7. La Monte YoungThe Well-Tuned Piano
My friend Brian Chase, the drummer from Yeah Yeah Yeahs, has a background in music theory and he’s extremely educated. He was a monitor at La Monte Young’s installation, The Dream House, in New York City – you can go for free on the weekend to experience the microtones. Brian told me there was an opening to have the closing shift on a Saturday. I monitored at The Dream House for two years and read all of the stuff that they had available, self-released copies of his work, which at the time were really difficult to get a hold of. I read so that I would be able to talk to people who visited in a somewhat intelligent way about the tuning. I have a sporadic background in music theory or reading music – trying to get your head around intonation is like trying to grasp astrophysics when you have a rudimentary algebra brain. Before I came across La Monte Young and The Well-Tuned Piano, drone music was just drone music. What it made me aware of is how summation tones are produced or what the possibilities of what happens when you get two tones in a room. He’s obviously inspiring in terms of dedication to his work and how he protects it.
