The great pianist Anton Rubinstein has trouble getting up in the morning. Every morning Mrs.Rubinstein would wake him up by playing a dischord on the piano. Not being able to stand the sound, Rubinstein would run to the piano and resolve the chord properly, while Mrs.Rubinstein run to the bedroom and take all the sheets and blankets off the bed. That's how the day of the great Rubinstein gets started.

Dont know if it is true or not

Can be true

It is too good not to be true

hmmm. I wonder if that would work when trying to wake up my kids in the morning.

Worth a try. If you play a loud classical piece, they'll probably jump out of bed to get their mp3 players. Unless they sleep with them (nothing would surprise me about today's music-loving youngsters...)

I have tried that. They even sleep through that Granados Rondalla piece. Although I have a version of it that may awaken them - it has a 'few' dischords.

It could be true

Let me tell you:

If she played him for an example a secondary 11th or dominant 13th for example.... If you would try them on piano, they would be heard very annoying but if you immediately after that discord you will play a tonic chord, (which is a good resolver of discords), the sound of cadence would be heard rather very nicer. That's the explanation

That's why they say that Rubinstein get up immediately from bed to the piano to resolve the chord because the discord alone would be heard miserable, but resolved on a tonic chord would be a different story

That's it guys.

I was told this exact same story over 10 years ago by my piano teacher. I just totally forgot who she was talking about... somehow I thought it was Liszt and instead of the Mrs., it was a servant that would play the disonant chord... I guess I was too young to appreciate the anecdote.

It's kinda funny that I was thinking about this anecdote recently.

On a different note, I totally forgot her name, but she once told me that she studied under a famous pianist that was a pupil of Liszt... I know her name is Joyce and she's still alive, she's very old. Like, way past 80... Anyways, on the off chance that someone here has ever heard of her, she lived during the 90's in my home country of Nicaragua... she was American. I'm trying to find her again but I don't know her last name.

Cute story, but I also heard another version of it many years ago. It was about a husband and wife who were both piano teachers and didn't get along. He would tiptoe all the way down stairs in the middle of the night to bang a dominant seventh chord, and then run back up stairs and crawl back into bed. His wife couldn't stand it and would jump out of bed and run down to the piano to resolve the dominant seventh to the tonic.

i heard it was bach and his wife