Are there any unusual methods of playing the piano

With this in mind, have a go. By Alec Coles-Aldridge. Get even more piano-playing advice and inspiration with our monthly newsletters straight to your inbox. Here are a few highlights from a hundred years of bizarre things you can get up to with your piano. Xenakis made use of this effect in his Eonta —64 ; so did George Crumb in Makrokosmos Volume 1 — a book of pieces in which the pianist is also asked to do quite a lot of whistling.

La Monte Young may not have the fame of Steve Reich or Philip Glass, or indeed of Terry Riley, but he was just as important in the early days of minimalism. One undoubted reason for his comparative obscurity is just how seriously boundary-pushing some of his pieces are.

A part of the radical Fluxus movement of the early 60s, this composition has proved surprisingly durable, and still receives the odd performance: they did it at the inaugural London Contemporary Music Festival in summer , for instance.

Our privacy policy was last updated on Friday 31 January View it here Dismiss. This creates unusual percussive or metallic effects when the hammers strike the strings. There are many other extended techniques, some quite weird and wonderful, which performers and composer can employ to alter and extend the sound of the piano.

A muted technique — as seen in the video of Say performing the piece — is used in the introduction and Epilogue to imitate the sound of the Saz , a Turkish lute. Crumb is well known for his use of extended techniques in his music to achieve different and new timbres and effects, and his piano music is an adventure into a soundworld of infinite variety.

The pianist is required to play on the keys and inside the piano, and is also expected to whistle, sing, shout and whisper. Levi Editor-in-Chief JoyTunes. Post Navigation. Related Posts:. Leave a reply: Cancel Reply Your email address will not be published.