Scarlatti, Sonata in G minor, K 450 (harpsichord, piano, organ)

"Download?" and other FAQ for: Domenico Scarlatti's Sonata in G minor, K 450, performed by Stephen Malinowski on piano and pipe organ, accompanied by scrolling bar-graph and conventional scores.

Q: Can I download this video for my iPod/iPad/iPhone/computer/etc.?
A: Yes, you can get it here:
http://musanim.cerizmo.com

Q: Where can I get the sheet music for this piece?
A: A free PDF of the score I was playing from when I recorded this piece is here:
http://www.musanim.com/pdf/Scarlatti_K450_MalinowskiEdition.pdf
The urtext score I worked from can be purchased here:
http://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/Sonate-per-Clavicembalo-Volume-7-Critical...

Q: Is there a way I could make the bar-graph scores myself?
A: The Music Animation Machine MIDI file player will generate this display; you can get the (Windows) software here:
http://www.musanim.com/player/
There are lots of places on the web where you can get MIDI files; I usually go to the Classical Archives site first:
http://www.classicalarchives.com/

Q: Could you please do a MAM video of _________?
A: First, check my "to do" list:
http://www.musanim.com/all/MAMToDoList.html ...
If the piece isn't listed, read the "Could you please do a MAM video of _________?" item on my main FAQ:
http://www.musanim.com/mam/mamfaq.html#copyright ...
and if you think I'd consider doing it, email me (stephen at musanim dot com).

Q: What instrument are you playing?
A: I'm actually playing two instruments. What I'm physically playing on is a Kimball grand piano. It has a Moog PianoBar attached to it, which generates MIDI data; this is being used to drive an Ahlborn-Galanti organ module.

Q: What do the piano and organ sound like separately?
A: You can hear them separately here:
http://www.musanim.com/mp3/Scarlatti_k450_piano_Malinowski.mp3
http://www.musanim.com/mp3/Scarlatti_k450_organ_Malinowski.mp3

Q: What you're playing doesn't exactly match the score.
A: That's true. Some of these are places where I think the score was incomplete (missing trills), some are changes I made either to make the music work better on the piano+organ combination or because I thought it made more sense, some are just mistakes in my playing, and some are things I added.

Q: What do the colors in the bar-graph score mean?
A: The colors indicate the "pitch class" of the notes; that is, every G is a certain color (blue), every F is a certain color (olive green), etc. The piece is in the key of G minor, so there's lots of blue, especially at the beginning and end. The choice of colors is based on the "circle of fifths," which you can read about here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_of_fifths
This method of coloring notes is described more here:
http://www.musanim.com/mam/pfifth.htm
Because this form of coloring reflects tonality, the place in the second section where the piece moves into another key are easily visible; here's a picture of the whole piece:
http://www.musanim.com/img/K450WholePiece.png
BTW, the colors are more distinct in the high-quality version of the video.

Q: Why do the scores move at different speeds?
A: The bar-graph score is graphical, and in it, time translates exactly into horizontal position. On the other hand, conventional notation is symbolic, so there is usually one symbol per note, regardless of whether it's a long or a short note, and the symbols are more or less evenly spaced (for legibility).
.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• baroque
• clavier

[realjuvelive]

Did you take lessons or classes properly to play like that ?

[smalin]

@realjuvelive I took lessons for the first eight or nine years, but I kept practicing after that.

[realjuvelive]

How long did it take practicing and reading the sheet music I would say a long long time huh?

[smalin]

@realjuvelive I started in 1961.

[realjuvelive]

@smalin Great but what I meant is how long does this piece take to play well?

[smalin]

@realjuvelive There's no single answer to that. If you are good enough, you can sight-read this piece; if you are a beginner, you could practice for years before you got good enough. I could sight-read it, but since it was "for the public," I practiced it for a few weeks (maybe ten minutes a day?) before making this recording.

[duffmasterofpuppets]

Epic hand folding at the end.

[xyaqua]

Hi Steven, Happy (belated) year of the Rabbit. Hope you are hale and hearty, thanks again for your indulgence, you are a true artist- in every sense of the term.

[bachaddict]

@realjuvelive That could be caused by reading a lot of music right before trying to sleep.

[realjuvelive]

I can't sleep at night I'm still thinking of sheet music ! Confused