New ways of playing old instruments

This post shows how some musicians do amazing things with pianos, guitars, and zithers. This is one of the few instances where you really have to watch how someone makes music, in order to really appreciate it. So it’s good that all of the following material is available on YouTube. Videos embedded after the break.

Piano

“Köln Concert (1975)” by Keith Jarrett. Remarkable, because the complete concert (about 66 min.) is improvised. It was artificially split into several parts to fit on records. This is part 2c.

“Das ist meins” by Annette Focks: The (highly recommended) movie “Vier Minuten (2006)” is about a girl in prison who has created her own style of piano music. This piece starts simple and then, after 30 seconds, becomes more complex. If you like this one, you can also watch “Handkanten Akt” by Jan Tilman Schade, from the same movie.

Guitar

“Four Hands Guitar” by Antoine Dufour and Tommy Gauthier. Two people playing “Jerry’s Breakdown” by Jerry Reed, on a single guitar. At the end you can see that they are really enjoying themselves. [via Jan Schmidle]

“Tight Trite Night” by Andy McKee. He plays the guitar in all kinds of cool ways (flageolet etc.). [via Jan Schmidle]

Zither

The Zither is an old traditional instrument (Germany, Austria, Hungary, etc.). But some people play it quite unconventionally.

“Kroužení” by Michal Müller.

“Jazz Exercise No. 5” by Harald Oberlechner.