prepared piano

[ReggaePass at aol.com]

Greetings Fellow Listers,

I've not had internet access for the past week (family vacation) so it was only last night that I got caught up on this thread.  

As some of you already know, I have been the piano technician at California Institute of the Arts for nearly 23 years now.  At the national convention in Rochester, I did a class in "Non-Traditional Piano Use" as part of the College and University Technicians day at the Eastman School of Music.  Twelve years ago we made a video by that same name here at Cal Arts and I also presented a class back then while we were in production.  Interest in the subject has grown, not subsided.

Personal tastes aside, I can tell you that playing the piano in ways other than with your fingers on the keyboard is widespread practice and is here to stay.  Some of the literature has been around for nearly a century, is enshrined in music history courses, and is often required by piano majors at forward-looking schools of music in order to graduate.  Our video, the thesis of which is "to explore the extended sound world of the piano and do so in ways that are piano-friendly," is the most current source on the subject.  Many of the most prominent schools of music in the country have the "Non-Traditional Piano Use" video in their libraries.  (Just last week the New England Conservatory of Music purchased a copy.)  At this writing I am consulting in the production of a video with the working title "Unorthodox Piano Use" by Dr. Nadia Schpachenko.  She has a DMA in piano performance from USC and is on the piano faculty at the Claremont colleges.  Her video concentrates on the cultural context and evolution of unorthodox piano use.

So what many may have thought, decades ago, was a passing fad appears to have become a permanent part of the pianists’ and composers’ toolbox.  I completely empathize with those who have had “challenges” with artists who do not know what they are doing, technically speaking, when they get inside the piano.  Please encourage them to seek out our video and insist (which is easier said than done) that they consult with you before delving into NTPU with any piano for which you are responsible.  Please know that it IS entirely possible to play the vast majority of the music written for extended techniques at the piano without doing any harm to the instrument.  The creed must be the pianistic equivalent of those signs you see at national parks: “Take only photographs and leave only footprints.”  We need the “visitors” to our pianos to take it a step further, though:  They must erase any sign of ever having been inside the instrument.  If they care to do so, and bother to take the modest amount of time needed to educate themselves, this goal is realistically reachable.

Cheers,

Alan Eder RPT