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So here\\u2019s the deal with the mystery recording (Ahree got it right):

It is, of course, a familiar Bach prelude. I learned to play the piece backwards \\u2014 that is, playing the notes in reverse order \\u2014 recorded it that way, then reversed the recording. Got it? So even though you hear the strange sound of backwards piano, growing instead of decaying, the notes come in the right order. Here\\u2019s what I actually played \\u2014 and here\\u2019s the final backward-is-foward result again:

\\nMystery recording\\n
\\nPaul Cantrell,\\npiano\\n
\\n\\u266b\\nDownload\\n(2:12 / 3.0 M)\\n

Jimi Hendrix used to use this same trick, most notably on the masterpiece Castles Made of Sand. Unlike him \\u2014 he was reportedly able to think the music backwards in his head \\u2014 I worked out the backwards prelude on paper, a task which Sibelius made much less tedious. I cheated a bit on what music theorists would call the literal \\u201cretrograde,\\u201d changing where the left hand notes start\\u2026er\\u2026end in order to make them sound like they\\u2019re starting in the right place when listening backwards.

An interesting phenomenon, the one Joel and I were discusssing that lead to this idea, is that the music doesn\\u2019t make sense backwards. Listen to what I played, that is, the prelude with all the notes in reverse order. It keeps seeming like it\\u2019s about to start making sense, but it never quite does. You might think that this is only because the piece is so familiar, or because the tonality and musical language are so well-established, but that\\u2019s not it! Joel and I were discussing Niobrara \\u2014 just to be silly, I\\u2019d asked if the piece played backwards would be \\u201cArarboin,\\u201d so Joel actually tried playing it backwards, and found just the same thing: even Niobrara, which is barely tonal, quite unfamiliar (I made it up on the spot!), and rather meandering, keeps sounding like it\\u2019s about to make sense but never does.

Is it that piano just doesn\\u2019t make sense when you play it backwards, Joel wondered? Having the notes swell up instead of decaying prevents our ears from finding musical sense? No, I claimed \\u2014 and today\\u2019s recording is the evidence. The Hendrix-style prelude definitely sounds weird, but it makes sense. With the piano forward but the notes in backwards order, it doesn\\u2019t. QEF.

So what\\u2019s the deal? Why don\\u2019t the backwards versions make sense? Music has syntax. Even all those funny improvs do. Backwards work doesn\\u2019t syntax the, language verbal with as and. It\\u2019s hard to pin down exactly how musical syntax works; in fact, I don\\u2019t think anybody\\u2019s really managed to do a satisfactory job for music in general, just rough ideas for certain specific styles. But even if we can\\u2019t express the syntax as a set of rules, we can sure tell when it\\u2019s out of whack!

It\\u2019s yet further evidence for one of these little speeches I keep giving: the point of music is not understanding the experience \\u2014 which nobody, nobody really does \\u2014 but the experience itself. Your experiential mind knows things about music that your reasoning mind does not.