Playing the Moonlight Sonata Backwards
Posted: Sun Jan 09, 2011 4:27 pm
OK, so even by my extraordinary standards this is a bit of a bizarre and pointless Leonard Cohen related project of mine ... but I figured some of you other forum folk might like to have a bit of a giggle at what one crazy Aussie fan will do to while away a quiet Sunday afternoon. So, here goes.
Recently I bought "The Lyrics of Leonard Cohen", an Omnibus Press volume that turned up unexpectedly in my local music shop. It's really not much more than just the lyrics to all Leonard's recorded songs with a small amount of not-particularly insightful commentary against each song. Not especially interesting ... but, flicking through its pages I was reminded of a lot of the more obscure LC songs that I haven't heard for ages. One of these, which I'd almost forgotten existed, was "The Great Event". For those unfamiliar, this "song" is a short piece which appeared as one of two items of bonus "new materal" on More Best Of Leonard Cohen (1997). It's basically a prose poem recited by one the text-to-speech voices that came standard with the Apple Macs of the era, with some light piano accompaniment.
While revisiting the lyrics to "The Great Event", I got sort of interested by one specific thing: in the poem the computer voice talks about how it is going to reverse humanity's long descent into suffering, by the simple mechanism of playing The Moonlight Sonata backwards. Now, I thought to myself, exactly *what* would The Moonlight Sonata sound like if a pianist played Beethoven's score backwards, note by note (which is what I figure the computer voice is proposing to do). I'm sure it's something that hundreds ... no, it must be thousands ... of you folks have layed awake at night wondering about? What? No? Just me ... oh, ok.
So, anyway, I set about trying to find a way to make a recording of this famous piece played backwards on a (pair of) nice sounding pianos. Well, initially three main problems faced me: firstly, I can't play the piano, secondly I don't really *have* a piano, and thirdly I don't actually have a copy of the sheet music for The Moonlight Sonata. But .. hey, these are just minor obstacles. With a little bit of help from modern technology and the Internet it was really only the work of a couple of hours to construct a passable backwards Moonlight Sonata recording. I'll spare you the laborious details of how I did it [and no, it's not just as simple as finding an mp3 of the piece and reversing it; that would only make something that sounded like a tape being played backwards, not like a pianist playing the individual piano notes in reverse order].
But .. if you're interested in hearing the finished recording, you can. Just point your web browser at http://www.filefreak.com/files/758121_6 ... kwards.mp3 (6.13MB, a bit over 6.5 minutes long) and you'll soon be seranaded by The Moonlight Sonata being played backwards by a pair of pianos. I'd have to say the score in reverse sounds quite listenable but a bit odd ... but if that's all it takes to kick start the process of reversing the world's ailments, I'm willing to live with some strange rhythms and unusual melodic emphasis here and there. It's for a good cause
Oh, and BTW ... in case anyone is sceptical that it's actually really The Backwards Moonlight Sonata, try playing my mp3 file backwards (as in the reversing-the-tape thing I mentioned above). If you don't have software to do that, I've made a file like this at http://www.filefreak.com/files/758122_u ... kwards.mp3 (also 6.13MB). The melody you can hear is unmistakably Beethoven's original sonata, although the individual notes sound weird, because they're actually piano notes played in reverse. Of course I take absolutely no responsibility for what might happen if you play The Backwards Moonlight Sonata backwards ... Leonard didn't really say.
Hmm ... now, that's enough pointless insanity from me. Back to something more constructive.
Dean (from Adelaide)
Recently I bought "The Lyrics of Leonard Cohen", an Omnibus Press volume that turned up unexpectedly in my local music shop. It's really not much more than just the lyrics to all Leonard's recorded songs with a small amount of not-particularly insightful commentary against each song. Not especially interesting ... but, flicking through its pages I was reminded of a lot of the more obscure LC songs that I haven't heard for ages. One of these, which I'd almost forgotten existed, was "The Great Event". For those unfamiliar, this "song" is a short piece which appeared as one of two items of bonus "new materal" on More Best Of Leonard Cohen (1997). It's basically a prose poem recited by one the text-to-speech voices that came standard with the Apple Macs of the era, with some light piano accompaniment.
While revisiting the lyrics to "The Great Event", I got sort of interested by one specific thing: in the poem the computer voice talks about how it is going to reverse humanity's long descent into suffering, by the simple mechanism of playing The Moonlight Sonata backwards. Now, I thought to myself, exactly *what* would The Moonlight Sonata sound like if a pianist played Beethoven's score backwards, note by note (which is what I figure the computer voice is proposing to do). I'm sure it's something that hundreds ... no, it must be thousands ... of you folks have layed awake at night wondering about? What? No? Just me ... oh, ok.
So, anyway, I set about trying to find a way to make a recording of this famous piece played backwards on a (pair of) nice sounding pianos. Well, initially three main problems faced me: firstly, I can't play the piano, secondly I don't really *have* a piano, and thirdly I don't actually have a copy of the sheet music for The Moonlight Sonata. But .. hey, these are just minor obstacles. With a little bit of help from modern technology and the Internet it was really only the work of a couple of hours to construct a passable backwards Moonlight Sonata recording. I'll spare you the laborious details of how I did it [and no, it's not just as simple as finding an mp3 of the piece and reversing it; that would only make something that sounded like a tape being played backwards, not like a pianist playing the individual piano notes in reverse order].
But .. if you're interested in hearing the finished recording, you can. Just point your web browser at http://www.filefreak.com/files/758121_6 ... kwards.mp3 (6.13MB, a bit over 6.5 minutes long) and you'll soon be seranaded by The Moonlight Sonata being played backwards by a pair of pianos. I'd have to say the score in reverse sounds quite listenable but a bit odd ... but if that's all it takes to kick start the process of reversing the world's ailments, I'm willing to live with some strange rhythms and unusual melodic emphasis here and there. It's for a good cause
Oh, and BTW ... in case anyone is sceptical that it's actually really The Backwards Moonlight Sonata, try playing my mp3 file backwards (as in the reversing-the-tape thing I mentioned above). If you don't have software to do that, I've made a file like this at http://www.filefreak.com/files/758122_u ... kwards.mp3 (also 6.13MB). The melody you can hear is unmistakably Beethoven's original sonata, although the individual notes sound weird, because they're actually piano notes played in reverse. Of course I take absolutely no responsibility for what might happen if you play The Backwards Moonlight Sonata backwards ... Leonard didn't really say.
Hmm ... now, that's enough pointless insanity from me. Back to something more constructive.
Dean (from Adelaide)