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The Chord Catalogue

by Tom Johnson

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1.
the 78 two-note chords 00:22
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2.
the 286 three-note chords 01:12
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3.
the 715 four-note chords 04:48
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4.
the 1287 five-note chords 09:49
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5.
the 1716 six-note chords 13:15
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6.
the 1716 seven-note chords 13:08
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7.
the 1287 eight-note chords 12:44
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8.
the 715 nine-note chords 07:02
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9.
the 286 ten-note chords 03:08
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10.
the 78 eleven-note chords 01:01
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11.
the 13 twelve-note chords 00:14
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12.
the 1 thirteen-note chord 00:09
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about

Tom Johnson composed The Chord Catalogue in 1986 and has performed it numerous times around the world since then. This is the first recording.
"Extreme and, one would think, extremely simple. A lesser man would have arranged those 8178 chords in some symphonically meaningful, or else quasi-random order, but Johnson proceeded methodically up the chromatic scale from two notes at a time, three, four, so on to 13....By the time we reached 10-note chords, the information overload was such that differences were hardly perceptible, a situation reminiscent of serial music. Far from being heavy-handed minimalism, The Chord Catalogue was a pointed lesson in music history and the relativity of perception." --Kyle Gann, Village Voice

credits

released October 10, 1999

Tom Johnson - composer, piano

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all rights reserved

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XI Records New York, New York

XI recordings are a series of compact discs highlighting the music of contemporary artist-composers whose works are original and galvanizing. The intent of XI Records is to extend the experience of these engaging and pioneering works beyond the performance space into the home ... more

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