No Fear of the Disklavier: Steve Horowitz, Robot Pianos and “Breath”
MIDTOWN, MANHATTAN: Enlisting robots to do our dirty work is nothing new. Humans have been enslaving machines in some fashion or another since about 3:00 PM on the day the wheel was invented. It’s been uphill or downhill ever since — whatever you want to call it.
Composer Steve Horowitz has pressed plenty of tools into service in his lifetime – electric basses, Internet servers, Pro Tools rigs, PDAs, MIDI keyboards, Morgan Spurlock – but perhaps none so effectively as the Yamaha Disklavier. An increasingly precise player piano (read the full details here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disklavier), the Disklavier is the medium for Horowitz’s latest eclectic offering, Stations of the Breath.
At turns engrossingly complex, subtly subtle, and harrowingly haunting, Breath is a musical journey where Horowitz – whose deep portfolio includes everything from video games to live sound-to-picture orchestrations to film soundtracks (Super-Size Me) – takes us along for an astounding ride.
It would have been easy for him to simply program the Disklavier to perform the impossible over the course of its five tracks. Instead, Horowitz used its highly refined playback capabilities and natural acoustic properties to make his advanced musical visions possible. There’s a big difference.
“The Disklavier really transformed my way of thinking,” says Horowitz in the midtown Yamaha showroom, surrounded by baby grand, grand, and upright versions of the mechanical piano. “At first you start to ask the basic question, ‘Why not have a person play it?’ But after a while of working with it, it’s not about that at all. For me, really it was about using the Disklavier as a compositional and performance tool.
“It changed my way of thinking about writing, because I had previously only written chamber music with a pencil and paper. Now I’m writing this stuff with a laptop, lying on the sofa. I found it to be an immediate, engaging process. It wasn’t about, ‘It can do what no human can do.’ It was about helping me to get to a perfect, or wonderful performance of pieces that, as a pianist I would never be able to do. And the difference between physically in the space and hearing it come from a weighted keyboard, as opposed to hearing my composition come out of a pair of speakers, is profoundly different.”
Happily given access to a Disklavier in a family vacation home in Connecticut, Horowitz took advantage of the country solitude whenever possible to refine his Disklavier composing techniques and build Breath. Working on a Mac Pro notebook running Pro Tools LE, connected to an Mbox 2, Horowitz created pieces such haunting pieces as “Connecticut Nocturne, Moon Over Mudge Pond”, “Like Powder to the Light”, “The Ceremony of Souls” (featuring FLUX Quartet’s Dave Eggar on cello) and the contemplative closer “The Ghost of Juniper Ledge” (with contrabass flutist Ned McGowan).
Unabashedly focused on every other artist’s favorite theme – death – Breath (named for a Dylan Thomas poem), alternately plays with huge vats of space and daring darts of precision speed runs. You may have accepted that there’s only so much that the piano can do. Breath reminds us that humans influenced by artistic robots influenced by curious humans can give us something more.
Master of (piano) puppets: Steve Horowitz in the Yamaha showroom.
“There’s a lot of studio manipulation going on, but it’s not to show off the technology itself – it’s just a way to construct gorgeous pieces,” Horowitz reiterates. “The ability to write what would be called ‘Western Classical Music’ has evolved in a lot of interesting ways, and if you can shed the baggage, what is that evolution? It should be this: A human doesn’t have to play it – which is baggage that a lot of people can’t shed. You find yourself in this middle ground. It’s a very subtle interaction between the digital and analog world which takes place, and in between is your composer brain.”
Recording a player piano should be a piece of cake, right? After all, a uniform performance is guaranteed. But getting Breath down to hard disk wasn’t easy. Afforded access to the Yamaha showroom in midtown for recording, Horowitz knew he would have to contend with potential noise from the street five floors down. To make matters tougher, the anticipated 9’ grand wasn’t functioning the day of the recording, forcing Horowitz and engineer Scott Hirsch to switch to a seven footer. Jackhammers sounding out from a new 5th Avenue construction project were a nice, stressful touch that morning.
Fortunately, Horowitz had come prepared with a pair of AKG C-1000 condenser microphones in case close-miking for recording into the portable Pro Tools rig was warranted. Although getting in very close to the piano hammers is not the traditional method, in this case it proved to be essential. “We were going to put big mics out and get the little details from the close ones, but it became the opposite,” he explains. “The C-1000’s sound good on anything. They’re super-directional, and I would have been super-lost without them. I had to ride the mixes, and it was a challenge, but at the end of the day the recording sounds fantastic.
“Everyone at Yamaha was amazing (click here for a sidebar Q&A on the Disklavier with James Steeber, Director at Yamaha Artist Services, Inc.). They gave us the space, technical support, and made sure all the pianos are tuned. They also have a pretty neat workshop going on: If composers are calling up and want to write for Disklavier, they can get time here.”
For anyone wondering how much inspiration is left in the piano, Steve Horowitz has the answer: huge gobs of the stuff. “I know absolutely for a fact that it showed me a side to my music – writing and producing it – that’s really compelling,” he says. “At the same time, it allows the composer to be totally isolated. I like working with other people, but for this disc, I didn’t want anyone else around. This was a totally inward journey, because when you’re working with robotics you can have complete control of the instrument. It’s the canvas, you, and the paint. And that’s it.” – David Weiss
You can find “Breath” and the full breadth of Steve Horowitz at http://www.thecodeinternational.com.
SIDEBAR: JAMES M. STEEBER, Director of Artist Services, Yamaha
Five questions for Mr. Steeber, Director of Artist Services, Yamaha:
Q: The Yamaha showroom seems like more than just a showroom for pianos. How would you describe the full scope of the facility’s purpose? How is that continuing to evolve?
A: Since we opened it in 2004, it has gone from a relatively static piano showroom to becoming a living performing arts center. For instance, today there was an artist photo shoot. Yesterday there were extensive piano rehearsals. The other day we hosted a daytime recital. Artists expect us to be there for them. The facility will continue to evolve around new products but will hone in — more and more — on what is meaningful. In our first years we hosted hundreds of concerts, not all of them serving our needs. It was fun, though.
Q: What do you feel the Disklavier represents in the family of musical instruments? Is this just a high-tech player piano, or something more?
A: It’s really a reproducing piano and is, hence, an open palette for artists to use in rehearsal, learning, and collaboration. It can even tweak one’s excitement for music itself.
Q: Has there been an uptick in the number of compositions made just for Disklavier? What’s the difference in composing for/with Disklavier than with a standard piano or other instruments, and why?
A: Yes, of course — if you build it, they will compose. With all the data handling Disklavier can muster, it’s really unlimited in what it can do. For a regular piano, you tend to think of hands (two, three, four) and feet. With Disklavier you think of notes and values – again, more like sculpting or painting.
Q: What particular niche of Disklavier performance/recording do you feel like Steve Horowitz’s new album represents? I asked Steve if he felt this was an evolution of the craft in some way, and he didn’t feel qualified to say. Perhaps you have an opinion on this?
A: I think it fits the evolution of the piano itself. Obviously, Mozart couldn’t have composed the “Appasionata” in his time, as the piano he had was too limited. By that same token, Beethoven could not have conceived “Gaspard de la Nuit,” by the fact that his instrument lacked the tonal variety — and range — to encourage such orchestral sounds. Steve is using available resources to inspire him to test those resources. It definitely relates to the general evolution of the composer’s craft — along a grand tradition.
Q: Well put! Anything else you’d add here?
A: Disklavier is the principal reason I came to Yamaha. It was a miracle, if you will, that a company in modern times put so much passion behind a real leap in an area which is still yet specialized, all separate from the value of the simpler Disklaviers made for home use. Yamaha is to be eternally congratulated and recognized for making the Disklavier Pro and inspiring so much musical creation and even musical restoration. – David Weiss
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