Since the Willems recording projects began, interest both publicly and artistically in the Stuart & Sons piano has gradually increased, as more pianos are produced at an average of three each year. It is a traditional characteristic of new design, especially one that involves changing an established form such as the modern piano, that it takes a long gradual period of time for the changes to be accepted. It took over thirty years for the traditional piano makers Erard and Broadwood, to completely accept the use of iron frames in their pianos.66
There are significant challenges in changing traditional musical instruments because the ear is the organ of fear…and any difference in a previously learned preconditioning of that organ will be met with suspicion, and the only way to overcome differences is through education,familiarization, and a gradual re-programing of how the mind relates to and interprets the new sound experience. It could be said that new acoustic experiences are initially, simply not recognised beyond the obvious difference.67
Discovering Instrumental Tonal Colour Through Improvisation.
The first exploration, experimentation and composition of music primarily influenced by the Stuart piano soundscape was produced by the improvisations of jazz pianists.
This is an effective jazz instrument. Classical music has certain presets
It’s effective for jazz style because of all the surprises of colour. Jazz instantly composes, controlling them versus being led by them.68
– Mark Isaacs, Australian jazz & classical pianist.
Jazz pianists are involved in a music practice of adaptability. The improvising pianist can adapt to and explore a new instrumental soundscape as soon as they begin to play, because they are free to make sounds with the sound, in the moments it is heard. Jazz keyboard style is also intrinsically linked to contemporary technological developments of new instrumental soundscapes. This was especially evident in the 1960s, with the emergence of electronically enhanced keyboard instruments. Jazz keyboard players created playing techniques and styles of jazz for the new tonal soundscapes of the
Hammond B3 Organ of the1950s, the Moog synthesizer of 1964, the Hohner Clavinet 1968, the Fender Rhodes of 1969, and the Arp synthesizer of 1969. Jazz keyboardist today are creating new styles of improvisation with the use of 21st Century sampling and virtual instrument computer technology.
The exploratory Stuart& Sons jazz piano improvisations were recorded at the Stuart& Sons piano studio ‘the White Room’, in Newcastle. These sessions were informative to the piano maker, the pianists and the audio engineers. In 2007, Stuart & Sons released the first of their CDs, A New Voice.The improvisations on this recording are arguably the first compositions specifically created for the 97 keys Stuart piano. In over 115 years of stylistic development, Jazz piano style had not experienced a fundamental change in the acoustic soundscape of the piano, until now.
66 1212 Good, chpt.6.
67Wayne Stuart , in4“Innovations in Piano,” Know Your Music.
68Mark Isaacs, interview with author, 27thJanuary, 2011.
