#yaaasfilter

2 toy pianos

performed by Daniel Newman-Lessler

#yaaasfilter was composed during the 2019 Untwelve Xenharmonic Summer Convergence for the woman who literally wrote the book on toy pianos, Renaissance Artist, Elizabeth A. Baker for her 31st birthday. The piece was composed using only the pitches EAB (Elizabeth’s initials) and their chromatic inflections. The piece is performed by one player on two toy pianos; sometimes with one hand on either toy piano, sometimes with both hands only playing one toy piano or the other. It is comprised of three sections of increasing intensity – introduction, song, and toccata. The title is an ironic take on the common hashtag “#nofilter,” which is used frequently on social media platforms, particularly Instagram. “#nofilter” strikes me as a disingenuous claim, as everything we chose to post on social media goes through some kind of filtration/curation/beautification process to present our most ideal self. These over-processed galleries often dip into a grotesque realm similar to that of the Uncanny Valley – just close enough to reality and just far enough from it to make the viewer’s skin crawl. Additionally, #yaaasfilter attempts to portray the struggle for calm and focus as we mindlessly scroll, post, like, comment, upvote, downvote and the superficiality of it all.