Preparing the Digital Piano: Introducing Bitklavier

Dan Trueman∗ and Michael Mulshine† Preparing the Digital Piano: ∗Effron Music Building Lewis Center for the Arts Introducing bitKlavier Princeton University Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA †Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics Department of Music Stanford University Stanford, California 94305, USA [email protected], [email protected] Abstract: This article describes a new kind of digital musical instrument, a novel assemblage of the familiar MIDI keyboard with custom interactive software. Inspired by John Cage’s prepared piano, our instrument both takes advantage of and subverts the pianist’s hard-earned, embodied training, while also inviting an extended configuration stage that “prepares” the instrument to behave in composition-specific, idiosyncratic ways. Through its flexible— though constrained—design, the instrument aims to inspire a playful approach to instrument building, composition, and performance. We outline the development history of our instrument, called bitKlavier, its current design, and some of its musical possibilities. Of the many subversive acts that mark John Cage’s notational training of the player; Cage’s Sonata V career, preparing the piano is one of his most from the Sonatas and Interludes (1946–1948) is easy enduring. Although cramming bolts between the to sight-read for a trained pianist, and yet what strings of this refined instrument might seem is heard is not even recognizable as piano music. like vandalism, the delicate, almost spiritual act Finally, as anyone who has experienced one knows, of preparation is irreverent but not sacrilegious, the prepared piano is fun and inspiring to play, and and it begs us to consider the piano as a work in it changes how we play. In the words of Jonathan De progress, a place for play and exploration, as it was Souza, “changing the instrument, then, changes the in its adolescence. Roger Moseley, in his book Keys player. Alteration illuminates everyday experiences to Play, argues that play “owes its existence to of instruments, even as it disrupts them” (De Souza rigid rules or material constraints, but takes place 2017, p. 23). despite—and sometimes in opposition to—them” Like the prepared piano, but via a fundamentally (Moseley 2016, p. 36). Although not directed at the different mechanism, the prepared digital piano prepared piano explicitly, this aptly captures some subverts the expected feedback loop between player of the subversive nature of Cage’s approach. The and instrument while still exploiting the player’s subversion is both mechanical and embodied; it musical training. Rather than placing mechanical directly impinges on the feedback loop between objects between physical strings, algorithms are player and instrument that so much instrumental placed “between” the virtual strings of the digital training relies on. Not unlike scordatura with piano; in place of analog, physical interventions, stringed instruments, preparing the piano rewires we have digital, algorithmic interventions. These the digital fingering patterns that the thousands interventions can take many forms, and in this of hours of practice embed in our bodies, creating article we will explore those found in bitKlavier, a new and unexpected analog sonic patterns, many software instrument developed and used extensively of which would be literally impossible with the by the authors and others. The process of creating “properly tuned” instrument. Though subversive, composition-specific, idiosyncratic preparations— this rewiring still leverages the embodied and be they simple or involved—is also shared by both types of prepared pianos. In the case of Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes, Cage instructs the preparer Computer Music Journal, 43:2/3, pp. 48–66, Summer/Fall 2019 doi:10.1162/COMJ a 00518 to “have free two to eight hours, and put yourself c 2020 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. in a frame of mind conducive to the overcoming of 48 Computer Music Journal Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/comj_a_00518 by guest on 27 September 2021 obstacles with patience.” A similar patience may be pianist’s body and, by extension, the centuries of required of a composer preparing the digital piano, associated piano repertoire. On the other hand, although, as we will see, a complex set of digital it contains a software program that is itself pro- “preparations” can be saved, restored, and modified grammable, constrained, and enabled by the digital instantaneously, in ways impossible with the world. These two aspects come together in an in- analog piano. These two complex characteristics—a strument design project that is focused on fostering detailed preparatory process and a subverted, but new relationships between musician and machine. still utilized, player–instrument feedback loop—are We have intentionally chosen to limit the design of essential to both instruments, but their natures are the software to interface with a standardized version different in crucial ways. of the MIDI keyboard, even avoiding such normal We see bitKlavier as an “assemblage” of hard- add-ons like knobs, sliders, expression wheels, and ware and software, in which both components so on, and have consistently aimed to promote a reach beyond their typically conceived bounds into kind of “embodied interaction.” We have taken, broader performance, compositional, and computer following Paul Dourish, “an approach to the design music practices. Georgina Born has developed a and analysis of interaction that takes embodiment rich, inclusive, and unstable notion of assemblage, to be central to, even constitutive of, the whole one that combines multiple objects, histories, and phenomenon” (Dourish 2004, p. 102). practices into a network of relationships, and she In what follows, we detail the history of has applied it to a range of musical activities, in- bitKlavier, including the design priorities and cluding electronic music (Born 2005). Paul Theberge´ development process. To help the reader understand has extended this notion in the context of musi- the bitKlavier paradigm, we first describe antecedent cal instruments, asserting in regard to instrument projects that we developed. Although these lacked design that “the project is not so much to design a keyboard-oriented interface, they introduced fun- objects, but to design relationships” (Theberge´ damental features that reappeared in bitKlavier. 2017, p. 66). For us, the traditional layout of the Having laid that foundation, we summarize the cur- keyboard—its uneven alternation of black and white rent design of bitKlavier—its primary components keys, and how the keys interact with our hands—is and typical workflow—and consider a concise exam- a primary, inseparable design constraint for the ple that takes advantage of many of its capabilities. software, guiding how the various digital prepa- Finally, we close with some broader thoughts on the rations are constructed and respond to a player’s nature of preparing the digital piano, on the ongoing performance: potential of the keyboard as an interface between body and machines, and how it shapes musical The interface of the keyboard can be approached imagination, all while inspiring play and creativity. as a zone where the digital and the analog come The source code for bitKlavier is freely available together under the rubric of play (Moseley 2016, open source, downloadable at bitklavier.com, and p. 70). available on iOS, macOS, Windows, and Linux (we Furthermore, from Philip Alperson: hope to support Android in the future); the reader is encouraged to work directly with the application Musical instruments are not objects divorced while reading this article and the bitKlavier manual from performers’ bodies, but rather are inti- (Fishman and Trueman 2018), the only bitKlavier mately tied to the performers’ bodies, so much publication to date. so that, in some cases, it is difficult to know where the body ends and where the instrument begins (Alperson 2008, p. 46). Antecedents So, on the one hand, bitKlavier engages the long history of piano performance practice, interfacing Neither bitKlavier nor the prepared digital piano with the hard-earned, embodied technique of the were fully formed concepts, envisaged and then Trueman and Mulshine 49 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/comj_a_00518 by guest on 27 September 2021 constructed. Rather, they are the ongoing, emergent 120bpm products of a creative process, a process that began with a commitment to inspiring play, exploration, From 2008 to 2010, coauthor Trueman composed creativity, and composition. This decade-long neither Anvil nor Pulley, a 42-minute quartet com- compositional process has its roots in the Princeton missioned by So Percussion, which made extensive Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk), where the building use of digital instruments created by the composer. of digital musical instruments (DMIs) for others The second of the five movements, “120bpm,” relies is required (Trueman 2007; Smallwood et al. on a simple instrument—informed by instrument- 2008; Trueman 2011). Often PLOrk demands a building practices in PLOrk—that ultimately led to relatively old-fashioned approach to building digital the development of bitKlavier. One of Trueman’s instruments, in which stability, usability, and goals with the instrument was to challenge the core transparency are important. This is driven by the musicianship of So Percussion, as highly skilled expectation that the instruments be designed for individual

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