Mendelshon (spelling issue with his name. I know :() also has composed the "songs without words", which I guess qualifies for what you say Andy. And of course if a pianist takes a Beatles song and plays it on the piano, with the melody and all, without singing, it still seems to remain a song.

As in "I just listened to Evgeny Kissin play Rachmaninoff's 3rd piano ditty and it was INCREDIBLE"?

Or "The Los Angeles Master Chorale will be performing Beethoven's ninth jingle on Saturday, June 4th at 8pm"?

Imagine if Apple had advertised "1,000 pieces in your pocket" when the iPod first hit the market. While perhaps more technically correct, it would have had people questioning the reliability of the product

I use either 'work' or 'piece' to refer to a (classical) musical composition, depending on circumstances. To me the difference between calling a composition a work or a piece is similar to calling an orchestra a 'band' or a violin a 'fiddle' (both being in common useage within certain circles).

I always have to scratch my head for a minute over that one...so don't feel alone.

Mendelssohn is the correct spelling I believe.

ah... Thanks H. I mean, who on earth can remember the double s and the ending in hn? I used to refer to Mendelssohn by a simple "Mendy", but this got me in a tiny bit of trouble from some huge fans of his, so I quit refering to him at all!

John: Thanks. It's nice to know I'm not alone.

Not when Brubeck does it, though. I was just listening to his solo version of "Memories" - not Beatles, the 1940's or so pop song - & while the song melody is there, what Brubeck does with it is 'way more than the song!

The possible interpretations of that are staggering!!

Not quite true.

Almost all people who are into classical music would call a non-vocal work either a 'work' or a 'piece' (whether or not they play an instrument).

Just think that 'Sohn' is german for 'son'. Then the double-s also makes sense because it's just the German of "Mendel's son". German doesn't use an apostrophe for the possessive so it's literally just the two words put together. 'Mendels Sohn'.

How about settling this whole piece/song thing and just smoosh em together. "Pong". Should satisfy everyone other than the few who call it a "work". (personally I call "work" raking leaves or something but whatever!).

Then again, I could be working on my pong. I know, sounds a bit nutty but at least we may finally have some resolution to this endless debate.

Brilliant!

or maybe (cheating a little, since it's PANG, not PONG)

Never, please never do it in the presence of a Pole.
+

A pox on the "Pong"!

Resolution? Who wants a resolution? We don't need no stinkin' resolution

Endless debates are a strange, but relatively mild, form of madness true, but they're therapeutic and crazy fun and good for the soul (if not one's blood pressure) - besides, what else do we have to debate endlessly: the teacher/no teacher question, or the original work/simplified version bruhaha, or something? Don't be silly - as if that would ever happen

JF

Folks that enjoy watching endless debates could just watch the Congressional coverage on CSPAN.

Haha, Don' forget the scales/no scales and Hanon/no Hanon

John Frank your actually right. What the heck was I thinking? It's getting WAY to lovey dovey around here lately. We NEED more drama/fights for cheap entertainment. Heck, Frank must secretly love them too as viewership and log on time must certainly be up during a good spat.

I say we start some trouble!

Hey! Let's go for it!

How about if we make some sort of snide, gratuitious, incendiary remark like, oh, maybe something like: "Lanz can out-compose Einaudi with one hand tied behind his back?"

Ya think that might do it?

JF

Those are fighting words for sure. Where's Monica?

Yeah but a Lanz-Einaudi showdown could be interesting.

We could all submit tunes from each in some sort of battle againt the previous ones. That could be fun but possibly too civilized.

A direct attack at specific genres (say classical) always works but the problem is I do enjoy a lot of Einaudi and even classical performances so that may not work out either.

We could always beat on each others pianos to death but that's done on a daily basis over in the main forum to the granular level.

What to do?

How about we just settle it over a nice game of Pong?
(Great new word by the way)

Well, there is the precedent of Brahms' Third Racket.