Exploring the potential for new sounds in old pianos
Andrew Wedman’s musical explorations revolve around the idea of alteration. Whether through his bass piano (tuned down a full octave) or general piano manipulations, Andrew pushes beyond the more familiar extended techniques of the instrument in order to play with the body and mechanisms through deconstruction, drastically adjusting string tension, and more. In many ways, Andrew seeks to magnify the natural sonic properties of the instrument, inharmonicity in particular, that designers would otherwise eliminate through incremental refinement.
Community members who are interested in establishing, renewing, or challenging their relationship with the piano are encouraged to join as Andrew deconstructs the piano’s history as well. Andrew will demonstrate a variety of techniques including pitch bending, manipulating hammers, easier chromatic and cluster playing, and more.
The session will be broken into two parts: a live streamed demonstration from Andrew’s studio during which audiences can type questions in the chat feature; and an interactive session, where participants are invited to join a Zoom gathering immediately after the stream (you are encouraged to bring your upright piano, and questions).
Audiences can also join for the premiere of Andrew’s performance video as part of Multilocation.
Andrew Wedman is an experimental musician and certified piano technician living in Nelson, BC.
Wedman is a classically trained pianist (ARCT, Capitano College piano major, McGill University theory major). He completed the University of Western Ontario Piano Technology program in 2009.
He has been performing and recording experimental music in Canada, the US and Europe since 1999. Electroacoustic composition at McGill led to an ambient techno duo Tinkertoy that toured and released with Noise Factory Records. Andrew was active with multiple free improv groups while living in Toronto as well as performing his own compositions as Lethbridge Lodge.
His profession as a piano tuner led him to explorations in altered tunings and extended techniques for the piano. He developed the Bass Piano, a piano tuned down a full octave, in 2012 which was debuted in Berlin by John Kameel Farah. The Bass Piano has since been in performances and recordings with Lori Freedman, Marilyn Lerner, Tania Gill, John Oswald, Ryan Driver and more.
He currently performs in Manzap, a microtonal improv duet with Stanley Zappa. Zappa and Wedman are the cofounders of the Untempered Festival of Dissonant Arts in Naramata BC.
Recording, Pre-chipping | After a piano has been restrung and before it has been tuned all of the strings are at random pitches. Most of the hammers are striking 2 or 3 different notes. Listen to a sample.
Recording, Ryan Driver | New Twigs, an Album by Ryan Driver playing his own tunes on Bass Piano, synth and vocals.
Recording, Ryan Driver (Bass Piano), Justin Haynes (Celeste), Michael Davidson (Vibes) | Live improvised recording in Toronto, courtesy of Mechanical Forest Sound. Listen to excerpt.
Recording, Marilyn Learner (Bass Piano), Nichol Rampersaud (Trumpet) | Live improvised recording in Toronto, courtesy of Mechanical Forest Sounds. Listen to Excerpt.
Recording, Close mic (6 mics) | The long decay and complex harmonics of the Bass Piano is captured here with soft playing and 6 very close mics in various parts of the piano. Listen to a sample.
Recording, De-tuning a Bass Piano | A short video showing the first step of tuning down a full octave. Watch.
Books | These books are not about the piano, nor am I exploring microtonal tuning in an extensive way, but they both gave me a broader understanding of harmonics and inharmonicity.
The Arithmetic of Listening by Kyle Gann
The Craft of Musical Composition: Book 1 By Paul Hindemith
Micro-tonality | The tuning of a Bass Piano is usually fairly unstable, and will shift slightly throughout a performance. The pitch of one note will even change depending on how hard the hammer strikes the string. With a more forceful blow, the hammer will actually bend the string, which increases the tension and raises the pitch.
The fluid tuning of the Bass Piano, coupled with the standard equal tempered tuning of a regular piano can create many variations of microtonal scales when playing at the same register.
We can also explore pitch bending techniques. By simply tuning a note with the tuning hammer on the tuning pin there is a range of over an octave. I can also use the flat part of the tuning hammer on the string in a slide guitar style pitch bend. Using fingers or toes to bend the string dampens the tone somewhat and allows for considerable pitch alteration due to how loose the strings are.
Inharmonicity | Inharmonicity is a major factor in the unique timbre of the Bass Piano, as loosening the strings increases inharmonicity drastically. Inharmonicity is the departure of the frequency of overtones away from ideal whole multiples of the fundamental frequencies. In essence, with high amounts of inharmonicity, the overtones (or harmonics) are “out of tune.” On a normal full sized upright piano the upper overtones might deviate about 10 to 30 cents from an ideal overtone. In a Bass Piano some of the overtones can be up to 250 cents sharp, which is two and half semi tones!
Extended Techniques | It is all too common these days to see vintage 100 year-old pianos listed as free or getting tossed in the dump. They are deemed to be at the end of their life and not worth restoring. But, there are many exciting manipulations and deconstructions possible on them that you won’t normally do to a newer instrument. This opens up an opportunity for more extreme extended techniques and alterations, such as pitch bending, mechanical or physical chromatic glissandos above the keys, foot contact with strings below key bed, and manipulation of the action (producing muted “blocking”, double hitting, percussive mechanical action sounds, action removal for more access to strings, and the “88 note chord”). When manipulating the piano’s action, many of the sounds have a mechanical feel, producing chromaticism and clusters that are reminiscent of the impossible sounds in a Conlon Nancarrow player piano piece.
Mechanical Constraints and Colonialism | The piano and other keyboard instruments are constantly locked into equal temperament tuning. Most other instruments can bend notes and tune to instruments and players around them. The Bass Piano starts to open up this inherent keyboard constraint, but in an uncontrolled way. It is a step towards breaking the piano free.
Pianos and keyboard instruments in general (organs, harpsichords, etc.) are a unique instrument when viewed in a global context. Wind and string instruments have ancient roots and similarities across many cultures. Even in the modern Western orchestra, the instruments are producing sound through direct contact between the performer and the resonating body of the instrument. The simplicity of a string being amplified by a resonating body or a vibrating reed in wind instruments can be traced back to the origins of humans making music.
Keyboard instruments always strike me as a mechanical western invention where there is a separation between the performer and the resonating body. A key is pressed and a mechanical device creates the sound. One does not need to learn how to make a tone, like a string player would learn bowing technique or a wind player would learn about embouchure. On a piano anyone can press the button and the machine will produce a pleasant sound. My hope is for pianists to experience and interact with the whole piano and utilize the mechanical aspect as part of the instrument.
I cannot help but see how this instrument is intrinsically linked to colonialism and the industrial revolution. The organ and the piano have played a central role in modern Western religion and have spread throughout the world by missionaries and colonial settlers. The piano only became a common household entertainment device through the “advancements” of the industrial revolution. This is not an instrument hand crafted by a luthier, it is a machine with hundreds of identical parts that rely on a factory system to be able to manufacture it at an affordable price. The “golden era” of piano making crescendoed in tandem with the spread of the industrial revolution and the invention of Interchangeable Parts (the process of mass-producing parts by labourers popularized in America by weapons manufacturers).
I have been grappling with this history as we are all faced with a larger, long overdue reckoning around Indigenous rights and colonialism. My practice of deconstructing the piano is both literal and metaphorical. I am unraveling my own roots and the history of this mechanical instrument as an attempt to free it from the constraints of equal temperament, expose its vulnerabilities, grapple with its problems and bring in more dissonance. More Dissonance!
~ Andrew Wedman, July 2021
CMC Presents Multilocation is generously supported by The Canada Council for the Arts, the Department of Canadian Heritage, The SOCAN Foundation, FACTOR, The Ontario Arts Council, The Toronto Arts Council, and the Ontario Arts Foundation. This presentation is also supported by The McLean Foundation and the Canada Arts Presentation Fund.
