A Bid Farewell piano transcription

Hi Daniel,

I did listen to the original, torture as it was. Your transcription and the original are something like the difference between music and trash pickup with the guys shouting up and down the street at each other. There is, indeed, a kind of Beethovenesque sense to your transcription. I think you could even go on to orchestrate it.

I agree with your mother, as you can see.

I can include everything from a Bach mass to a country fiddler, with a banjo and a washboard, and singing a bit off key. But I can't really include the original here in any definition of music that I could work out. Perhaps the voices are part of that. In music, one expects an attempt at least to use the voice as a singing voice; in this one hears guttural shouting. If people who do that often keep it up long enough, they will ruin any chance they have of developing a singing voice.

Anyhow, your transcription provides a fine contrast between the, shall I say, reluctantly nervous or even angry and the triumphant second theme. I liked it a lot.

all best,
mgj