Time Out New York had this to say about composer-hyperpianist Denman Maroney: “Pianists have been tinkering with the guts of their instruments for nearly a century now, but it’s altogether likely that no one has explored the art of prepared piano as diligently or creatively as hyperpianist Denman Maroney.”
The music of “hyperpianist” Denman Maroney is inspired by natural sounds and the music of John Cage, Ornette Coleman, Henry Cowell, Duke Ellington, Charles Ives, Scott Joplin, Olivier Messiaen, Thelonius Monk, Conlon Nancarrow and Karheinz Stockhausen among others. Maroney plays what he calls “hyperpiano ,” which involves bowing and sliding the strings with copper bars, steel cylinders, Tibetan prayer bowls, rubber blocks and CD cases and gives him a unique sonic vocabulary. He also uses a system of temporal harmony based on the undertone series that allows him to improvise and compose in several tempos at once.
Maroney’s February release on Innova is entitled Music for Words, Perhaps (INN717). In a recent conversation with Innova, the artist offered the following answers…
What’s your pet’s name and why?
My last dog’s name, after the daughter I never had, was Molly, Queen of Dogs, a Portuguese Water Dog, from a shelter, too, unlike, Bo, the Obama’s dog. I travel too much to get another dog now.
How do you spoil yourself?
With a good French wine, preferably in France.
If you weren’t making music as a career what would you be doing?
Making money!
Where do you live and how does that affect your music and the way you make
it?
I live in Rockland County, New York near Harriman State Park, where I get inspiration.
What is your first sound memory?
Silence.
Name three Desert Island discs (or MP3s), recordings that you feel especially close to.
Work (Thelonious Monk with Sonny Rollins), Prestige LP; Goldberg Variations (Bach, played by Glenn Gould), Columbia LP; Vingt Regards Sur L’Enfant Jesus (Messiaen, played by Pierre Laurent Aimard), Teldec CD.
What has been your most memorable or inspirational performance and why?
A duo concert with Mark Dresser at Vision Festival XIII (June 2008), released on Kadima Collective in 2009. We hooked up really well, and the audience was fully engaged.
Describe your most mind-blowing art experience (in any art form), something that instantly changed your life.
The first time I saw Cecil Taylor play solo in 1969.
What is your greatest fear?
Outliving myself.
What has been your career low point?
The eighties.
What were your first compositions like? How have they changed?
I’ve been writing the same piece all my life. Later versions seem better.
What did you learn from your teachers? Any words of wisdom to share?
From Miss Matsuki (my childhood piano teacher), I learned harmony; from Leonid Hambro, technique; from James Tenney, Ives and Joplin. But mostly I taught myself.
How are you like your music? Would an outsider see/hear any similarity between your personality and your music?
I am my music, but no one who doesn’t know me could tell this.
Tell us about your release and some of the thinking behind it.
See my liner notes.
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