‘Green’ and in tune with toy pianos

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Exploring the world of the toy piano is a bit like falling down a rabbit hole, as I found when reporting a story keyed to three concerts this month at which Phyllis Chen will play works for toy piano, along with Bach and Rameau on traditional concert grand, as part of the Da Camera Society’s Chamber Music in Historic Sites series.

To perform on a toy piano, Chen sits on the floor, Schroeder-of-’Peanuts’ style. She plans to bring her Schoenhut instrument (the Steinway of toy pianos, as more than one toy pianist confirmed) to a prefab, small-carbon-footprint ‘green’ house in Culver City. Its towering ceiling and walls are insulated with partly visible layers of shredded jeans, held together by panels of fiberboard made of crushed sunflower husks.

In my story, Chen mentions toy pianos’ ‘odd tuning.’ That’s part of the charm: Each one sounds different. But in fact, toy pianos can be tuned -- with a file and Super Glue. In toy pianos, plastic keys connect to hammers that strike metal rods (rather than strings, as in an ‘adult’ piano). If notes are too flat, the affected key’s rod can be filed. If they’re too sharp, one fix is to wrap fine copper wire around the end of the key’s rod. A dot of Super Glue seals the sound.

I also hailed Margaret Leng Tan‘s enchanting Philips CD, ‘The Art of the Toy Piano.’ Alas, it’s currently unavailable. A similarly adventurous alternative is Tan’s ECM disc, ‘John Cage -- The Seasons.’ It’s the best introduction to Cage’s music and includes his short but potent 1948 Suite for Toy Piano.

-- Rick Schultz