The Guts of the Instrument

After concerts, people often ask me if they can look under the lid of the toy piano to see how it works. I explain to them that they are made of metal rods instead of strings, which is surprising to most people because it appears in the shape of a piano. The shorter the rods, the higher pitched the sound is. A few weeks ago, I was meeting with composer and fellow ICicle, Nathan Davis. I had asked him to write a piece for me using toy piano and electronics, so our first meeting was a brainstorming/workshop session to play around with these toys. To my surprise, on top of the toy piano sat a piece of metal with long metal rods attached to it. It looked exactly like the guts of the toy piano, but the rods were much longer (almost 12 inches). I asked him where he got it, and he said it use to be the insides of a grandfather clock! The metal slab with rods attached to it sat on top of the wooden upright toy piano. The box-like shape of the instrument acted like a resonating chamber for the grandfather clock rods…this seem to be a really ripe idea for us to experiment with that morning. We played them gently with some yarn mallets. There was also something quite intimate about getting up close to hear the vibration of the metal rods. You can hear so many lower frequencies when you get up close. It was strangely satisfying to discover the bass toy piano as a grandfather clock. I’m curious to see how the piece turns out…