DStream

Jazz is an improvisation-centered music tradition that emerged from African American communities in the early 20th century. It blends blues feeling, ragtime syncopation, European harmonic practice, and brass band instrumentation into a flexible, conversational art. Defining features include swing rhythm (a triplet-based pulse), call-and-response phrasing, blue notes, and extended harmonies built on 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths. Jazz is as much a way of making music—spontaneous interaction, variation, and personal sound—as it is a set of forms and tunes. Across its history, jazz has continually hybridized, from New Orleans ensembles and big-band swing to bebop, cool and hard bop, modal and free jazz, fusion, and contemporary cross-genre experiments. Its influence permeates global popular and art music.

Prepared piano is a performance technique and repertoire in which an acoustic piano is altered by placing objects ("preparations") such as screws, bolts, erasers, rubber, paper, wood, or coins on or between the strings, hammers, or dampers. These additions transform the instrument’s timbre, producing sounds that resemble drums, gongs, bells, muted plucks, rattles, or metallic chimes. While the piano remains the sound source, the result is a compact percussion orchestra with a pitched framework. Composers notate detailed preparation charts specifying the materials and their exact string locations, and performers balance conventional keyboard playing with inside-the-piano gestures and pedaling control. The music ranges from meditative and bell-like to motoric and intensely percussive, and it occupies a pivotal place in 20th- and 21st-century experimental and contemporary classical practice.