Today, I would like to explain how to play with rosin in ”v. The Realm of Morpheus” (from "Zeitgeist" -Six Tableaux for Two Amplified Pianos ) which includes in my coming CD.
In "The Realm of Morpheus," the piano strings must be rubbed with a piece of rosin and the 15th overtone must be heard. I could not get a steady sound out of it, and when I did, it would be somewhere between a semitone and whole tone lower than the 15th overtone, and I had a hard time figuring out what to do.
However, I found my own solution, and I would like to describe how to play it as below ① to ④.
①Place a tissue paper on the sound board to catch the powder of Rosin falling and keep the sound board clean. I use the tweezers to set it.
②Rub the Rosin on the indicated strings until a white powder comes out enough.
③Twirl another tissue around your finger and gently rub the string with the tissue while pressing the damper pedal. I show it in the movie here, I was not good player at that time though. This technique allows me to bring out a more consistent sound than if I rub the Rosin directly on the strings. Later, I rubbed it with a cloth wrapped Rosin and found it to be even better, with less friction sound than the tissue.
④Rub the string of A, instead of indicated A♭, so that 15th partial harmonics G appears. I keep same technique for all notes.
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