Events in Music that are not possible.
only list examples that fit this description
- The first movement of Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata has 128th-note chromatic glissandos. The third movement of Moonlight Sonata has a "Presto Agitato" tempo and 16th-note arpeggios, nearly impossible to play by human hands. Some pieces composed after he went deaf are literally unplayable.
- In the same vein, "Circus Galop
" by Marc-André Hamelin, which is playable if you can find two people whose thumb-and-pinky stretch is 13 or 14 inches. In fairness, Hamelin wrote the thing for self-playing piano, and it is not meant to be performed by wetware.
- Shawn Lane's guitar playing.
- Also, Buckethead, for figuring out how to play a song that Shawn wrote to specifically NOT be playable.
- To clarify, Shawn Lane made a recording by playing one note at a time on a guitar and then stitching them together impossibly fast, at impossibly wide intervals, that he was sure no human could play. Buckethead, thinking it was a legit recording, then proceeded to figure out how to play it for real, IN REAL TIME.
- Tim Miller falls into a similar category for different reasons. He doesn't often play impossibly fast, he just plays lines that come from a system he developed and thus are harmonically near-impossible to conceive of for guitarists who aren't him. It does indeed hit the ear incredibly strangely.
- Shawn Lane notably is still the fastest guitarist in terms of notes per second played in a controlled fashion. Some guitarists can play more notes per second, but they can't maintain rhythm while doing it. Theoretically speaking, some of his work is impossible to play until anyone else develops the same level of controlled speed.
- Okay, not as badass as all the guitars exploding a million times a second, but Spike Jones made his band play "Flight of the Bumblebee" on a trombone.
- Buddy Guy: his live antics were what inspired Jimi Hendrix to play a burning guitar with his teeth. "Jimi Hendrix himself once said that 'Heaven is lying at Buddy Guy’s feet while listening to him play guitar.'" He has a habit of walking around the audience while playing extended solos, while making quips at the audience, such as, "that's really me playing up there." He'll play covers of Cream songs not with a pick, his fingers, or his teeth, but with a handkerchief.
- Sorabji's Opus Clavicembalisticum, widely considered the most difficult piece in the classical piano repertory, takes about eight hours to perform in full. The score is so complex that it is often written across six or seven staves. (Two staves is the upper limit in almost all other piano music.) Unsurprisingly, the complete piece has only been performed a handful of times since it was composed in 1930.
- For that matter, Godowsky's Studies on the Chopin Etudes are so hard that only two pianists have played the whole set. Opus Clavicembalisticum has been played in full publicly nine times.
- The Barenaked Ladies have a song where the word orange is rhymed. Three times.
- Much of what Art Tatum improvised is still considered to be grounds for quitting by many jazz pianists, almost anything of his on YouTube will provide examples of his utterly unreasonable level of technical proficiency and creativity. Much of Liszt's material fills a similar role for classical players, only masters of the highest caliber can hope to play his music well (or in many cases, at all).
