Prepared piano
Encyclopedia
A prepared piano is a piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

 that has had its sound altered by placing objects (preparations) between or on the strings or on the hammers or dampers.

The idea of altering an instrument's timbre
Timbre
In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...

 through the use of external objects has been applied to instruments other than the piano; see, for example, prepared guitar
Prepared guitar
A prepared guitar is a guitar that has had its timbre altered by placing various objects on or between the instrument's strings, including other extended techniques...

.

Background information

Richard Bunger wrote a book The Well Prepared Piano in which he explains how John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...

 prepared his pianos and even which pianos are suitable, because of the deviation of string lengths within different brands. Bunger also clarifies why the preparations were done in such ways; in other words, which adaptation creates which sounds (harmonics obtained, timbrel effects, etc.). The timbre of the instrument changes dramatically when preparations are introduced. Much of the technique is related to the harmonic positions
Harmonic series (music)
Pitched musical instruments are often based on an approximate harmonic oscillator such as a string or a column of air, which oscillates at numerous frequencies simultaneously. At these resonant frequencies, waves travel in both directions along the string or air column, reinforcing and canceling...

 of the strings. For instance a preparation on 1/2 of the string length causes a different sound than on 1/3. In other words, the preparations don't cause a random sound as often assumed.

History

John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...

 coined the term prepared piano and was undoubtedly the composer who made the technique famous. He credited Henry Cowell
Henry Cowell
Henry Cowell was an American composer, music theorist, pianist, teacher, publisher, and impresario. His contribution to the world of music was summed up by Virgil Thomson, writing in the early 1950s:...

 and, to a lesser extent, Erik Satie
Erik Satie
Éric Alfred Leslie Satie was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde...

, for contributing to the idea, but it is unclear if Cage was aware of many other precedents described below.

Since the later days of the harpsichord
Harpsichord
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...

 (17th–18th century), stringed keyboard instruments could have registers
Organ stop
An organ stop is a component of a pipe organ that admits pressurized air to a set of organ pipes. Its name comes from the fact that stops can be used selectively by the organist; some can be "on" , while others can be "off" .The term can also refer...

, for instance giving a drier or more ample sound when the instrument's stop was pulled (a stop in the meaning of a similar disposition for organs
Organ (music)
The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...

, known as organ stop
Organ stop
An organ stop is a component of a pipe organ that admits pressurized air to a set of organ pipes. Its name comes from the fact that stops can be used selectively by the organist; some can be "on" , while others can be "off" .The term can also refer...

s).

Fortepiano

When the first piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

s were invented around the beginning of the 18th century, the only "coloring" of the sounds produced by the instrument resulted from how the individual keys were pressed (loud = forte, or softly = piano, giving the name to the instrument: fortepiano
Fortepiano
Fortepiano designates the early version of the piano, from its invention by the Italian instrument maker Bartolomeo Cristofori around 1700 up to the early 19th century. It was the instrument for which Haydn, Mozart, and the early Beethoven wrote their piano music...

). A type of register, first implemented with a stop above the keyboard, which became a standard device for pianos in the second half of the 18th century, was engaging or disengaging the muting of the strings after the release of a key. Only by the end of the 18th century, the muting mechanism was triggered with a pedal, after an intermediate period when this register was operated by the pianist's knees.

Reed stop

But the idea of harpsichord-like registers lived on: in the early 19th century some pianos were provided with a reed stop, which lowered a strip of paper onto the strings. This led musicologists such as Tom Beghin to believe that the technique of placing a strip of paper on piano strings would probably have originated before it was standardised as a register operated with stops, and that, for instance, Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

's Alla Turca can safely be played with a piece of paper on some of the strings as a historical interpretation (see http://www.klara.be/html/klara_cds.html or http://streampower.belgacom.be/vrt/klara/beghin_mozart.mp3 for an audio example of this Alla Turca played on a prepared rebuilt authentic Mozart piano, in Tom Beghin's interpretation).

Turkish stop

Around the turn of the nineteenth century, Turkish music was so popular that piano manufacturers made special pianos with a Turkish stop, also called the military or Janissary stop. The player would press a pedal that caused a bell to ring and/or a padded hammer to strike the soundboard in imitation of a bass drum. The Turkish stop was popular for playing the famous Mozart Rondo alla Turca, K. 331.

Satie's Piège de Méduse

In the piano version of his Piège de Méduse
Le Piège de Méduse
Le piège de Méduse is a short play of which Erik Satie wrote both the text and the incidental music.The text of the play was written as a "comédie lyrique" in one act, February-March 1913...

 (1913 or 1914) Erik Satie
Erik Satie
Éric Alfred Leslie Satie was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde...

's score called for placing sheets of paper on the piano strings in order to imitate the mechanical sound of a monkey puppet that figured in the play.

Villa-Lobos's Choros no. 8

In his 1925 work for two pianos and large orchestra, Heitor Villa-Lobos
Heitor Villa-Lobos
Heitor Villa-Lobos was a Brazilian composer, described as "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music". Villa-Lobos has become the best-known and most significant Latin American composer to date. He wrote numerous orchestral, chamber, instrumental and vocal works...

 added to his score instructions to the pianist to insert pieces of paper between the strings and the hammers to attain a certain sonority.

Luthéal

In the 1920s, a new invention was presented, the Luthéal
Luthéal
The luthéal is a kind of prepared piano which extended the "register" possibilities of a piano by producing cimbalon-like sounds in some registers, exploiting harmonics of the strings when pulling other register-stops, and also some registers making other objects, which were lowered just above the...

, which extended the register possibilities of a piano to its maximum, producing cimbalon-like sounds in some registers, exploiting harmonics of the strings when pulling other register-stops, and also some registers making other objects, which were lowered just above the strings, resound. But that instrument became obsolete before it became popular, partly due to most of the mechanics of the instrument being too sensitive, needing constant adjustment. The only pieces in the general repertoire to feature the Luthéal are L'Enfant et les Sortilèges
L'enfant et les sortilèges
L'enfant et les sortilèges: Fantaisie lyrique en deux parties is an opera in one act, with music by Maurice Ravel to a libretto by Colette. It is Ravel's second opera, his first being L'heure espagnole...

 (1920–5) and Tzigane (1924) by Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...

, performances of which tend to substitute an upright piano, either prepared with paper or straight.

Ragamalika

Another precedent to the prepared piano was an experiment by the French composer Maurice Delage
Maurice Delage
Maurice Delage was a French composer and pianist.Delage was born and died in Paris. A student of Ravel and member of Les Apaches, he was influenced by travels to India and the East. Ravel's "La vallée des cloches" from Miroirs was dedicated to Delage.Delage's best known piece is Quatre poèmes...

 (1879–1961): his Ragamalika (1912–22), based on the classical music of India, calls for a piece of cardboard to be placed under the B-flat in the second line of the bass clef to dampen the sound, imitating the sound of an Indian drum.

String piano

In the 1920s, American composer Henry Cowell
Henry Cowell
Henry Cowell was an American composer, music theorist, pianist, teacher, publisher, and impresario. His contribution to the world of music was summed up by Virgil Thomson, writing in the early 1950s:...

 coined the term string piano
String piano
String piano is a term coined by American composer-theorist Henry Cowell to collectively describe those pianistic extended techniques in which sound is produced by direct manipulation of the strings, instead of or in addition to striking the piano's keys...

 "to describe direct manipulation of piano strings, such as by plucking them with fingers or stroking them with a brush.

John Cage and later composers

See also: Works for prepared piano by John Cage
Works for prepared piano by John Cage
American avant-garde composer John Cage started composing for prepared piano in 1940. The majority of early works for this instrument were created to accompany dances by Cage's various collaborators, most frequently Merce Cunningham. In response to frequent criticisms of prepared piano, Cage cited...


Cage first prepared a piano when he was commissioned to write music for "Bacchanale", a dance
Dance
Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....

 by Syvilla Fort
Syvilla Fort
Syvilla Fort was an American dancer, choreographer, and dance educator.Born in Seattle, she was African American and drew on her heritage in her original dance works....

 in 1938. For some time previously, Cage had been writing exclusively for a percussion ensemble, but the hall where Fort’s dance was to be staged had no room for a percussion group. The only instrument available was a single grand piano. After some consideration, Cage said that he realized it was possible “to place in the hands of a single pianist the equivalent of an entire percussion orchestra ... With just one musician, you can really do an unlimited number of things on the inside of the piano if you have at your disposal an exploded keyboard” (Cage and Charles, 38).

More recent composers to use prepared pianos include Sophie Agnel, Koka Nikoladze
Koka Nikoladze
Koka Nikoladze is a musician .After graduating music school entered Tbilisi State Conservatoire . In 2008 entered the same conservatoire...

, Michael Staley, Hiromi Uehara, Philip Corner
Philip Corner
Philip Corner is an American composer, action musician, trombone/alphornist, sometime vocalist, pianist-improvisor, theorist-educator, graphic score designer, and visual artist, collage&assembleur, calligrapher.-Biography:After The High School of Music & Art in New York City, Philip Corner...

, Roberto Carnevale
Roberto Carnevale
Roberto Carnevale is an Italian composer, pianist and conductor.- Biography and career :Born in Catania, he started studying piano at the age of seven. He took a degree in Arts at the University of Catania and he attended the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena...

, Carson Kievman, Jason Moran
Jason Moran (musician)
Jason Moran is a jazz pianist and composer who debuted as a band leader with the 1999 album Soundtrack to Human Motion. Since then, he has garnered much critical acclaim and won a number of awards for his playing and compositional skills, which combine elements of stride piano, avant-garde jazz,...

, Marina Leonardi
Marina Leonardi
Marina Leonardi is an Italian pianist and composer. Leonardi was born in Catania, Italy and studied piano with Oria Dell’Angelo, and composition with Alexander Mullenbach, Giovanni Ferrauto, Alessandro Solbiati and Eliodoro Sollima. After completing her studies, Leonardi took a position as...

, Stephen Scott
Stephen Scott
Stephen Scott is an American composer best known for his development of the bowed piano , which involves a grand piano being played by an ensemble of ten musicians who utilize lengths of horsehair, nylon filament, and other utensils to bow the strings of the piano, creating an orchestra-like...

, and Matteo Marchisano-Adamo
Matteo Marchisano-Adamo
Matteo Marchisano-Adamo is an American sound designer, film editor and composer. He was born in Flint, Michigan.-Biography:...

 (http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/matteomusic2).

Tack Piano

The phrase prepared piano is also sometimes applied to other kinds of preparations. The tack piano
Tack piano
In music, the tack piano is a permanently altered version of an ordinary piano, in which tacks or nails are placed on the hammers of the instrument at the point where the hammers hit the strings, giving the instrument a tinny, more percussive sound...

 is a piano that has been altered by inserting thumbtacks or small nails into the striking end of each hammer, so that the instrument will produce a more percussive sound and brighter timbre. The resulting tone often resembles the sound of a very old and derelict piano. The tack piano has been used primarily in honky-tonk-style piano playing, or to make a piano sound like an antique piano that might have been heard in a saloon or brothel around the early 20th century. The application of tacks is generally discouraged by piano technicians as the tacks can drop off the hammers and lodge in the strings or jam the mechanism, or the fact that placing tacks inside felt hammers renders the felt unvoicable and, therefore, ruins the hammers. On normal pianos, felt coverings on the hammers will harden and compress with use (though not usually for at least several decades, unless it is a heavily used concert piano), yielding a characteristic bright, tinny sound. This can be cured by softening the hammers with a device consisting of multiple needles called a "voicing needle". Where the felt is too far gone, the hammers can be replaced.

In popular music

  • "All Tomorrow's Parties
    All Tomorrow's Parties (song)
    "All Tomorrow's Parties" is a song by The Velvet Underground, written by Lou Reed and released on the group's 1967 debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico....

    " from The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967), John Cale
    John Cale
    John Davies Cale, OBE is a Welsh musician, composer, singer-songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground....

     prepared his piano with a chain of paper clip
    Paper Clip
    "Paper Clip" is a 1995 episode of The X-Files television series. It was the second episode broadcast in the show's third season. Paper Clip concludes the story regarding the agents' possession of a digital tape containing government secrets on extraterrestrials.- Plot :Continuing from the previous...

    s.
  • Denman Maroney
    Denman Maroney
    Denman Maroney is a jazz musician who plays what he calls "hyperpiano." Hyperpiano "involves stopping, sliding, bowing, plucking, striking and strumming the strings with copper bars, aluminum bowls, rubber blocks, plastic boxes and other household objects." This is sometimes done with one hand...

     performs on what he has dubbed hyperpiano, which "involves stopping, sliding, bowing, plucking, striking and strumming the strings with copper bars, aluminum bowls, rubber blocks, plastic boxes and other household objects."
  • The Noah and the Whale
    Noah and the Whale
    Noah and the Whale are an English indie folk band from Twickenham, London, England formed in 2006. The band consists of Charlie Fink , Tom Hobden , Matt "Urby Whale" Owens , Fred Abbott , and Michael Petulla .-Early years and Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down...

     song "Our Window" makes use of a piano prepared with "screws, ping pong palls and tooth picks."

Further reading

  • Bunger, Richard
    Richard Bunger Evans
    Richard Bunger Evans, also known as Richard Bunger, is an American composer and pianist who worked with John Cage and subsequently wrote "the classic book on John Cage," The Well-Prepared Piano. Evans has composed and performed music for opera and musical theatre, including works for the Bohemian...

    (1973). The Well-Prepared Piano. Colorado Springs: Colorado College Music Press
  • Fürst-Heidtmann, Monika (1979). Das präparierte Klavier des John Cage. Gustav Bose Verlag Regensburg. ISBN 978-3-7649-2183-5.
  • Cage, John, and Daniel Charles (1981). For The Birds: John Cage in Conversation with Daniel Charles. Marion Boyers London. ISBN 0-7145-2690-8.
  • Dianova, Tzenka (2008). John Cage's Prepared Piano: The Nuts & Bolts. Mutasis Books Victoria. ISBN 978-0-9809657-0-4.

External links


Listening

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