Prepared Piano
Located in 2 routes
Prepared Piano alters the instrument by placing screws, bolts, rubber, coins, erasers, weather stripping, or other objects between or on the strings, turning a piano into a miniature percussion orchestra. The sound can be gamelan-like, metallic, muted, woody, buzzing, bell-like, or dryly rhythmic, with familiar keyboard gestures producing radically unfamiliar timbres.
History
John Cage developed the prepared piano in the late 1930s for dance accompaniment when a full percussion ensemble was impractical, and Sonatas and Interludes became the style's landmark cycle. The technique influenced postwar experimental music, percussion writing, chance procedures, theater pieces, avant-garde jazz, and contemporary keyboard practice, while performers such as Margaret Leng Tan, John Tilbury, Boris Berman, Joshua Pierce, and others built a repertory around Cage and later composers.
Defining artists
Essential listening
- Cage: Sonatas and Interludes, Sonata V — Margaret Leng TanSpotifyYouTube
- Cage: Amores, I. Solo for Prepared Piano — John TilburySpotifyYouTube
- Cage: Bacchanale — Boris BermanSpotifyYouTube
- Cage: The Perilous Night, I — Joshua PierceSpotifyYouTube
- Cage: Root of an Unfocus — Steffen SchleiermacherSpotifyYouTube
- Cage: A Valentine Out of Season — Aki TakahashiSpotifyYouTube
Sources
- Grove Music Online
- James Pritchett, The Music of John Cage
- David Nicholls, American Experimental Music
- Oxford Music Online