Contemporary Piano Techniques - A Guide for Composers

After noticing how few videos truly explore contemporary piano techniques, I created this introductory guide for composers and pianists. In this video, I demonstrate seven of the most essential extended piano techniques — the ones that are genuinely useful for modern composition and performance.

Whether you’re a composer, pianist, or music student, this video will demonstrate to you techniques like sympathetic resonance, the prepared piano, string plucking, harmonics, ghost pedalling, percussive effects, and alternative methods of key depression. These tools are the foundation of avant-garde modern piano music and an essential part of any contemporary composer’s toolkit.

If you want to expand your scope further, I recommend exploring John Cage’s Sonatas for Prepared Piano, different types of harmonics, string scraping, amplification, and detuning, many of which branch from the ideas in this guide.

Chapters:
00:00 – Introduction
00:15 – Sympathetic Resonance
01:08 – The Prepared Piano
01:47 – String Plucking
02:18 – Harmonics
02:37 – The Ghost Pedal
03:07 – Percussive Effects
03:24 – Alternative Methods of Key Depression
03:39 – Conclusion

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