His pedal is rigged to lower the rail so that, when he plays a key on the piano, the hammers hit the felt before the strings, dampening the sound. Throughout his concerts, Gonzales swaps between felted and unfelted piano by pressing down on what’s usually called a practice or céleste pedal, a standard feature of upright pianos. Look closely at Gonzales’ upright piano – which he once played for 27 hours and three minutes to break Guinness’s world record for the longest-ever solo concert – and you’ll see a layer of felt fixed to a rail above its hammers. Gonzales has since been added to the credits and has collaborated with Drake in the studio and on stage. The piano pieces were so popular that fellow Toronto native and up-and-coming rapper Drake sampled the entirety of Gonzales’ The Tourist on his 2009 breakthrough mixtape So Far Gone. In 2004, Canadian composer Chilly Gonzales released his jazz-enthused Solo Piano album, one of the earliest contemporary records to feature felt piano, to worldwide acclaim. One of the earliest artists to revive this age-old technique, however, went unnoticed by many. With the modern classical movement having repopularised the mellow and muffled piano, you can expect to hear its effects throughout contemporary media for years to come. The application of felt effectively takes the internal dampening mechanics found within many upright pianos to the next level, and can even be applied to larger-sounding grand pianos, making their soft sounds more consistent across the range. Though the felt piano’s fresh application by bleeding-edge composers such as Nils Frahm, Ólafur Arnalds, and Dustin O’Halloran might have you believe that this is a relatively modern variation on the instrument, the felt technique actually originates from the classical period, with such luminaries as Beethoven and Mozart even dabbling with its inviting and close sound. Here, the composers deploy a thin strip of felt between the piano’s hammers and strings to unlock a more intimate layer of its identity.
But the piano employed in these examples is neither bright nor classical. The instrument plays an enormous part in everything from contemporary TV shows such as Broadchurch and 13 Reasons Why to countless independent and blockbuster films. Despite the seismic advances in virtual-instrument technology and the increasingly diverse range of popular soundtrack styles throughout all manner of media, the piano remains an object of eternal love and devotion.
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