History of the Prepared Piano
Prepared for Dr. Ross Osmun
By Kyle Ross
April 24, 2015
History of the Prepared Piano Through the twentieth century, the unprecedented amount of new musical aesthetics sought out to develop and integrate inventive methods of writing music. The exploration of ways to organize musical elements, e.g., serialism, synthesis of foreign or forgotten folk with the classical traditions, as in exoticism or nationalism, or the emphasis of sound as colour or effect in musique concrète, are examples of techniques recognized. Through this period of invention, new instruments such as the Theremin emerged from the synthesizer revolution and the notion of what could be considered an instrument also became resonant within composers (Varèse’s Ionisation calls for two anvils, for example). The twentieth century avant-garde was free to challenge and experiment with
timbre,
arguably as a result of the emancipation of dissonance through the
works of atonality, tone clusters and disregard of function in harmony. One composer, who encapsulates the experimental nature of the twentieth century in aesthetic, instrumentation, extended technique and philosophy of music, is John Cage. Consequently, Cage, alongside other twentieth century composers, like Harry Partch, developed instruments to satisfy their timbral needs; in a similar fashion to how the antecedent era – romanticism – shaped musical form from the composer’s expressive needs.
With focus on John Cage, his greatest contribution to timbre comes from his self-coined prepared piano. With many pieces written for the tempered instrument by multiple composers and recitals featuring such works, the prepared piano is not only another chapter in the history of the piano, but in tempered instruments as a whole. Recent publications of scores and books on how to “prepare” a piano, such as the award winning Doctoral thesis John Cage’s Prepared Piano: The Nuts and Bolts, by Tzenka Dianova, in 2008, show that interest in the prepared piano is still found within pianists and academics. The following essay traces the history of the instrument through the pre-cursors and influences on Cage to the instrument today.
Tampering and Extended Techniques before the Prepared Piano The First Appearance The prepared piano was first introduced in a private performance by Erik Satie (an important influence on Cage) of his piece Le piège de Meduse, in 1913 (Dianova, 2008, 49). Although the score does not call for any modifications to the instrument, it is acknowledged that Satie used sheets of paper between the strings of the piano in order to produce a more “mechanical” sound for the premier.
Exotic Percussion Arguably one of the first pieces to feature a prepared piano in the score is Maurice Delage’s Ragamalika. Delage was student of Ravel and a member of Les Apaches, granting him a surrounding of influential composers, artists and music critics. Much like his contemporary Darius Milhaud, another French composer and a member of Les Six , Delage’s music was influenced by his travels to foreign countries. Delage travelled to India and was heavily influenced by the classical music of the country; he thus wrote Quatre poèmes hindous (1912–1913) and Ragamalika (1914). In order to imitate the percussive sound of an Indian drum, the
score suggests placing a light piece of cardboard beneath the strings of B ♭2.
Figure 1: Ragamalika; published in Paris by Durand & Cie.
This emphasis on exoticism – especially in percussion – is very representative of John Cage; an example of Cage’s interest, predating the established prepared piano, is his piece First Construction (in Metal) where the instrumentation calls for Japanese and Balinese gongs and Chinese and Turkish cymbals. In The Prepared Piano Music of John Cage: Towards an Understanding of Sounds and Preparations, by Anderson, Simon Peter,
it is argued that the structure of such early percussion works is similar to the structure of prepared piano music.
String Piano Henry Cowell is credited as being one of the most influential people in Cage’s life. Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg were both teachers to Cage, but while Schoenberg’s major influence on him only lasted during his early years of tone-row works (e.g., Sonata for Clarinet ), Cowell’s experiments with the piano as an instrument led Cage to further develop techniques that are synonymous with him today.
String piano, coined by Cowell, is a technique he pioneered in the 1920s and popularly showcased in his exclusively string piano pieces Aeolian Harp (1923) and The Banshee (1925). The technique refers to playing inside the piano by plucking, sweeping, scraping or muting the strings. Also, keys may be depressed and held silently to create chords or clusters and the sustain and damper pedal may be used for various effects. It is important to notice that string piano does not make use of inserting foreign objects in the piano. In relationship to many elements of string piano, such as plucking string or muting strings, have very distinct percussive effects on the timbre. However, Cowell was not the first to experiment with the percussiveness of playing inside a piano: according to Micheal Hicks, in Henry Cowell, Bohemian (Music in American Life) , Percy Grainger (Australian Composer) was the first composer to incorporate playing on the strings in the classical
tradition. As described in Grainger The Modernist , by Suzanne Robinson of the University of Melbourne, Grainger’s orchestral piece In a Nutshell (1916) had the pianist strike strings of the piano with a mallet, instead of having the keys perform the task. The score for the piece also demonstrates great attention to the percussion section, highlighting the composer’s affinity to percussion. For example:
Figures 2 and 3: In a Nutshell; published in New-York by G. Schirmer Inc.
Grainger and Cowell were both friends and rivals – as with many composer relationships – but also strong influences on each other. One unmistakable observation is how they both share interest in percussion and that Cage was passionate about it. In fact, percussion is the core reason for the development of the prepared piano, as will be explained further down. Beforehand, the following is an example of Cowell’s string piano that influenced Cage:
Figures 4: The Banshee; published in Los Angeles by W. A. Quincke Company
Undoubtedly, such pieces did not only inspire Cage to venture inside the instrument, but also introduced him to graphical notation.
Cage’s Piano Experiments Following ideas from Schoenberg, Cage desired to break away from the constraints of harmony, however, he felt that using instruments designed for tonality was counter-intuitive to atonality. In A Composer’s Confessions, a book written by Cage describing how he came to write music, he writes:
“I was convinced overnight that although twelve tone music was excellent theoretically, in making use of the instruments which had been developed for tonal music, it had continually to be written negatively rather than straightforwardly. It had always to avoid the harmonic relationships which were natural to tonal instruments, which instruments it did not so much as use as usurp. I was convinced that for atonal music new instruments proper to it were required.‟ (p.31)
In this regard, the absence of clear pitch in percussions and percussive effects allowed him to develop and express his take on atonality. Cage’s percussion pieces Quartet (1935) and Trio (1936) mark the composer’s first experiments with non-musical sounds, however he still continued writing with tone-rows until 1938 (e.g., Metamorphosis for solo piano). In 1939’s Imaginary Landscape No.1 , the composer continues to attempt to
achieve his instrumentation ideals by using two variable-speed turntables, recordings of pure sine waves, cymbal and – inspired by Cowell’s string piano – a muted piano by playing on the inside with the palm of the hand, alongside other string piano techniques such as sweeping the bass string register. Having successfully synthesized percussion music and extended piano techniques, Cage wrote his Second Construction, in 1940, for percussion quartet and prepared string piano; this was the first time he used fixed preparation inside the piano. In this piece, a metal rod is to be applied to the strings, screws to be inserted between A and E ♭ and to mute strings with cardboard similarly to Ragamalika. The metal preparations were introduced to give the effects of a gong and the cardboard to produce the “thud” of a drum. The Second Construction is not widely accepted as the beginning of Cage’s signature prepared piano, as it is truly prepared string piano, i.e., the performer is not playing on the keys.
The Prepared Piano: Bacchanale In 1940, two months after the Second Construction, Cage wrote the first prepared Piano piece, the Bacchanale. Two years prior, Cage was living in San-Francisco with his wife. Henry Cowell arranged one of his
students, Lou Harrison, to meet with John Cage, as, according to Cowell, they both shared the same interest 1
in percussion and dance . Harrison was the dance accompanist for the Mills College Physical Education Department in California. At Mills, he met Bonnie Bird, head of the dance department at the Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, the same year he met Cage. Bird offered Harrison a job as accompanist for her dance group at Cornish, but he declined and recommended Cage instead.
Cage accepted the offer and thus moved to Seattle, where he worked with Syvilla Fort, an American dancer and choreographer who was a student of Bird. Fort was choreographing a dance performance with an African character named Bacchanale and asked Cage, three or four days before the performance, to write music for 2
the choreography . At the time, the composer had two main genres of composition: piano or orchestral music using the tone-row technique and music for percussion ensembles. The former genre was abandoned once he could not create a tone-row that provided an African flavour. He then intended the piece to be for percussions, but realized an ensemble would not fit on Cornish stage. With minimal time to write the music for the premiere, he used preparing techniques he experimented with from his Second Construction to add percussive effects to certain notes when played by the keys. Contrasting to string piano, playing with the keys allowed more control on rhythm, pitch and single percussive effects, allowing for dance motives. The following is what Cage had to say about the process:
1 2
Patterson, David Wayne. John Cage: Music, Philosophy, and Intention, 1933-1950. New York: Routledge, 2002. 48. Print. Cage, John. Foreword. The Well-prepared Piano. By Bunger, Richard. Colorado Springs: Colorado College Music, 1973. Print.
“Before I left the Cornish School I made the prepared piano. I needed percussion instruments for music for a dance that had an African character by Syvilla Fort. But the theatre in which she was to dance had no wings and there was no pit. There was only a small grand piano built in the front and left of the audience. At the time I either wrote twelve-tone music for piano or I wrote percussion music. There was no room for instruments. I couldn’t find an African twelve tone row. I finally realized I had to change the piano. I did so by placing objects between the strings. The piano was transformed into a percussion orchestra having the 3
loudness, say, of a harpsichord.”
Figures 5: Example of a piano prepared with screws.
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Cage, John. "John Cage: An Autobiographical Statement." Soutwest Review 76 , 1990. Original Print. Now found online at .
The Setup The preparation for the Bacchanale has twelve notes tempered with; screws, nuts and strips of fibrous material between strings to prepare the notes. Cage developed a system called a Piano Table of Preparation to write down the preparation scheme of the instrument. Information on which pitch to be prepared is given through columns designated the materials, between which strings of a note the material should be placed and at what distance they should be placed from the damper. The symbol “**” indicates that the performer decides the positions and size of the material, in order to encourage experimentations. This might be to reflect the following thoughts he had about consistency:
“When I first placed objects between piano strings, it was with the desire to possess sounds (to be able to repeat then). But, as the music left my home and went from piano to piano and from pianist to pianist, it became clear that not only are two pianists essentially different from one another, but two pianos are not the same either. Instead of the possibility of repetition, we are faced in life with the unique qualities and 4
characteristics of each occasion.“
4
Cage, John. Foreword. The Well-prepared Piano. By Bunger, Richard. Colorado Springs: Colorado College Music, 1973. Print.
Figure 6: Piano Preparation Table for Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes (1946-1948).
After Cage Examples of Influences on Other Composers 1950 marked a turning point for Cage as he challenged the concepts of music, beginning with his questioning on silence and indeterminacy. As the 4’33” , Music of Changes, era of Cage’s output is more renown, it important to highlight the music influenced by prepared piano.
In 1949, Cage won an award from the National Academy of Arts and Letters for the invention of the prepared piano, establishing it as a recognized technique.
Toshiro Mayuzumi, a Japanese composer who attended the Paris Conservatoire national supérieur de musique, was interested in Western avant-garde music. In 1957 he wrote Pieces for prepared piano and string quartet where the piano is prepared with nuts, bolts and eraser wedges following positions from a
preparation table.
George Crumb, renowned for his use of extended techniques, such as amplifying instruments with microphones, used both prepared piano and string piano. Unlike Cage, however, pieces such as the Makrokosmos volumes (1972-1979) could have the performer preparing the piano during performance (i.e.,
adding or removing materials while the performer plays).
In more recent years, Volker Bertelmann (known under his artist name Hauschka), a german pianist, is notable for using and expanding upon the prepared piano by using motorized objects that continuously vibrate certain strings, bells, chimes and ping-pong balls that jump around strings. Albums such as the 2005 released The Prepared Piano and the 2007 album Versions of the Prepared Piano feature the prepared piano as solo instrument.
Influence on other instruments: the prepared guitar With the preparation relying on inserting objects between strings non-permanently, other composers experimented with preparing other instruments with strings. Arguably the most notable is the prepared guitar.
Keith Row, inspired by American painter Jackson Pollock, who abandoned traditional methods to create his own style, and inspired by Cage’s experiments, decided to develop the prepared guitar (also called tabletop guitar) in the late 1960s. A prepared guitar is typically in the electric family, in order to control volume and effects over extended techniques through the amplification of the pickups, similarly to Crumb’s use of microphones in the piano. The term “tabletop guitar” comes from how the instrument is typically played: the guitar is laid on a table. The player then proceeds to pluck, strum or scrape the strings in a fashion reminiscent to string piano. Also, knocking on various locations of the body to produce percussive sounds and taking advantage of the electromagnetic pickups sensitivity are techniques used.
Figure 7: Example of a prepared guitar
Conclusion Early experiments in the beginning of the twentieth century, by inserting a piece of paper or cardboard, and string piano led Cage to pioneer a comprehensive and reputable system in the 1940s for a completely new way to see the piano functionally (percussive). Having written approximately 32 works for the prepared piano, its success and uniqueness inspired other composers to write and expand upon the instrument. While Cage pioneered the philosophy of silence and randomness, the prepared piano marks one of his first signature contributions to music.
With popular music, such as the works of Aphex Twin (Richard David James), incorporating prepared piano and with new literature and media discussing how to effectively prepare a piano, the instrument’s history is still young.
Bibliography Book:
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Dianova, Tzenka. John Cage's Prepared Piano: The Nuts and Bolts. Victoria: Mutasis, 2008.
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Robinson, Suzanne. Grainger the Modernist . Burlington: Ashgate, 2015.
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Hicks, Michael. Henry Cowell, Bohemian. Urbana: U of Illinois, 2002.
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Patterson, David Wayne. John Cage: Music, Philosophy, and Intention, 1933-1950. New York: Routledge, 2002.
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Bunger, Richard. The Well-prepared Piano. Colorado Springs: Colorado College Music, 1973.
Thesis:
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Ferreira, Inara. The Prepared Piano of John Cage: A New Level of Hearing the Sonatas and Interludes. Boca Raton: Florida Atlantic University, 2010.
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Anderson, Simon Peter. The Prepared Piano Music of John Cage: Towards an Understanding of Sounds and Preparations. Huddersfield: U of Huddersfield, 2012.
Website:
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Cage, John. "John Cage: An Autobiographical Statement." Soutwest Review 76, 1990. Original Print. Now found online at .
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"John Cage." Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 23 Apr. 2015
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