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i am a tricky pear

by Thomas Feng

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1.
I wrote this piece to entertain my youngest students. They laughed, without restraint, through the entire thing. One asked to hear it again.
2.
Bach's Goldberg Variations begins with an "Aria" – vocal music for an instrument (the keyboard) without any obvious vocal qualities. On Glenn Gould's relic 1981 recording of that piece (as in many of his other performances), he can be heard humming along to his own playing. “Meanwhile, music pounded / across hearts opening every valve to the desperate drama of being / a self in a song”. – from Autobiography of Red, by Anne Carson
3.
This is the last in a series of pieces in which I tried to write a page a day, as quick as possible, so as not to catch myself thinking too hard.
4.
This piece is a duet for the two hands, in the form of a set of variations. The hands start out playing separately, their movements becoming more integrated as the music becomes more profuse.
5.
Among Chopin's set of 24 preludes, the A major prelude stands out: it is so modest that it becomes conspicuous.
6.
A cover of Esperanza Spalding's cover of "Tell Him", by Lauryn Hill.
7.
I wrote this piece while waiting my turn for something.
8.
“I am growing up,” she thought… “I am losing some illusions, perhaps to acquire new ones.” – from Orlando, by Virginia Woolf “It’s like poetry, it’s what you need it to be.” – Mark Saltzman (as quoted by the New York Times), former Sesame Street writer, on whether Bert and Ernie are gay The first few minutes of this piece are played exclusively on the white keys. Music only on the white keys sometimes carries associations of naïvety, simplicity, innocence, childlikeness, purity. On the other hand, it is the alternating groups of two and three black keys that give the hand the most immediate sense of orientation on the keyboard – playing on only the white keys, you have to rely more on your ears and eyes not to get lost on the keyboard’s topography. Over the course of the piece, the black keys are “found”, changing musical frames of reference – bringing the music to places both more definite and more ambiguous.
9.
This piece was a birthday present to my dear friend, Alexa Constantine. The train sounds on this recording are dedicated to Niall Ferguson.

about

Someone once told me that if I listened to Webern's Symphony (Op. 21) enough, the notes would become my friends. May I introduce these notes to you, so that they might also become your friends.

credits

released November 1, 2019

Thomas Feng – composition (all*), piano (all), recording (1, 3, 5, 7, 9)
Robin Buyer – recording (2, 4, 6, 8) and mastering (all)

* ""of being a self in a song"" (2) contains a quotation from the Goldberg Variations by JS Bach

* "trace of hope (variations)" (6) is a cover of a cover by Esperanza Spalding (public domain) of "Tell Him" by Lauryn Hill (licensed for distribution, by Affordable Song Licensing)

Recorded at Pulse Music (2, 4, 6, 8), Hoff-Barthelson Music School (1, 3, 5, 7), and Manhattan School of Music (9)

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Thomas Feng Brooklyn, New York

pianist and composer

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