October’s Tippet Rise Podcast
October 9, 2019
The mission of Tippet Rise is to celebrate the concept that art, music, architecture, and nature are inextricably linked in the human experience, each making the others more powerful. On the first Thursday of every month, we release a new episode of the Tippet Rise Podcast, and each episode explores a facet, or facets, of the art center’s mission.
In this month’s podcast, “Peter at the Piano: Overtones—The Unseen and Unheard,” Tippet Rise cofounder Peter Halstead takes a seat at one of the art center’s legendary Steinway pianos, CD-18, to explore the musical thread of the Tippet Rise mission: specifically, overtones and undertones, and how our relationship to our surroundings is shaped, in part, by them.
The episode, however, isn’t limited to music theory, to classical music, or even to music at all. From the chord structure in Those Magic Changes, performed by the American rock and roll doo-wop group Sha Na Na in the 1978 film Grease (which includes exactly the same chords used by Richard Strauss in his 1896 tone poem, Also sprach Zarathustra), to the sound a black hole makes, to the navigational concept called the “offing,” Peter’s narration wanders and wends, exploring a variety of themes which intrigue as they braid. The episode is punctuated, and the narration illustrated, by music Peter plays on CD-18. To listen, click on “More info” below.
Photo of the Inverted Portal and the Milky Way by Yevgeny Sudbin.