Riding the Mother Ship

October 1, 2003

The piano is really more than an instrument - it is also an archetype for music. Whether deeply involved in music or not, most people will feel the piano is an altar-like place where we confront music at its most elemental. I think a case might be made that any musician’s or composer’s relationship to the piano will tell you a lot about them and their work. (I may not play the piano so very well, but I have in the garage a piano-board for playing all the keys at once! Ah, the revelations of self-analysis.)

We are so accustomed to the piano’s sound that it may be easy to forget just how remarkable and glorious that sound is. Just-intonation aficionados may rail about the tyranny of the piano’s equal temperment, but there is something undeniably singular and penetrating about the piano’s capacity for in-tune, sonorous resonance. And when you work a lot with an electronic keyboard, playing the piano is like breathing fresh air, and tasting organic produce after being dulled by the industrial alternatives.

And now, a word from the AMC President: apparently, there are over 10 million pianos in the United States. And every U.S. President has owned a piano save three: Gerald Ford, George Bush, and George W. Bush. Are you surprised? Someone needs to tell them that a grand piano’s strings carry over 30 tons of tension, yet can be gently caressed to sound like the bell in a child’s heart.

But at this time in history, is working at the piano an asset or an obstacle to our work? Is that elevated row of semitones over a C-based diatonic row just an antiquated tool that dominates how we and others think? Or is the piano always going to be that oldest, best, and most faithful friend?

—John Kennedy

This essay was originally published by NewMusicBox, the American Music Center’s monthly web-magazine, where from June, 2002, through July, 2005, John Kennedy served as the President of the Board.