Wes Crone wrote:

>I have written some piano pieces which are awkward for the hands and
>maybe unplayable.  I had not given any consideration to playability and
>since I do NOT write music at the keyboard. ...
>
>Perhaps this sounds crude or arrogant but, to me, the performance
>amounts to next to nothing of importance.  Music from the page can be
>conceptualized in the mind and the performance is just a translation.

Not crude or arrogant, but perhaps misguided.  Music is about sound - that
is the end of it.  The vibrations of air molecules, the fluctuations in
pressure which impinge on the ear are part of the music making chain.  Why
in the world would anybody want to skip that part of the chain or consider
it non-essential? Is there any evidence that it is non-essential? Yes,
musicians can study scores- but that is not equivalent to performance.
Conlon Nancarrow came up with a great solution for playing impossible
music- the player piano. Maybe others should try it.

Professor Bernard Chasan
Physics Department, Boston University