Category: random opinions

Yesterday, I met up with an old friend of mine (who shall remain nameless) for an early happy hour drink.  I was surprised to hear that he had taken up the interest of writing jokes. The more I spoke to him about his pursuit in being a comic, the more I found it similar to my world in performance, particularly on the toy piano.

The artistry of being a good comic is obviously one that involves more than just good jokes, but also good performance. I asked him if he would ever consider printing these jokes in a book form ( perhaps something like David Sedaris) or writing for an actor, for example. He said that part of it was about getting up on stage and doing it yourself: You have nothing to hide behind and there is not another person/actor that will bear the pain of embarrassment if the jokes fail. It is the truest form, I suppose, of “putting yourself out there.”

The other thing about jokes ( so I’m told) is that the bottom-line goal is laughter–How a comic is doing on stage should be audible by the sounds of the audience. This particular aspect made me think a lot about music performances. I sometimes feel a connection to the audience that feels very alive, but am unsure how it is actually being received. I have played many concerts where the feedback I get afterwards seems completely surprising and nothing like what I thought I experienced. It has taught me that people hear what they want to hear, regardless of what I am doing. Most of the time, our reactions to performances depend solely on what we have experienced in our life that serves as a point of reference. I sometimes wonder, how open are we really to listening to one another?

I have often felt that my music , in some sense, is just a big “inside joke.” It makes sense to the people who know me that have already accepted me into their hearts for one reason or another. Just as some of the best jokes are the ones that are shared among friends, I feel some of the best concerts are also the ones performed by people  that I already have a relationship/point of reference.

All of this reminds me of a quote by John Cage when he was writing the prepared piano piece, Perilous Night. He said, “I had poured a great deal of emotion writing this piece, and obviously I wasn’t communicating this at all. Or else, I thought, if I were communicating, then all artists must be speaking a different language, and thus only speaking for themselves. The whole musical situation struck me more and more as a Tower of Babel.”

Many people have asked me how I came to play the toy piano. Contrary to what it might seem,I started playing classical piano at the age of five and found the toy piano when I was 21. I was always interested in exploring new sounds and unconventional piano techniques, but nothing in my piano-playing history has been quite like my journey with the toy piano.

I gave my first toy piano performance in 2001 at the Chicago Humanities Festival and  later in 2003, I performed my first solo toy piano performance in Toronto. Though the concert was only 23-minutes,it was one of the most engaging and fulfilling performances I had.  While I was studying for my doctorate degree at Indiana University, I slowly became injured with the stress of all of my teaching, performing and general anxiety about grad school. I was completely crushed that I had to stop playing piano for almost two years, but I found that window of time to be a much-needed break and re-assessment of my artistic pursuits. Up until then,I knew that there were many other artistic and musical curiosities/interests of mine that were not being fulfilled by playing classical piano.  It seem really natural for me to play the toy piano at that time–it was my only connection to making music during my recovery and it gave me the great feeling of freedom to compose for the instrument. I also reached out to  many composers that had interested me and started building repertoire for the music. I fell in love with the instrument not only for its sound and quirky characteristics, but also for everything that it symbolized for me at this turning point. I feel that when people ask me how I fell in love with the toy piano, they are caught up in a means and not seeing the end: I truly believe that the toy piano has become a vehicle for me to express many things that I could not express on the standard-sized piano. Though many people see it as an instrument with many limitations, I feel  a lack of inhibition and freedom when playing it.

While I was younger, many of my friends could attest to the number of never-fulfilled multimedia pieces that I wanted to create. It’s hard to know exactly why it seemed so impossible, but after my recovery, it became natural for me to  finally pursue my interests and visions in creating multimedia works with the toy piano as my central voice. With so much untapped potential and no set boundaries on how it should sound or be played, I think that there is still a lot of artistic exploration that can happen on the toy piano.  Now that I am no longer injured and performing a lot on both piano and toy piano, I still find the toy piano to be my instrument of choice!