Prepared Piano

[David Porritt]

On Fri, 27 Jan 1995 k.swafford@genie.geis.com wrote:

>      And speaking of performers not understanding the seriousness of
> what they are doing, I witnessed David Burge remove the plate
> crosspiece from a Steinway D so he could better get at the mid-range
> strings in performing George Crumb's music.  I STILL can't believe
> that he used to do that on a regular basis.  I heard him rather
> vigorously defend the practice.
>                                              Kent Swafford

I've heard people from Steinway say that it's OK to remove that crosspiece
to service dampers (It's difficult to impossible otherwise.)  I can't see
why it would be bad to remove it for a performance.  Here at SMU our
designated "prepared piano" instrument is a Baldwin SF-10.  That is
prefered as it has no plate crosspiece to get in the way.

Dave Porritt, RPT
SMU