Re: GG: 318 & Piano Sounds

[KImmoor@aol.com]

>I also can't imagine all the playing he did particularly while
>watching the Goldber Variations tape being aware that he is 
>seated on a single piece of wood.  I wonder, has anyone 
>studied the construction of that chair?

Your question may have been rhetorical, but Andrew Kazdin seemed to have
spent a lot of time analyzing Gould's chair, and certainly had a lot to say
about it. I excerpt the following from three full pages in his book. The
parenthetical stuff is Kazdin's...

"...over the years, the following metamorphoses took place:
1. Somehow, the cushioned panel got separated (if it was ever firmly
attached) from the frame. This merely meant that Gould had to center it by
eye each time he set up the devise for use.
2. Perhaps it was the friction caused by the separation that began to wear
out the underside of the leatherette where it wrapped around the wood panel
and was tacked in place.
3. Eventually a loose flap was created that allowed the stuffing to come out
and be discarded.
4. For a long time, the seat unit consisted of only the plywood panel rather
loosely covered by the leatherette cover - no stuffing was left at all.
5. The ravages of time and motion eventually began to cause little splits
around the perimeter of the wood panel. Soon pieces began to chip away, thus
reducing the dimensions of the board. It was during this period that the
audio content of the chair as a whole was at its peak.
6. When the size of the wood panel became smaller than the dimensions of the
supporting frame, the board acted more as a liability than an assett (I'm
sure there's a pun in there somewhere!) because now it functioned as a
teeter-totter, fulcrummed as it was by the bisecting center strut. The wood
was discarded.
7. In the end (another pun?) the chair as a hole (I couldn't resist)
consisted of the wooden frame, over which was draped -as in a kind of
ritualistic symbolism- the thin remains of the leatherette cover.
   Doubtless the reader has noticed that nowhere in this history has there
been any mention of Glenn's reaction to the deterioration of the seat. It
must be understood that in the final analysis, his gluteus maximus was
positioned directly over an open rectangle - made even more treacherous by
the center strut, which, I must reiterate, ran from front to back. The reason
I have omitted any mention of his personal trauma is because I don't know of
any. I never once witnessed any increasing displeasure with the chair's
comfort as its luxury decreased. A really clever psychologist could gleefully
cross-reference this to the question of the piano as mistress."

Yuck. The whole thing becomes kinda creepy, eh?