
The Enigma of “Blind Tom” Wiggins - gruseom
http://www.blackpast.org/perspectives/confounded-enigma-blind-tom-wiggins
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splat
Wow, I did not expect this to end up here! I learned the Battle of Manassas
not too long ago, and it was a lot of fun! The innovations Tom Wiggins
introduced in that piece predated a number of twentieth century composers by
nearly a century! Among them, the use of whistling and other sounds from the
pianist (cf. a composer like Crumb), liberal use of quotations (cf. Ives), and
the use of tone clusters (cf. a lot of twentieth century composers). It was
actually the reason I learned how to whistle. :-) (I'm still not very good.)

Edit: You can hear the Battle of Manassas with the sheet music here:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9ef5tAIlLo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9ef5tAIlLo)

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
This is awesome. It has theatrical quality. The dissonant cannons together
with Star Spangled Banner sound even like satire to me.

