<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type"> <title></title> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> Hi Jeff I agree... to some point :)  Lets face it... the only piano that even remotely has any design features that lend themselves to prepared piano music is the Sauter... and it only has some lines on the soundboard that indicate the position of a couple harmonics. The instrument was not designed at all for music involving all maner of foreign objects stuck in the strings or various hammering tools used to bang, pluck, zing or zang the strings into some kind of vibration. Nor were they designed to deal with heavy weights layed across string sections  or pianists dinking around with the damperheads. That said... and this is where the to some point bit comes in..... as long as whatever preparation and useage does not result in a detriment to the design useage of the instrument.... I have no problem with any of it.  Quite the opposite.  The (carefull) exploration of sound that the instrument is capable of is a fascinating world.  What I dont understand is why this doesnt include temperament / tuning experiementations to any real significant degree.... but thats another issue. Cheers RicB <blockquote> I'm sorry.  I must disagree to some point. Performers seem to be of the opinion that the composers of this music  are more the authority of piano design than are manufacturers and  technicians. Fuddy-duddie or not, there must be some education that much of this  stuff is quite damaging to the piano.  Some of it doesn't even make  sense - like using a wedge mute for single unisons -- even the  largest ones just fall through to the soundboard.  I don't care how  much some of you respect some of the composers or how "cool" some of  that music sounds, it is my opinion that those who compose this type  of stuff are guilty of negligent vandalism, if there is such a  thing.  When some music departments require some form of this stuff  for composition students to graduate, so that framming on a $100,000  piano with a beer can is all one can come up with to meet the  requirement, there are serious problems with this form of composition. Jeff </blockquote> <div class="moz-signature">-- <img src="cid:part1.09090406.08060401@pianostemmer.no" border="0"></div> </body> </html>