childish mindgames

for toy piano with digital delay (1986/2005), 6’

In 1986, I bought a Jaymar toy piano on a whim at a neighborhood flea market. I didn't have much context for the toy piano. I'm not even sure if I had one when I was a young child although most people of my generation did. I know I'd owned a recording of John Cage's 1948 Suite for Toy Piano for several years and thought it was one of his most moving pieces. I might have also heard Wendy Mae Chambers play a few other pieces on a toy piano. As far as I can recall, Margaret Leng Tan hadn't begun giving toy piano recitals (although later, when she made her toy piano CD for Point Music, she borrowed my instrument). In the music I created for Childish Mindgames, I attached a DiMarzio pick up microphone to this Jaymar toy piano and ran it through an old Electro-Harmonix Memory Man effects unit. Perhaps this was some sort of subconscious commentary on memories and lost childhood; I honestly don't remember. But, by plugging in this innocent little toy piano, it suddenly became an orchestra that I could have access to. I envisioned creating a series of short pieces for this set up (which I called a "magic piano"). They were all based on the rules of old table games played by children in various parts of the world.