Piano extended technique

Piano extended techniques are those in which unorthodox or unconventional techniques are used to create the sound.

Techniques

History

Though some of these techniques had been explored by earlier composers—Robert Schumann introduces the silent pressing technique into his Carnaval (at the end of Paganini)—the use of these techniques was not widely practised until the 20th century. Composers such as Béla Bartók started to look at the piano as a more percussive instrument and explored various techniques to achieve percussive effects. His Bagatelles and Mikrokosmos (the series of works for the instruction of young pianists) both contain unusual instructions to the pianist. He even used special notation for certain of them: "hold keys silently" is indicated by square note heads rather than the usual round ones. Karlheinz Stockhausen took these ideas further in his series of works entitled Klavierstücke in which the pianist is often instructed to wear protective gloves while bashing the keys with the fists. Henry Cowell also explored these techniques. Sofia Gubaidulina, in her Sonata, instructs the pianist to use nontraditional sounds: sounds produced by a glissando performed with a bamboo stick on the piano pegs against a cluster performed on the keyboard; a "buzzing" sound created by placing the bamboo stick on vibrating strings; pizzicato effects produced by plucking the strings; glissando effects produced by rubbing along the strings using a fingernail; and a muted effect produced by touching the strings. Jennifer Stasack, Crossing Rivers IV, Movement IV, instructs the pianist to use the palms for the white notes (clustered) and flat hands for the black notes (also clustered). Composers also instruct the pianist to partially damp strings with the finger tips to create harmonics (e.g. George Crumb, Eleven Echoes of Autumn, Eco I).

Another technique involves the physical "preparation" of the piano using foreign objects inserted between the strings or attached to the hammers. John Cage pioneered this technique. He worked with another pioneer in the field of extended techniques, David Tudor.

Pianos have also been constructed that include microtones (and extra keys to hit their strings).

External links

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