A prepared piano is a piano that has had its sound altered by placing objects between or on the strings. The first composer to use it extensively was John Cage, who is often credited with inventing the instrument. ... Conlon Nancarrow adapted his player pianos in a similar way, covering the hammers with metal and leather.
Cage’s prepared piano has had its sound altered. The process is by placing objects between or on the strings
EXPLANATION
John Cage is the first composer that extensively use a prepared piano. A prepared piano means that the piano is being placed with objects (known as preparations) between the strings. The function of the objects is to alter the timbre of the piano, bringing out overtones, creating harmonics, muting strings, and rattling.
John Cage experimented a lot of different objects to be placed on the strings. The objects are nuts, bolts, wood, rubber, screws, bamboo, plastic, weather stripping, cloth, and a variety of household things.
Even though John Cage is the one who invented the prepared piano, but Conlon Nancarrow adopted Cage’s way and doing the same in his pianos. The difference is, Nancarrow used metal and leather as the objects, which are different from the objects that Cage used.
In theory, any objects can be used to prepare a piano. Meanwhile, in practice, preparation objects usually are expected to have these certain characteristics:
1. The objects are directly applied to the piano strings.
2. The objects have to fit in the desired location that it’s going to be fitted.
3. The objects shouldn’t move from their location when it’s played.
4. The objects have to be reversible (it can be placed and unplaced easily without causing any damage to the piano).
LEARN MORE
If you’re interested in learning more about this topic, we recommend you to also take a look at the following questions:
John Cage is known as: https://brainly.com/question/10568595
The inventor of prepared piano: https://brainly.com/question/5822760
KEYWORD: John Cage, prepared piano, materials, strings
Subject: Arts
Class: 7-9
Subchapter: Meningitis
