Photo: Estelle Klawitter

Inside Volker Bertelmann's piano is a craftwork orchestra. Bored by classical music's staunch adherence to tradition, the German composer and pianist, who goes by the stage name Hauschka, began modifying the inner workings of his pianos by placing felt, paper, rubber, leather wedges, guitar strings, E-bows and bottle caps on the strings.

This playful, exploratory approach to music has earned him a following among indie rock fans and drawn comparisons to composer John Cage's ‘prepared piano' works from the 1930s. Last year Bertelman started applying his experimental sensibility to advertising through New York-based Search Party Music.

"I don't want to be bored. I'm trying to challenge myself in a lot of ways," he says over the phone from his home in Düsseldorf. "What is nice is when you have something that can constantly change and that is surprising."

In early 2009, Bertelmann joined Search Party after meeting EP Sara Matarazzo at a concert. Though most agencies opt to cut out the ‘prepared' ephemera in favor of a cleaner, classical compositions, he was able modify a piano melody for the American Express spot "Yvon Chouinard", produced through Ogilvy, New York.

Bertlemann amplified the spot's minimal piano melody by dangling beer bottle caps from the tuning strings in his upright piano. Striking the keys causes the caps to rattle about like a tambourine. Mic-ed close-up, the percussive noise adds a subtle reverb effect to the composition.

"As soon as I hit the string they bounce forward and then they bounce back so I have also sounds that come in later than my note," he says. "I create something that moves beyond the touch of the keys."

"The noise of the preparations is very close to the speaker so it creates a kind of third dimension in the sounds," he continues. "You have a very close up percussive sound and behind that you have the piano and then you have the reverb so it gets a deeper impact than a normal piano."

Bertelmann replicates hi-hat drum sounds by taping bits of paper to the strings and at a performance at the SXSW music festival in Austin, Texas last March, he dumped a bag ping-pong balls inside his piano, creating a chaotic popcorn effect.

A former electronic pop musician once signed to Sony Music, Hauschka's first prepared piano album Substantial came out in 2004. He's since released three more solo efforts, two on Fat Cat Records including Ferndorf in 2008, his first recording to feature a string duo. His combination of classical melodies with experimental noise, electronic instruments and rock rhythms have attracted a younger generation of classical fans, it has kept more discerning old school aficionados at a distance.

However he promises that will change with his next record. Entitled Foreign Landscapes and due out at the end of October, the album will boast a more fully-realized orchestral sound. "I'm reaching my hand out to the classical people as well with this record," he says.

Recorded with a 12-piece ensemble in San Francisco in January, Foreign Landscapes is inspired by his travels as a touring musician. Each track is named after the place in which it was recorded: Union Square, Mount Hood and Madeira, among them.

Bertelmann has also dabbled in acting. In 2008, he acted in a short film "Bloksky" and he's composing a melancholic score for a stage version of Heinrich von Kleist's 1802 book The Marquise of O, in which he will also act and perform using three differently-prepared pianos.

Composing for ad music is still relatively new for Bertlemann who used to avoid commercial work because the whims of the client often ended in heartbreak.

"You work long and hard on something and you lose your heart," he says. "The client just decides, 'I don't want to have music at all' from one day to the next."

Nowadays, the opportunity to pitch on commercial projects has helped him think differently about his process. Rejected melodies are filed into an ever-growing file of bank ideas that he can revive when a new project comes along, which is how his score for the Amex spot came to be.

Unlike most of his gigs, the agency wanted to include subtle elements from his 'prepared' practice - a request he rarely gets in the commercial world despite his rising reputation in the music press.

"In general I have the feeling ads mostly want to be very modern but the longer the discussion takes, the more you take the progressive stuff out," he says. "Sometimes my preparations are too wild for people. They want a clean, brilliant and extremely nice recording sound, which I can deliver as well. It's really up to the agency or client to ask me."

www.searchparty-music.com