Neglected Piano Project
During college I studied and worked with aspects of just, microtonal, and other forms of alternate tuning systems within my compositions and improvisations. Although initially these modes sounded "out of tune" to me, listening to them over an extended period of time gradually increased my tolerance to these pitches and pitch sets. As a result, I began to experiment with improvisations on pianos that were "out of tune"; not purposely so, but from neglect. The piano tuners around my campus tend to do pretty good jobs, but I was able to find a few keyboards that escaped their care.
From a philosophical standpoint the piano which has been "neglected" from tuning maintenance actually in fact represents its most natural state of being within that particular environment. Piano strings are normally stretched and adjusted to fit the equal-tempered standard, but without constant adjustment and maintenance the strings eventually "loosens up" and detracts from the tuning system. These "out of tune" notes initially sound out of place, but with careful placement these anomalies can be used to generate interest and eventually be worked into the music.
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Music Library
Listening Rooms 2 and 5 - May 2005
UIUC LIBRARY ROOM 2 - One of the strings on the C2 key on this piano is literally a half-step out of tune, and sounds like a cluster tone when you hit the key. There's a whole slew of out-of-tune notes in the upper register but one F# sounds particularly distinctive. I used these two notes as basis for the music composition/improvisation. Half way through the recording session a band from the Middle East came into the library and said if they could play and I said no this is a library and shut the door but they played anyway and was really loud so I just played along instead.
UIUC LIBRARY ROOM 5 - Room 5 is kind of spooky. And full of audio engineering problems.