6. Writing for Expanded Toy Piano
In an effort to justify the creation of specially-tuned toy pianos, I wrote two compositions which include these new instruments. The project was only partially complete when I wrote Ascent, which features the Soprano, Alto, and Tenor Toy Pianos: only the first of these three is a modified instrument. The piece was conceptualized for one player, dividing attention between three different instruments and staves. The playing range of the Alto Toy Piano was C4-C6, one ledger line below the Treble Clef staff to two lines above it. This was the same for the Soprano with an implied transposition of two octaves upward. The Tenor Toy Piano was notated similarly with a transposition of one octave down with the highest F being above three ledger lines. The nomenclature concept was not deeply considered at the initial time of writing this piece in January 2018, thus the instrument names on the score were C3, C4, and C6, to refer to the lowest note each instrument could play.
Score Sample of Ascent, Movement 5: The World
(C3/C4/C6 Instrument Nomenclature)
(C3/C4/C6 Instrument Nomenclature)
As of writing this document one year later, I have not finished this piece for considerations of difficulty and practicality. The name Ascent is still a placeholder as a final title has not settled for the composer. In December 2018 I did, however, write a piece for the full Expanded Toy Piano subset titled Watching the Sea and created a concept recording with the help of guitarist Dominic Lewis. The piece was conceptualized for two players, dividing the five-instrument family between themselves, although I played each piano’s part for the concept recording. One player would play the Alto and Soprano, and only occasionally the Piccolo. The other player would play the Tenor and Bass Toy Pianos. Microphones were used in recording the piece, but Watching the Sea would need to be amplified in a real setting anyway in order for the notes of the Piccolo to be audible for the audience, especially over the lower instruments.
As it turned out, the Soprano Toy Piano’s notes were far weaker than expected; the notes sounded for a decent amount of time and with decent quality during testing and creation of the piano, but triplet figures early in the piece (measure 5) sound suspiciously faint and colorless in the recording. This would be due to the quick decay and overall soft dynamic of the sound that was drowned out by the more resonant, unmodified instruments. The strongest moments of the piece are those that either only or primarily feature the Alto and Tenor Toy Pianos, i.e. the unmodified pianos. The Bass Toy Piano’s notes are present enough; the very long rods allow for booming sound without as much need for amplification, but the overtone clutter, as referenced earlier, makes it very difficult to tell that any of the notes are tuned correctly, not just the three rods which I effectively gave up on for practical purposes.
While writing Watching the Sea, I took a different approach to notation. The Piccolo, Soprano, and Alto Toy Pianos were treated the same as in Ascent, but I divided the Tenor Toy Piano into two staves, one in Treble and one in Bass Clef. The Bass Toy Piano used Bass Clef without transposition, starting in the second space of C3 – the highest note – and descending to C1 far below the staff. The piece does not require reading lower than three ledger lines unless the note is an octave doubling, therefore transposition was not necessary. One player would have to divide attention between the Bass and Tenor instruments, and some passages required low-reaching octaves in the Tenor, so cross-staff notes (e.g. measures 11-14) with stems facing up became the visual solution to remind potential players that three hands are not needed to play the two instruments simultaneously.
As it turned out, the Soprano Toy Piano’s notes were far weaker than expected; the notes sounded for a decent amount of time and with decent quality during testing and creation of the piano, but triplet figures early in the piece (measure 5) sound suspiciously faint and colorless in the recording. This would be due to the quick decay and overall soft dynamic of the sound that was drowned out by the more resonant, unmodified instruments. The strongest moments of the piece are those that either only or primarily feature the Alto and Tenor Toy Pianos, i.e. the unmodified pianos. The Bass Toy Piano’s notes are present enough; the very long rods allow for booming sound without as much need for amplification, but the overtone clutter, as referenced earlier, makes it very difficult to tell that any of the notes are tuned correctly, not just the three rods which I effectively gave up on for practical purposes.
While writing Watching the Sea, I took a different approach to notation. The Piccolo, Soprano, and Alto Toy Pianos were treated the same as in Ascent, but I divided the Tenor Toy Piano into two staves, one in Treble and one in Bass Clef. The Bass Toy Piano used Bass Clef without transposition, starting in the second space of C3 – the highest note – and descending to C1 far below the staff. The piece does not require reading lower than three ledger lines unless the note is an octave doubling, therefore transposition was not necessary. One player would have to divide attention between the Bass and Tenor instruments, and some passages required low-reaching octaves in the Tenor, so cross-staff notes (e.g. measures 11-14) with stems facing up became the visual solution to remind potential players that three hands are not needed to play the two instruments simultaneously.
Score Sample of Watching the Sea
(Octave Notation in Tenor Toy Piano, mm. 11-15)
(Octave Notation in Tenor Toy Piano, mm. 11-15)
As learned by writing Ascent, it became clear that writing for multiple toy pianos at once would require careful consideration of which instrument is being played and where it is located. In a TV special about Phyllis Chen, she herself can be seen playing a 37-key piano with a 30-key piano on top of it. [14] The Expanded Toy Piano is conceptualized as a grand piano spanning nine octaves horizontally, so the stacking of one of the smaller 25-key pianos atop the Tenor Piano is feasible, but potentially confusing or not ideal. Unless a composition would intentionally require more than one player, such as Watching the Sea, a composer would have to consider piano dimensions, player wingspan, and/or the actual setup of the individual toy pianos: full circle, half-circle, straight-line, etc.
Score Sample of Watching the Sea
(Choral “SATB” Instrument Nomenclature)
(Choral “SATB” Instrument Nomenclature)
The remaining question is: is there a point to using these instruments if the sound quality is so poor? Based on Алекс Ч’s videos, it should be possible to create a useable instrument; the highest keys appear to be more in-tune than my project, perhaps from more serious and critical technique and technology used in creating that Expanded Toy Piano. Using Phyllis Chen’s philosophy that toy pianos do not need to be tuned and that their resultant intonation differences are what they are and serve to color the instrument, the recording of Watching the Sea should pose no concern. Certain moments sound absolutely beautiful – especially in octave-unisons per the composer’s opinion – while counterpoint with colorless squeals are less enticing. Yet, it is what it is. The lowest notes of any Expanded Toy Piano will suffer from overtones concealing the fundamental; this is present even in a Tenor Toy Piano which descends to C3. My intention was to experiment with toy pianos, and the creation of this set of instruments and a semi-serious composition for them offers that it has been a successful experiment.
[14] CGTN America, "Phyllis Chen: Minature," uploaded January 13, 2016, video, 6:58, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J66AFFpHdtc.