Even now, 70+ years since John Cage’s seminal Suite for Toy Piano from 1948, the toy piano still feels like Duchamp’s upside-down urinal ( Fountain): out of place on stage, it elicits giggles and scoffs, is the star of the show, and at least promises a memorable experience, musical and otherwise. It has nothing to hold you back, to tell you you’re doing it wrong it exists only in the present and looks to the future. It has no musical baggage, no weighty historical performance practice, no standard repertoire. It’s the accidental instrument that was never meant to see anything but oncoming erratic toddler movements it was never meant to feel anything but the thumping of tiny fists and grubby fingers. The toy piano is an avant-garde musician’s dream.
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