of sound from the analogue instrument allows the listener to here the overarching melodies, rather than focus on how many notes are being played. Here is a link to a documentary about the recording of the album linked to a visual of the pianos playing: this video
+1 for Olafur Another artist who has used a specially-crafted MIDI-controlled piano is Dan Deacon. His stuff is not exactly New Classical, though, it's a bit more frenetic and goofy, but quite good. He talks about it quite in a bit in a Pitchfork TV video that documented him working on one of his albums, Bromst: this video
I would suggest Dan Deacon for someone who writes "unplayable" yet very tuneful pieces: eg. this video