Tools of the Trade

S01-E02 - One of the best things about being a piano duo is exploring all the ways a piano can be played and the special tools that help us extend our musical capabilities. In this episode, we explore extended piano techniques with a mysterious piece by Turkish pianist/composer Fazil Say, "Winter Morning in Istanbul", where we use window squeegees to dampen the strings to produce the sounds of a Turkish lute called the "Ud" or "Oud". In order to reach into the strings, we are reading the sheet music using two iPads placed on Grand Stand music racks that let us push the music further back into the piano. And for turning pages hands free, we use an AirTurn together with the iPad app "forScore" that has a neat feature allowing one person to turn sheet music pages on both iPads at the same time.

Product links:

1. The Grand Stand: https://amzn.to/3STOOnj

2. AirTurn hands free page turner pedal: https://amzn.to/3CxmQsf