a piece for player piano
It’s inspiring to ponder how situations, environments and new communities of people have on one’s creative output. I arrived in Banff with all sorts of goals and expectations, but I quickly put most of them off on the sidelines once I realized how many new things I could really take advantage of – things that normally I don’t have access to, like amazing classical musicians and digital pianos! Once of these mini-projects I took on was to write a piece for a digital ‘player’ piano, a Yamaha Disklavier built in 1988 – the thing even has a 3.5″ floppy disk drive built into it!
With this new undertaking, I quickly did a ton of research. I remember as a kid seeing some white baby grand piano in a hotel lobby playing ‘The Entertainer” or something similar, never dreaming that I would be programming a piece for it one day. I studied the works of Conlon Nancarrow (see previous post) and Steve Reich in particular in order to gain some perspective, and then I began to hash out some ideas.
Now that I got the hang of it, I plan to write another something for this instrument…
And as always, let me know your thoughts!
Wow, beautiful stuff. I love it. What a nice use of a Disklavier, and I know from experience it’s great having it all open like that – livelier sound than a normal closed piano. Fun to watch, too.
thanks so much! glad you like it. I am a subscriber to your blog – really dig your posts.
-c