Prepared piano

[joel a. jones]

>I have one piano here that I try to get everyone to use for "prepared
>piano" music. I'm not entirely successful.  I have thought of painting
>the dampers of the black notes white since the usual practice is to put
>white self stick tapes on the dampers of black notes.  This would at
>least keep them from having to install the stickers then mess up the
>dampers while removing them.  It would make the piano look kind of
>strange though

David & Rick.

It does look strange at first, but I use white pin striping on the black
key dampers.  Leave it permanently on the dampers of the piano designated
for prepared piano.
	By observing the striping you can readily pick out the group of 2
and 3 black keys. For further ease of distinguishing the 2 and 3 grouping
we put different colors on these dampers.  There may be an easier method,
but this is our system which I worked out with our contemporary music
ensemble professor.
	The best time spent on these projects is working with your piano
faculty  before someone begins to practice for the performance.  We made a
video that we require our extended performers watch before doing interior
performance. The video shows our system and what we recommend.  Additional
questions are worked out between myself and the piano facutly who made the
video.

Wisconsin Days
April 25-27, 1997
Ramada Limited
Madison, WI