Pestova/Meyer Play David Smooke's Toy With Me

Toy With Me by David Smooke

I. Hatching
II. Rule Book
III. Snug as bugs on a rug

The Pestova/Meyer Duo:
Xenia Pestova, Pascal Meyer, toy pianos

Performed at the Karnatic Lab on October 12, 2010.



If the amazing world of toy piano awesomeness interests you, check out The Ultimate Guide to the Toy Piano Scene.

Tom Flaherty's Shepard's Pi for Toy Piano and Electronics

More awesomeness for toy piano and electronics: Genevieve Feiwen Lee playing Shepard's Pi by Tom Flaherty. About the tonal processes in play here:

Named after cognitive psychologist Roger Shepard, a Shepard scale is an audio illusion in which a scale seems to rise endlessly, without getting higher. The constituent pitches consist of several simultaneous octaves, which fade out at the top of the scale and fade in at the bottom. Taken out of the moving context, the actual octave register of a note is ambiguous to the ear. A toy piano displays similar ambiguity: as the length of the sounding rods at lowest keys is too short to produce a true bass note, its overtones are louder than its fundamental pitch. Taken out of context the lowest F can sound more like its C overtone, an octave and a fifth higher. This ambiguity is part of the charm of the toy piano, and Shepards Pi enjoys playing with that charm, with lots of scales that seem not to get higher, sonorities whose octave register is ambiguous, and moments where the meter and tempo could be heard in several different ways.

(Via tomflaherty on InstantEncore)

For more extreme scale action, listen to Greg Anderson playing Ligeti's Devil's Staircase Etude.

Phyllis Chen Plays Karlheinz Essl's whatever shall be

This video of Phyllis Chen playing Karlheinz Essl's whatever shall be for toy piano, dreidl, chopsticks, music box, and live electronics was recorded last week in New York. I particularly like the handheld camera action - more performers should take advantage of the spontaneity offered by this method of filming.



(Via Xenia)

Also check out The Ultimate Guide to the Toy Piano Scene.

Lente Chute for Toy Piano

More toy piano awesomeness: from the MySpace page of Toy piano musica aka amergtuileztyi on YouTube, here is Lente chute for toy piano, with video by SweepAndMopp...



(Thanks, James!)

For more toy pianos on the Collaborative Piano Blog, check out The Ultimate Guide to the Toy Piano Scene.

The Toy Piano Composers Present Unusual Suspects April 23rd in Toronto

Elisha Denburg, Chris Thornborrow, Christian Floisand, Fiona Ryan, Igor Correia, Nancy Tam, Dan Brophy, Glenn James and Monica Clorey are The Toy Piano Composers, a collective of toy-piano-obsessed composers who will be presenting Unusual Suspects on April 23rd at 8pm in the Heliconian Hall.

What will make this concert different from any other you've seen lately is that you won't initially known which composers wrote which works on the program. You'll have to guess, based on their style. From the Toy Piano Composers' press release:

Unusual Suspects is the TPC’s most conceptually ambitious to date – the concert is a “composer scramble” whereby the audience members will be invited to figure out which composer wrote which piece, with clues as guidance. “We wanted to take advantage of the fact that our composers are so different and celebrate their diversity instead of trying to box them in,” Clorey explains, “So our one stipulation to the composers was for them to write music that was stereotypically ‘them’. And now we get to have fun with it – we plan on accusing them of things like ‘excessive development’, ‘reliance on repeated rhythmic patterns’, and sentence them appropriately.”

Unusual Suspects starts at 8pm on Friday, April 23 at the Heliconian Hall, 35 Hazelton Avenue, in the Yorkville neighborhood of Toronto. Tickets are $15 door/$10 advance.


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(Thanks, Elisha!)

The Ultimate Guide to the Toy Piano Scene

Last week I played on a wonderfully resonant Jaymar toy piano in Chan Ka Nin's one-act opera Ice Time for Tapestry New Opera's Opera To Go. On opening night, I had the pleasure of meeting Elisha Denburg, a member of Toronto's Toy Piano Composers, who subsequently got me connected with the thriving community of toy piano composers and performers on Facebook and the web. What follows are some useful links about the instruments, composers, collectors, and performers who are creating an ever-increasing body of work for these enigmatic instruments. Note: some of these links require either a Google or Facebook ID - you'll find this noted in parentheses. I'll be adding stuff to this post as new information comes to light...

[Update: a huge thanks goes to Xenia Pestova for the time she spent compiling corrections and link info!]
[Update: thanks also go to Wendy Mae Chambers and Liz Parker for contacting me about adding further links.]

Information, Collections, and Manufacturers

• Toy Piano Wikipedia entry - This is a useful place to start with a lot of information about the origin of the modern instrument, its characteristics, and appearances in modern performance and culture.
• Schoenhut Toy Pianos - Shoenhut is the pre-eminent maker of toy pianos.
• Miniature Piano Museum Toy Pianos Collection - Photos of a fair number of toy pianos from the Miniature Piano Museum.
• Toypiano.org - A site dedicated to the promotion of the toy piano as a musical instrument.
• Miniature Piano Enthusiast Club - Some interesting information and photos from Janice Kelsh's collection.
• Wearable toy piano - Just be sure you don't electrocute yourself mid-phrase.

Communities

• Toy Piano Performers on Facebook - This looks like the community to watch in the next while, with a rapidly expanding corpus of photos, recordings, videos, and event listings (Facebook ID required).
• Toy Piano Composers on Facebook - (FB ID req'd)
• Toy Piano Time - A Google discussion group about all things toy piano (Google ID req'd). 
• TOY MUSIC / MUSIC FOR TOYS / MUSIQUE A JOUETS - Also on Facebook (FB ID req'd).
• Contemporary Keyboard Society - A blog devoted to numerous extended keyboard projects, including toy piano events.
• Toy-Box Trio - Dana Wen on toy piano is joined by Harlan Glotzer (concertina) and Nate Lee (tuba).

Performers, Composers and Ensembles

• Margaret Leng Tan - a toy pianist whose work elevated the instrument to a vehicle for serious composition.
• The Toy Piano Composers - a Toronto-based collective of composers that specializes in creating works for toy piano. The Toy Piano Composers consist of Dan Brophy, Monica Clorey, Igor Correia, Elisha Denburg, Glenn James, Nancy Tam, Chris Thornborrow, Fiona Ryan, and Christian Floisand.
• Isabel Ettenauer - an Austria-based toy pianist.
• Eiko Sudoh's YouTube channel - lots of works for piano and toy piano here.
• Phyllis Chen - pianist, toy pianist, multimedia artist.
• Wendy Mae Chambers - toy pianist and composer
• Elaine Lau - Toronto-based pianist and toy pianist.
• junctQin - Toronto-based toy piano trio (junctQin also has a MySpace page)
• Twink: The Toy Piano Band - cool music featuring toy pianos - you can listen to samples of Twink's uber-cute music here.
• Toy Piano Performers - a photo collection on Facebook (FB ID req'd)
• Karlheinz Essl - Composer of many works for toy piano.
• David Smooke - Baltimore-based composer of many works for toy piano.
• Stephanie Chua - Toronto-based pianist and toy pianist.
• Chapi Chapo et les petites musiques de pluie - check out this site for lots of music, events, and videos by Chapi Chapo.

Works and Performances

• No No Nonette - a MIDI-controlled work for 9 toy pianos.
• Kun, 64 Toy Pianos at the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, 2009 - a project of Wendy Mae Chambers in collaboration with Schoenhut Toy Company.
• Three Pieces for Prepared Toy Piano by Steve Layton, 1981 - (MP3 file)
• Toy Pianos (plus) - a blog post by Miguel Frasconi with an audio recording of a recent work and a video of his keyboard collection.
• SMILE (HQ) - a trailer for a recent Toy Piano Composers recital. (FB ID req'd)

A search for "toy piano" on YouTube will yield lots of fascinating performances (too many to post here) but below are some particularly fascinating ones...

Clio Montey's Barcarolle played by Xenia Pestova:

Isabel Ettenauer performs Kalimba by Karlheinz Essl:

Eiko Sudoh plays John Cage's Suite for Toy Piano:



Phyllis Chen performs her composition Double Helix for toy piano and bowls:



If you have any more notable toy piano links, events, or stuff, leave a comment or send me an email at collaborativepiano [at] gmail dot com.