Extended Techniques

I was looking up ‘pizzicatto on grand piano’ and found this video instead of quite what I was searching for: a man spends four minutes passionately but simply displaying a handful of grand piano techniques I’d never seen, or even heard of, before. (Sure, one of them is just slamming the lid shut, but the act of including it in a composition is in itself still novel to me.)

There’s some feeling I got while watching this video, that I’m reminded of now while trying to figure out what to write about it, which is crystal-clear but I can’t put into words. Maybe you get the same feeling. Whatever the feeling is, it inspires me to think about “Extended Techniques” in my own work, compels me to find other people who are eager to share their own.

I learned to play piano when I was a kid, but I’m absolutely not a pianist; I can’t appreciate it at that level. All I can do is watch Brian Ciach and believe that he’s at the cusp of something, doing something new, as I hope to do, and as I hope you are hoping to do as well.