Easley Blackwood Jr. as "Introducing Easley Blackwood". His father, Easley Blackwood Sr., was a noted contract bridge player and writer. Easley Blackwood Jr. Easley Blackwood (born April 21, 1933) is an American professor of music, a concert pianist, a composer of music, some using unusual tunings, and the author of books on music theory, including his research into the properties of microtonal tunings and traditional harmony. Blackwood was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. He studied piano there and was doing solo appearances at the age of 14 with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. After studies at many places (including Yale University, where he earned his
F-A-E Sonata F-A-E Sonata The F-A-E Sonata, a four-movement work for violin and piano, is a collaborative musical work by three composers: Robert Schumann, the young Johannes Brahms, and Schumann's pupil Albert Dietrich. It was composed in Düsseldorf in October 1853. The sonata was Schumann's idea as a gift and tribute to violinist Joseph Joachim, whom the three composers had recently befriended. Joachim had adopted the Romantic German phrase ""Frei aber einsam"" ("free but lonely") as his personal motto. The composition's movements are all based on the musical notes F-A-E, the motto's initials, as a musical cryptogram. Schumann assigned each movement to