peyotl: everything you always wanted to do but weren’t allowed in piano lessons

Whilst most of us may be at ease with a pianist’s fingers gliding over the keyboard, many feel more resistance towards someone who hits the keys with the flat of the hand, or is bent over the keyboard to play directly on the strings. Yet, these techniques have been in use since the 18th century, unlike their common association with ‘new music’.

In contrast to this extensive repertoire for professionals, pieces that are written to introduce such techniques to children exhibit mostly adult aesthetic preferences. As regards performance technique, the composers have not distinguished between the different pedagogical chronologies and algorithms of learning to play the keyboard and the inside of the piano, nor do they seem to have imagined whether a child always had already access to the accessories that are sometimes required to do so.

In collaboration with composer Hans Cafmeyer, a project was set up at the Orpheus Instituut to develop new music through artistic research, catering to children's aesthetic horizons, their technical abilities, pedagogical needs and personal biotope, and the technological constraints of the instrument.

ÍMPAR Online journal for artistic research

Created in 2017, ÍMPAR is a biannual publication whose objective is to disseminate the knowledge production in the field of Artistic Research. This issue, in addition to inaugurating the fourth year of this journal is also establishing what will be a turning point: ÍMPAR publishes for the first time an article that while being artistic research is not artistic research in music.