This past January my parents decided they would move out of their flat. They've lived at their cottage for a year now and paying rent for a flat in the city doesn't make sense. They asked me if I wanted anything from the place. "Just the books you won't take yourselves, and the piano," I said. They agreed.

The situation is complicated now due to the pandemic but I had a chance to get to the flat one February morning. I packed a few boxes of the books and then I sat by the piano, equipped with my binaural microphone, and started playing. My plan was to record the whole performance live and then release it for this year's Piano Day in the end of March.

I enjoyed the experience. Felt the flow almost immediately, the instrument was playing itself and I was there just to witness it. It felt great and although I didn't perceive the world around, I occassionally realized "This motive is great, I hope people will love it." That's pride and it's never good during the music making process. I should have been alarmed by it.

I played for almost two hours. Wasn't watching the time, found out when I stopped playing and checked my phone (I haven't been wearing any watch since my hands got wounded last August). I had a pretty good feeling about the performance and I was looking forward to picking a third to a half of it and making it that live album. So I checked the recording to listen to a tiny bit.

To my horror there was nothing there. Not a single tone. Nada. Just silence.

I couldn't believe my ears. I checked the recording thoroughly, played it on loud volume, but there was just noise there, nothing more. I was devastated.

Because I didn't have any more time – not mentioning will and energy – to record another take, I wrapped everything up and left the flat. Sad, angry, frustrated.

When I got down to the ground floor, I met a lady I remembered from back when I lived in that house together with my parents and siblings. She looked much older which surprised me – although it shouldn't have as it had been a long time since I moved away.

"Oh hello," she said. "I KNEW it was you! Heard you playing the piano, you know? And it felt like you're back. I liked it."

I was speechless. And touched. And felt both sad and happy at the same time.

We talked a bit after that and then we said good bye. I got back to my car, feeling a mixture of nostalgia, sorrow and happiness, and drove home.

During the way back my anger backed away and I told to myself there was still time to get back before the Piano Day and take a second chance.

But by the end of February our Government announced no citizens would be allowed to travel out of their respective counties from March 1 on. Walks have been allowed only within the town or village one lives in and we've been allowed to go shopping only inside of our county since then. That meant no getting back to the flat in a foreseeable future.

Damn it, I thought, I don't have the piano here and I won't for a while. I can't go to the cottage to record the piano I used for the last year's Untuned Piano Day album either. What a shame! That album was full of ideas, themes and variations. And so well recorded. Binaurally, with all the squeaking, cracking and creaking. Someone else would make thousands of albums with such a material.

Wait a moment...

Why only someone else?

I could use that recording myself and try to make a true ambient album from it. A minimalist one, based on just a couple of phrases... Play it slowed down or sped up, reverse it, cut the melodies and join them with other ones, combine the tones with the wooden tapping and metal rattling and all the wonderful noises to make something entirely original, animate and exciting...

Then I thought about the potential workflow. I hate making art on a computer so that was a no-go. But then it occured to me: I still have my old sampler – what better reason to finally take it out of the case do I have than this?

So I did take it out.

At first it felt strange. I hadn't used the instrument since our first baby was born; that same week I finished my last film music. Our boy would be 10 soon, so I hadn't used the sampler for almost a whole decade!

Fortunately, the muscle memory got back shockingly quickly. Although I had to read the button captions at first, in a few hours I watched my fingers finding their way to the right ones by themselves. Pure joy.

Anyway... I can't believe I really made the album and I couldn't be happier about it. The whole thing is based on – as its name suggests – chopped piano samples from my last year's Untuned Piano Day album and all the music is played, once again, live.

No sequencers, no multi-tracking, no arpeggiators, no gadgets; no sticks, canes nor wands. Just me and my old sampler. Considering my pursuing of authenticity for the past year or so, I can't imagine a more authentic approach than this: using my long forgotten first professional instrument that I went for with my parents and siblings from Prague all the way to Berlin a quarter of a century ago; to put together new original music based on the samples from my year-old improvised piano album.

So this is my humble contribution to this year's Piano Day and the experience awaits you. Hope you'll love it, I sure do.

Thank you very much for your support, enjoy and take care.

Binaural Space, closed in his village in March 2021