Toy Piano - Use in Musical Performance

Use in Musical Performance

Though originally made as a child's toy, the toy piano has been used in serious classical and contemporary musical contexts. The most famous example is the "Suite for Toy Piano" (1948) by John Cage. Other works in classical music for the instrument include "Ancient Voices of Children" by George Crumb and a number of pieces by Mauricio Kagel. Steve Beresford has used toy pianos (along with many other toy instruments) in his improvised music.

British experimental composers use the toy piano frequently, especially the Promenade Theatre Orchestra (1969–73), a quartet of composer/performers (members included John White, Alec Hill, Hugh Shrapnel, and Christopher Hobbs), whose central instrumentation consisted of four matched French Michelsonne toy pianos and Hohner reed organs. Their music was, broadly, repetitive minimalism, often of great technical difficulty (Hobbs's Working Notes (1969) for four toy pianos), great dynamic power (Shrapnel's 4 Toy Pianos (1971)), were used in various combinations with reed organs, and used compositional techniques that were either specific to British experimentalism (such as systems music, invented by John White), or borrowed from other disciplines (such as Alec Hill's use of change ringing systems).

In France in the early 70s, Jean-Jacques Birgé performed on a toy-piano, besides synthesizers, and recorded it in "Le réveil" on his Défense de album in 1975, as Pascal Comelade built all his work on toy instruments, having played all kinds of toy pianos himself since 1978. Yann Tiersen played the instrument in his first album La Valse des Monstres (Monsters' Waltz, 1995). He also uses the toy piano to musically recreate the childhood of the main character in the French movie Amélie, which features a soundtrack composed mostly by him.

A pioneer of the toy piano is the German composer and pianist Bernd Wiesemann (b. 1938). He played many concerts with the toy piano in Germany in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1993 he released the CD Neue Musik für Kinderklavier ("New Music for Toy Piano"), containing compositions by John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Ratko Delorko, Andreas Kunstein, Frank Scholzen, Joachim Herbold, Carlos Cruz de Castro, Francisco Estevez and himself. In 2004 he released the SACD Das untemperierte Klavier ("the not-so-well-tempered piano", a play on Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier), containing new contemporary works.

Richard Carpenter used a toy piano as one of five keyboard instruments (the others being a grand piano, upright piano, console piano, and harpsichord) he played in his rendition of Zez Confrey's instrumental "Dizzy Fingers". Carpenter would run from instrument to instrument between each section of the song, which was performed for the TV special The Carpenters: Music, Music, Music.

In 1997, pianist Margaret Leng Tan released the CD The Art of the Toy Piano. On it, she plays a number of pieces written specially for the toy piano as well as arrangements of other pieces, including Ludwig van Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" and The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby". In 2010, she released The Art of The Toy Piano II. A documentary directed by Evans Chan entitled Sorceress of the New Piano explores the music making of Tan and had its American debut at the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival in 2005.

Walter Egan uses a melody line played on a toy piano for the choruses on his 1978 hit "Magnet And Steel".

Mannheim Steamroller featured a toy piano in their song "Midnight On a Full Moon" from the album Fresh Aire III (1979).

Ben Lee used a toy piano in the song "Catch My Disease" which became popular in 2005 and won several awards.

Some jazz performers—John Medeski and Larry Goldings, among others—have used toy pianos.

The toy piano has been used extensively by alternative rock and post-rock bands such as Agitpop, Evanescence, Radiohead, Little Bang Theory, Warren Zevon, Tori Amos, Sigur Rós, Vampire Weekend, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Old Canes, and The Dresden Dolls. Matty Pop Chart has a song on his CD Good Old Water composed entirely on a toy piano.

The experimental pop band Br'er use toy pianos as a characteristic sound on many of their recordings. The Cure used a toy piano during their MTV Unplugged set.

A toy piano provides the pulsing chime in the song "I Belong To You" by Lenny Kravitz from his 5 album.

The B-52's song "Dance This Mess Around" features a toy piano played by Fred Schneider as both an essential musical plot device and live prop.

In the Peanuts cartoon strip, one of the characters, Schroeder, plays classical music (principally Beethoven) on what appears to be a toy piano.

In 2005 Matt Malsky and David Claman sponsored "The Extensible Toy Piano Project", which consisted of an extensive set of freely-available, high-quality toy piano samples, an international composition competition, and a festival at Clark University. One of the winners was Karlheinz Essl with his piece "Kalimba" for Toy Piano and CD playback.

The instrumental "Calliope", on Tom Waits' album Blood Money, features a toy piano, as well as the calliope of the title.

The London band Athlete used a toy piano for the intro of their track "Superhuman Touch".

The rock band Primus used the toy piano (played by Matt "Exxon" Winegar) in the song "Sathington Willoughby" on their album Frizzle Fry.

The band They Might Be Giants used a toy piano in their song "O We".

Composer Michael Hearst uses the toy piano (performed by Margaret Leng Tan) on his song "Jesus Christ Lizard," on the album Songs For Unusual Creatures.

Mike Waldeck Jr. plays toy piano in the band Qiet.