[HN Gopher] The Alexander: Why did you build such a long piano?
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The Alexander: Why did you build such a long piano?
Author : kurthr
Score : 733 points
Date : 2021-07-16 00:38 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.alexanderpiano.nz)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.alexanderpiano.nz)
| geocrasher wrote:
| It's amazing what can be accomplished when you don't have anyone
| telling you it's impossible.
| hexa22 wrote:
| Also how much time can be wasted by not being alerted of the
| common pitfalls.
| bityard wrote:
| It seems strange to think that there would be common pitfalls
| for a project so uncommon as this.
| aeorgnoieang wrote:
| I've found, repeatedly, tho that this is the _best_ way to
| really understand the common pitfalls without just receiving
| them as 'holy writ'.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| Sure. For example, everyone knows that it is far too
| expensive to build an electric car because battery prices are
| far too high. Don't make that mistake! [1]
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/NV3sBlRgzTI?t=55
| enriquto wrote:
| Fortunately there's enough people in the world for both
| things to happen simultaneously in different parts, allowing
| for a wider and deeper exploration of the problem space.
| FpUser wrote:
| The bass definitely has a character on that piano. I liked it.
| fiftyacorn wrote:
| It would be an interesting computer model to simulate an
| infinitely long string
| travisjungroth wrote:
| I'm not into pianos, but this hit me right in the "old internet"
| nostalgia. Anyone who wasn't there for an internet before
| Facebook and Amazon, there was a time when the whole internet was
| like this (and science research and porn and other stuff, but I
| was a kid and looked at this kinda thing). Just someone who is
| obviously an amazing person writing about something they know or
| did on their own website. Pure HTML with some photos dropped in
| along the way. Would have been 30 seconds MP3 downloads instead
| of YouTube videos, though. So maybe a site like this is the best
| of both worlds.
| Kye wrote:
| It even uses some obscure CMS I've never heard of, just like
| old times.
| exikyut wrote:
| <meta name="generator" content="CMS Tool www.cms-tool.net" />
| nashashmi wrote:
| A product of website world
| swyx wrote:
| i like it too but its gotta come from a place of "i have enough
| leisure time to indulge in this"... everyone else is just
| trying to make money and cant fault them for that really
| drcongo wrote:
| This is my favourite kind of content on the web, it always makes
| my day when something like this pops up on HN.
| twelvechairs wrote:
| There is a long guitar/lute-like instrument called 'Theorbo' from
| the renaissance that is a good comparison. It was originally
| built before they had wound strings (that could produce lower
| notes).
|
| A very good introduction video
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48RVcbkhNHQ
| munificent wrote:
| God, those bass notes sound divine. So clear, punchy, and in
| tune.
| dumpsterdiver wrote:
| > I think because I was so young I absolutely knew it was totally
| possible to do, I was fully determined and without consulting any
| professionals I had no barrier stopping me.
|
| IMO, this is the mindset of greatness to come. So many who have
| failed before us are quick to proclaim the impossible. Time and
| time again humans have displayed that the impossible may in fact
| be nothing more than a lack of imagination.
| ianlevesque wrote:
| Yeah it's a really interesting human trait. There's clearly
| hazard in falling prey to the sunk costs fallacy and spinning
| your wheels forever, but naive determination is an integral
| part of the human success story.
| Shish2k wrote:
| I miss having this attitude - as a teenager, I created a two
| minute long animation with ~200 bytes of code and ~1700 bytes
| of data (demoscene-style). Now as a professional software
| engineer if you asked me to do that, I'd say "it's impossible -
| the unit tests alone would break the 2KB limit!" :(
| rmetzler wrote:
| Unit Tests don't count against the byte limit. ;-)
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "Time and time again humans have displayed that the impossible
| may in fact be nothing more than a lack of imagination. "
|
| Sure, but there is still no working Perpetuum Mobile, despite
| many freaks are working on it.
|
| And I mean, who knows, maybe one of them accidently invents
| cold fusion in that approach, but most of the time, youthful
| optimism can be very blinding for reality. (And I mean not the
| reality of old cynics, who failed to achieve their dreams and
| conclude that since they could not make it work, why should the
| young and dumb ones succed, who lack experience and skills) But
| actual reality, with physical boundaries of time and matter.
|
| But nothing was impossible with this project, it was just lots
| of work, so congratulations.
| zmix wrote:
| Nobody mentioning, the guy was 16 when he started the build? Just
| W.O.W.!
| CarVac wrote:
| As someone who's tuned my own piano, the inharmonicity in the
| bass is really noticeably low.
| elihu wrote:
| I think the low strings usually get tuned about half a semitone
| or more lower just to sound in tune with the rest of the
| instrument.
|
| It'd be interesting to know what the railsback curve looks like
| for this long piano; I'd expect it to be a lot flatter.
|
| I imagine you could also flatten out the curve on the treble
| end by using thinner gauge wire, but I suppose there's probably
| a trade-off in terms of volume or durability, otherwise all
| pianos would use thin wire for the treble strings. (I think
| most pianos use wire that's a little thinner in the treble, but
| not by much. I might be wrong about that, though.)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_acoustics#The_Railsback_...
| prvc wrote:
| Yet the timbre on this is quite different from that of an
| ordinary piano. Which make the experiment worth doing on its
| own (and successful)!
| nyanpasu64 wrote:
| Chrono Trigger is a SNES game with short samples. Normally that
| would result in significant quality degradation, but one
| interesting side effect is that its short looped low piano
| sample (found in songs like Lavos's Theme[1]) has no
| inharmonicity. When the attack ends and the sample loops, it
| almost sounds like the harmonics go a bit flat.
|
| [1]: https://fi.zophar.net/soundfiles/nintendo-snes-spc/chrono-
| tr...
| marcan_42 wrote:
| This is why I love Pianoteq. It's a plug-in that virtually
| models a piano, so if you want 10 meter long strings, you can
| have that. Or you can go crazy with other parameters and get
| very strange pianos.
|
| As someone who enjoys playing piano but doesn't have the space
| nor acoustic insulation for a real one, it's great being able
| to not just get the sound of different pianos whenever I want,
| but also virtually design my own. Modeling technology has
| really come a long way.
|
| That's not to say that if I ever own a large enough house I
| wouldn't want an acoustic piano :-)
| yboris wrote:
| I second Pianoteq as a recommendation. It can run on Linux,
| so I have it on a Raspberry Pi attached to my digital piano.
| As a bonus, it also drives some addressable (programmable)
| LEDs: https://github.com/whyboris/Digital-Piano-LED
|
| To install Pianoteq on a Raspberry Pi, it's a single script
| that sets everything up: https://github.com/youfou/pianoteq-
| pi
| HPsquared wrote:
| I searched this thread to see if anyone mentioned Pianoteq.
| :)
|
| It's also fun to play around with alternative tuning systems,
| try different hammers, soundboard characteristics, etc etc.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| I once pitched up a sample of a very low note plated on piano,
| it sounds so weird! The inharmonicity manifests as all kinds of
| weird whistling sounds.
| felipemnoa wrote:
| For those of us that know nothing about music, is this good or
| bad?
| LanceH wrote:
| When played a note will emit overtones -- the same note an at
| higher octaves. So a low C will also have middle C, high C,
| etc at different volumes depending on the instrument. This is
| playing low notes without low volume overtones. In short, the
| low notes are more purely low.
| elihu wrote:
| That's not quite right. The overtones are the harmonic
| series, not just octaves (1:2, 1:4, 1:8, etc..) but an
| octave and a fifth (1:3), two octaves and a third, (1:5),
| etc..
|
| In a piano, the bass and treble strings have a lot of
| inharmonicity. They don't behave like ideal strings for
| various reasons, so the harmonics aren't exact multiples of
| the fundamental frequency. Piano tuners deal with this be
| stretching the octave, so that the piano sounds in tune
| even though it kind of isn't.
|
| Having a super long bass string instead of a short double-
| wound bass string probably behaves more like an ideal
| string (with harmonics that are closer to whole-number
| multiples of the fundamental), so it should sound like it
| has a more definite pitch and less like a gong.
|
| Interestingly, we don't really perceive the fundamental
| frequencies of the low notes in a piano much at all in the
| first place. If you filter them out, the notes will sound
| about the same -- we take most of our perceptual cues from
| the higher harmonics, and our brain just inserts the
| implied bass fundamental. In the same way, playing a major
| chord sort of implies a bass note a couple octaves below
| the root of the chord -- if all the harmonics are there,
| then we expect it to be there.
| LanceH wrote:
| Thank you.
| LeonB wrote:
| "playing a major chord sort of implies a bass note a
| couple octaves below the root of the chord"
|
| Wow! Of course! Lightbulb moment. This isn't something
| that occurred to me independently but makes so much sense
| I wonder how it hadn't, and it explains a lot of what
| chords are really all about.
| elihu wrote:
| Yeah, chords are interesting. Major triads are basically
| a 4:5:6 ratio, which is the 4th, 5th, and 6th harmonic of
| some low bass note. (Different inversions get you 2:3:5
| or 3:4:5 or whatever.) A dominant 7th chord gets you one
| more step in the harmonic series: 4:5:6:7. That 7th
| harmonic is way out of tune in 12-tone equal temperament,
| though.
|
| Minor chords are a 10:12:15 ratio, which kind of looks
| like a bunch of arbitrary chosen numbers, but we could
| rewrite that as 60/6 : 60/5 : 60/4 and then it sort of
| make sense that minor would be a sort of mathematical
| reciprocal of the major. Minor chords can be interpreted
| either as the 10th, 12th, and 15th harmonics of some bass
| note or as the first three prime subharmonics that are
| integer divisions of the fundamental note. Subharmonics
| don't really occur in nature, though.
| retrac wrote:
| Inharmonicity is when the overtones (frequency multiples) are
| not whole number multiples of the fundamental frequency. It
| sounds bad. Discordant, like playing two notes directly next
| to each other on the keyboard.
|
| When designing a string or percussion instrument (or any
| resonator, in general, I suppose) one of the challenges is
| ensuring that you aren't creating undesired harmonics. With
| something like a piano with hundreds or thousands of strings
| that might be induced to resonate undesirably if even
| slightly out, or whose own movement might alter other parts
| and affect them, it becomes a significant challenge.
| duskwuff wrote:
| It's very good.
|
| Normally, the lowest few octaves on a piano all sound a
| little weird; the individual notes are a little hard to tell
| apart and multiple low notes played together often blend into
| a rumbly mess. This is because the strings for those notes
| are shorter than they should be for their frequencies --
| they're artificially made to vibrate at a lower frequency by
| making the strings heavier.
|
| This effect seems to be significantly reduced on the
| Alexander piano.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > rumbly mess
|
| The A0 key on a piano is 27 Hz. The frequency is so low it
| stops sounding like a single tone, and it almost sounds
| like the string is flopping around.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Inharmonicity means there's almost no fundamental in the
| notes in that octave.
|
| The low notes on a conventional piano _are_ a rumbly
| mess, but we 're used to them.
|
| Hearing a piano design with much cleaner bass overtones
| is a real shock.
| atwebb wrote:
| Thanks for the explanation! Is it noticeable at this time
| stamp? https://youtu.be/nj4fhdiXy48?t=178
|
| I feel like the lower notes are much more distinct and
| separate but might just be imagining it.
| kmill wrote:
| Those bass notes are noticeably clearer there!
|
| The sound of inharmonicity comes from dispersion --
| different frequencies travel through the string at
| different velocities. The lower the frequency, the less
| the wave notices the stiffness of the string, so to
| speak, and the stiffer the string the quicker a wave will
| travel through it. If you've ever tapped on a wire fence
| or played with a slinky, you'll be familiar with the
| "pew" sound. A pure impulse consists of all frequencies
| at once, but when it's traveled through the fence,
| bounced off a post, and come back, you hear the high
| frequencies first, which is why the "pew" descends in
| frequency.
|
| Anyway, I've found that you can notice this on the
| attacks of bass notes on pianos. Only the very lowest
| notes of the Alexander piano seem to really have it
| audible, and even then it's much more slight.
| mrob wrote:
| I thought the cause of inharmonicity was that higher
| frequencies cause steeper bending of the string at the
| attachment points, which makes the effective length of
| the string shorter. Sound on Sound's article on
| synthesizing guitar sounds (which have the same problem)
| has a good diagram explaining it (see figure 12):
|
| https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/final-attempt-
| synthe...
|
| And this model explains why the inharmonicity is higher
| on the attacks (higher vibration amplitude increases
| bending of the string).
| kmill wrote:
| Thanks for sharing that article. My understanding is that
| this bridge effect is actually what is happening across
| the entire length of the string; it's just that the
| boundary condition makes the effects of stiffness
| clearer.
|
| Stiffness causes there to basically be a radius of
| curvature in the string when you apply a force. The
| boundary condition of a guitar string is that the
| displacement and first derivative of displacement of the
| string are zero at both ends. So, this radius of
| curvature will be visible there. But, even when plucking
| a string, rather than having a sharp peak at the
| plectrum, it will necessarily be similarly smoothed out.
| (Though, through time in a frequency-dependent way.)
|
| In the wave equation, stiffness involves a factor with a
| coefficient proportional to Young's modulus. Based on the
| stress/strain graphs I could find, Young's modulus of a
| guitar string increases with tension, increasing
| inharmonicity. Of course, the pitch of the string also
| increases with tension, so there's a lot going on.
|
| (I have to admit that the zero-first-derivative boundary
| condition having no additional effect is coming from my
| intuitions about linearity of solutions to the wave
| equation, but maybe it still has some interesting effect.
| I think the overall effect of stiffness would dominate
| this one, however.)
|
| Some things I was looking at: https://www.dsprelated.com/
| freebooks/pasp/Dispersive_1D_Wave... https://www.dsprelat
| ed.com/freebooks/pasp/Stiff_String.html
| burntwater wrote:
| I hear solely through a hearing aid and always thought the
| low frequencies were just being butchered by my hearing
| aid. Glad to learn it's not just me!
| hug wrote:
| The harmonic series is a really neat thing to learn about --
| one of those "art is math" kind of moments.
|
| This video does a good job of explaining it in a relatively
| short and simple way, but goes in-depth enough that even
| people with an understanding of music might learn something:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx_kugSemfY
| CarVac wrote:
| It's good.
|
| Due to the stiffness of real strings, the overtones do not
| occur at even multiples of the fundamental frequency.
|
| This means that when tuning a piano, you need to compromise
| between tuning so that the fundamentals are in tune with
| distant notes but having the overtones sound discordant with
| nearby notes, or having sweet overtone matching with nearby
| notes, causing notes to be very far off when harmonizing at
| longer distances across the keyboard.
|
| With my upright, I've had more success tuning more based on
| the fundamental than on the overtones, because it has enough
| inharmonicity that tuning to the overtones causes right-hand-
| to-left-hand harmonies to sound noticeably off. But this
| makes single-hand chords sound messier.
|
| A piano with looooooooooooooooong bass strings can have
| skinnier strings that are flexible and behave closer to
| ideal, so you don't have to compromise as much when tuning.
| munificent wrote:
| For anyone curious, the name for this tuning technique is
| "stretch":
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_tuning#Stretch
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stretched_tuning
|
| Software synthesized pianos implement this too because it's
| part of how we expect piano-based instruments to sound.
| leephillips wrote:
| Excellent explanation. We can get a little quantitative if
| we remember that the fundamental frequency of a vibrating
| string is sqrt(T/m)/(2L), where T is the tension, m is the
| linear density, and L is the length. So if we make the
| string twice as long, (T/m) has to be increased by a factor
| of four; if we keep the tension the same we can use a
| string with 1/4 the linear density, which I guess would
| decrease the inharmonicity significantly.
|
| The square root magnifies the effect of increasing the
| length, so you get a lot from making the piano a bit
| longer. The project is a wonderful idea.
| lugged wrote:
| Yea, but does it play the boogie woogie?
| robmiller wrote:
| Close. It plays the Maple Leaf Rag,
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-XTA_ORK38
| lugged wrote:
| When they said long...
| alexdong wrote:
| Fun story: four years ago, I hired Adrian to move a second-hand
| piano into our house. We lived on a very steep area with a narrow
| elbow driveway. Adrian has this incredible spatial memory and
| fine motor control that I still find it hard to believe how he
| did it.
|
| He loaded the piano in his trailer and basically backed his BMW
| all the way up with half meter at most on each side, slowly
| through that elbow bend and parked the trailer's door right on
| where we planned to unload the piano. Maybe 2cm away from where
| he intended to land it.
| soperj wrote:
| If you tell me that you live on Baldwin st, it's gonna blow my
| mind.
| [deleted]
| jll29 wrote:
| It's delightful to see that musicians have their own geeks just
| like computer science has. Their advantage is the execution of
| their code is universally understood by all of humanity.
| ygra wrote:
| Another one that fits that description would be Martin Molin of
| Wintergatan, who's currently on a multi-year quest to build a
| concert-suitable programmable marble music instrument. He's
| been detailing the build and concept process on YouTube.
| dmurray wrote:
| I thought this was going to be an instrument made entirely
| out of marble, and wondered what it could be. I thought maybe
| a cymbal but settled on it being most likely a flute or
| recorder of some sort. Which certainly seems like it could be
| made from marble, but I don't know enough about sculpture to
| know how plausible that is.
|
| Turns out it's played with marbles instead, which is just as
| cool.
| retzkek wrote:
| Inspired, I presume, by those awesome ray-traced animations
| from the early oughts? I had started sketching ideas on how
| to make that a reality (pneumatics and magnets mainly) but
| never got beyond concept.
|
| Specifically this one:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyCIpKAIFyo
| wucheong wrote:
| I was a guitar and bass player. I would like to say, that's the
| freaking reason that we need fan fret guitar in 8 string guitar.
| The deep solid low bass!!
| bmitc wrote:
| I love the simplicity of "I just wanted to see what a long bass
| string sounded like".
| mastazi wrote:
| Some other unconventional Pianos:
|
| https://klavins-pianos.com/products/model-450i/
|
| https://klavins-pianos.com/products/una-corda/
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| For anyone into VST's, Native Instruments has a great sampled
| instrument of Una Corda. And their instrument "The Giant" is
| based on the Klavins model 370i. The product page for the 370i
| is blank, but it seems like the Model 450i is their new version
| of the same concept.
|
| I hope that one day I'll be able to play one of the real
| models, but until then The Giant is my favorite virtual piano
| because of how massive it sounds.
| dhon_ wrote:
| I originally thought The Giant was a modelled instrument (as
| opposed to sampled) because it looked like something out of a
| Studio Ghibli film
| bartc wrote:
| Also see the Earth harp: https://www.williamearthharp.com/
| jefftk wrote:
| With the Giant, why put the keyboard at the top? If you put the
| keyboard at the bottom, it can be like a normal upright piano
| that is just incredibly tall, and doesn't require a ladder. Is
| this about where along the string the hammers are hitting?
| mastazi wrote:
| > Is this about where along the string the hammers are
| hitting?
|
| I suspect you are right, I studied a bit of classical guitar
| and I know for a fact that plucking the strings near the
| bridge or near the fretboard creates very different sounds.
| It is probably a similar problem with pianos.
| pilsetnieks wrote:
| A larger version from the same manufacturer was built and
| installed in Ventspils, Latvia. Supposedly it's the largest
| concert piano in the world right now.
|
| https://www.classicfm.com/music-news/pictures/worlds-biggest...
| alanbernstein wrote:
| Here's a ring piano: https://pianoarc.com/about/
| quadrangle wrote:
| not to be negative, but various shaped controllers that are
| electronic, there's tons of those. That's not interesting in
| the same sort of way as an acoustically-distinct sound-
| production device
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| I think that's a very rock and roll controller. Picture
| Elton John in the middle of that.
| ipsum2 wrote:
| Some more interesting pianos, all from the same person.
|
| Tiny hammers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB7dXFWhMNU
|
| Bass strings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijUKBIxeAS4
|
| Fishing line: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-KHIJk4Yx8
|
| Guitar string: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RyjoXVDqUs
| Pxtl wrote:
| Surprised nobody's built such a thing before for eg. churches
| where a piano or organ will be permanent. Such a beautiful
| instrument and obvious in hindsight.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| There are many custom-built organs that defy logic.
|
| Here in St. Louis, the organ at the Cathedral Basilica of St.
| Louis was built over decades, and one of the ranks (sets of
| pipes) has pipes that are so long, they were formed in a semi-
| circle so they would fit within the building.
|
| One of those pipes (a low note) was stuck on one time, and it
| caused a bit of a vibration in the whole place, and the
| organist had to turn off the pipe organ until someone could
| come fix the broken valve!
|
| But it's amazing seeing how there were pipes jammed literally
| in every nook and cranny and closet in that place--and from
| what I hear that's not even that massive an installation!
| Tomminn wrote:
| Funnily enough, I feel like Gareth Davies, the presumably semi-
| amateur player in the video set, is the only one who really gets
| the piano, and focuses on those unusually melodic bass notes.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| His performance of Maple Leaf Rag rocks! Pretty good player.
| fumeux_fume wrote:
| Lol, completely agree. Scarlatti?! How silly! I have a very
| nice tube amp sitting on my desk (#pandemic-hifi) so I thought
| I'd take your rec and listen to Mr. Davies instead. The long
| bass strings produce a better sustained note which creates very
| nice harmonics!
| johncalvinyoung wrote:
| Has #pandemicHIFI been a thing? I know I've made a few
| purchases this year that I probably wouldn't have on my old
| routine.
| ericbarrett wrote:
| Agreed. Hyperion Knight playing Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring
| (Bach)[0] is also a really good demonstration of the incredible
| clarity of the bass keys. It's really astonishing to hear. In
| fact I feel some of the concert pianists playing it are a
| little sloppy on the low notes--probably because they're not
| used to being judged on them! My old Wurlitzer upright could
| never compare :)
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPb2hMJ9Ojk around 3:00
| throw0101a wrote:
| Listening on headphones is weird: usually, for an instrument,
| the sound comes from one direction. Here some notes were more
| in the centre, while others (lower ones) were coming from the
| left channel.
| [deleted]
| CarVac wrote:
| In one of the youtube videos, the uploader (piano maker?)
| comments that the real stereo effect of the piano is hard
| to capture in recordings.
| superhuzza wrote:
| Hyperion Knight - What a name, he sounds like a science
| fiction character!
| hanslub42 wrote:
| Yes, and no. The less unharmonic bass strings make a noticeable
| difference for the middle and high register too, when the
| dampers are lifted by the sustain pedal and the bass strings
| resonate with the higher ones. This "roominess" is also
| noticeable on the old long-neck lutes like the chitarrone,
| which had long bass strings for the same reason as this piano:
| avoiding wound strings (in their case, because those hadn't
| been invented yet)
| jollybean wrote:
| Does someone knowledgeable want to comment on the actual sound
| please? Thanks.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| Very clean sounding low end, otherwise sounds like a good
| piano. The problem with piano IMO is the lowest notes are often
| kinda muddy sounding. This doesn't have that issue.
| pohl wrote:
| This is fantastic! Most of the videos, unfortunately, are of
| pieces that avoid the lowest register of the piano.
|
| The video of the Liszt Funerailles performance towards the bottom
| was the only one I found that demonstrates what makes this
| instrument unique.
| devnull255 wrote:
| Wow. Build a beautiful, long piano and they will come!
| techsurfer wrote:
| I transported this piano once when I was a roadie (instrument
| transporter) for the Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra.
|
| We had a _long_ day that day!
| throwaway287391 wrote:
| I only see one mention of a year towards the end -- 4 April 2009,
| the date of the first concert -- and the only other date I see is
| that construction began the 24th of October (with no year). Am I
| missing something or should I assume he built an amazing sounding
| piano, like no other piano in the world, with no prior
| experience, in <6 months?! Unbelievable.
| TaupeRanger wrote:
| Interesting rattly/tinny timbre on the low end. I had to re-
| listen on better speakers to get a sense of how different this
| sounds from a normal grand piano (and even those can sound very
| different from each other).
| aerovistae wrote:
| Wow, I really wish he included details of how he shaped the metal
| parts and how he made the curved wood portions. Seems like highly
| specialized techniques or skills would be needed for much of
| this, often requiring equipment that can only be found in well-
| stocked university/craftsman workshops. Did he hand-make the
| action, for instance? That seems impossible.
| telesilla wrote:
| Beautiful work, I am a little disappointed not to find a video or
| recording demonstrating the tonality in a dedicated listening
| setting: I'm curious to hear how it really sounds but perhaps it
| can only be done in person.
|
| The best of the youtube collection he shares seems to be
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k54XzhuACrg for judging the
| quality of the piano - I hear what seems to be a longer than
| usual reverb on the lower strings but possibly I'm just imagining
| it: could be the space itself or I'm just paying particular
| attention to it as a pianist, to compare to my own. Oh, and this:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPb2hMJ9Ojk&t=186s
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| Oh man, it's a normal width keyboard and it's the strings that
| are long. This is way cool, but I was imagining it to be the
| other way around, like the 500 seat piano in the fantastic and
| too-overlooked movie The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T.
|
| Pic of the movie piano: http://manapop.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2014/09/vlcsnap-2014-0...
| jandrese wrote:
| Did Dr. T get a good deal on leftover helmets from
| Nickelodeon's Double Dare?
| danbmil99 wrote:
| In case anyone remembers, there was a company called Dr. T's
| music software, they developed for the Atari and Amiga. I did
| some work for them in the late 80s
| thewebcount wrote:
| I definitely remember! He later worked for BorisFX doing
| video plug-ins, which is how I met him. Interesting guy!
| LeonB wrote:
| Wow!
|
| "It was the only feature film written by Theodor Seuss Geisel
| (Dr. Seuss), who wrote the story, screenplay and lyrics."
|
| -- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_5,000_Fingers_of_Dr._T.
| pugworthy wrote:
| What a classic movie - I remember it as being one of those
| Saturday afternoon movies that came on once.
| AdamTReineke wrote:
| I'm 99% sure this is the movie I've been trying to re-find for
| over a decade. I had this strangest memory of watching a movie
| while very young that involved hands and a large number but I
| could never find it. A 1953 musical would definitely fit what
| my mother would have watched on VHS in the early 90s.
| munificent wrote:
| I imagined this at first too and was confused because a wider
| piano makes no sense. The 88s keys already cover almost the
| entire range of human hearing. Adding just one more octave (a
| few keys below and above the range) would basically cover it
| all.
|
| Of course, you could argue that there is merit to having low
| keys whose fundamental is below human hearing because the
| overtones would still be audible. But that seems to be of
| pretty limited use to me.
| mullikine wrote:
| Aside from being a local celebrity, Alex services pianos around
| Dunedin. Who better to ask to tune my piano than Alex. And he
| blessed me with a tour of his piano shop and a concert on the
| long piano. He is the coolest guy ever. I asked him about the
| possibility of making a piano which two people could play -- in
| the same key and he entertained the idea. He is so passionate.
| Such a cool person!
| asimpletune wrote:
| It honestly sounds fantastic. It's like the most piano sound of
| any piano I've heard.
| eplanit wrote:
| The piano is very interesting, and Molly McGee singing "Life on
| Mars" is fantastic.
| z3t4 wrote:
| I was expecting a badass base, but it sounds like a piano
| csours wrote:
| "I didn't know how hard it would be" - man I wish I had that. I
| feel like I know exactly how hard everything will be.
| xaduha wrote:
| Are you good at estimating how long things would take?
| csours wrote:
| I'm good at estimating what parts of a task will take a long
| time.
| monsieurbanana wrote:
| For _any_ task? That 's simply not possible.
| csours wrote:
| > I'm good at estimating what parts of a task will take a
| long time.
|
| I think it's trivial. I didn't say I can estimate how
| long the hard parts will take, just what the hard parts
| will be. If I don't understand something, I estimate that
| it will take a long time.
| Intermernet wrote:
| I estimate that the time estimate for any part of any
| task can be calculated in approximately the time it would
| take to complete that task.
| bitexploder wrote:
| Hard things can only be hard. The rest is a function of time :)
| hkt wrote:
| I can't find it now, but you've reminded me of the
| description for an experimental optimiser flag on a perl
| compiler from what must have been 15 years or more ago. It
| promised it would always deliver a working binary that was
| functionally identical to the original script, but that it
| may not do so in finite amounts of time.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I'm reading a very short & cryptic book "Three Uses of the
| Knife" by David Mamet, the playwright and director. It's about
| the basis of great art. You've hit on something here that
| resonates with all of us.
|
| "The Hero's Journey" involves the hero in Act I embarking on a
| quest. In Act II unforeseen difficulties beset him, maybe he
| doubts himself, the quest changes, and HE changes. In Act III,
| he completes the maybe-different task, as a changed person.
|
| So this guy enacted some of that journey, and I admire him so
| much for it.
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| It sounds like you're either very experienced, or have never
| tried anything really ambitious before.
| Donckele wrote:
| Thanks for that and keep it going. "I think because I was so
| young I absolutely knew it was totally possible to do, I was
| fully determined and without consulting any professionals I had
| no barrier stopping me."
| jkepler wrote:
| I wonder also if he had the constraints of traditional
| obligatory schooling, or if he had the freedom of home
| education to pursue his incredible interest and self-education
| in piano crafting and entrepreneurial activity?
| noduerme wrote:
| Okay, this is just straight up awesome. I've played piano for 37
| years. I've built things all my life. But I never even considered
| the possibility of building a piano from the ground up. Let alone
| the difficulty of engineering an instrument that defied all the
| normal parameters. This is real world hacking at its finest. Not
| to mention it sounds _great_.
| ksec wrote:
| Yes, which makes me wonder why hasn't this been done before?
| How were the standard length in today's piano determined in the
| first place? The piano making history and a whole loads of
| questions unanswered and need time to dig deeper.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Lots of products are limited by the cost shipping, size of
| roads and train car boxes, etc.
| majormajor wrote:
| I don't know that there's so much a "standard" as just
| tradition - smaller grands are largely, as I understand it,
| about space constraints, but while I knew a place growing up
| with an almost-ten-foot Bosendorfer, it doesn't look like
| much ever broke the 10' mark. Most variation seems to happen
| in the 5-to-10-foot range.
| [deleted]
| kzrdude wrote:
| You can get grand pianos in many different lengths, look at
| for example Yamaha's products
|
| For example here https://www.robertspianos.com/top-makes-of-
| piano/yamaha-pian...
| exikyut wrote:
| _[Scroll]_
|
| Nothing listed there is half as long as this piano.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| Because you get drastically diminishing returns as you
| increase past a certain size, as a huge piano is a hassle
| in its own right. The linked super long piano won't work
| even in concert halls -- it's too long to move around
| backstage!
| ivanbakel wrote:
| I think the point being made was that there is no
| "standard" piano length, and that it's controlled by the
| engineer. Which suggests that the answer to the question
| of "why has nobody made such a long piano before?" is
| "nobody wanted to" - and I can see why, because this
| particular piano is incredibly inconvenient to move, and
| pianos are expected to do that.
| aasasd wrote:
| Perhaps the dimensions of someone's barn were a factor.
| Kye wrote:
| Designs for instruments are always a practical balance.
|
| See also: lutes. A theorbo might allow for greater
| expression, but it's not very practical.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVabz8LneI4
| squarefoot wrote:
| Thanks for the link. I'm not into lutes, but i found this
| among the suggested videos, and now am in love.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9VI4tNMyJk
| randyrand wrote:
| there certainly are pianos that are incredibly long for this
| reason.
| fho wrote:
| > Not to mention it sounds great.
|
| I grabbed my best pair of headphones and monitors ... but I
| imagine that any recording just does not do this monster of a
| piano justice.
| squarefoot wrote:
| Yes, I'm sure the deep bass it can produce can only be heard
| and felt in person. Also in some videos, especially the 480p
| ones, the low bitrate artifacts are clearly audible.
| Loic wrote:
| Yes and incredibly well balanced, listen to the Funerailles von
| Liszt recording if you want to get the bass sounds. You get
| both really nice bass with clear high tones. _Chapeau_.
| stinos wrote:
| Came here to mention this. I'm not exactly a connoisseur when
| it comes to classical music, but if there's one thing I like
| it is Liszt, and I haven't heard it like this before. I mean
| this bass reminds me of 'proper' bass in electronic music
| (synth or guitar), unheard for a piano in my limited
| experience.
| [deleted]
| rattray wrote:
| Direct link: https://youtu.be/sOILiAIwwFM
|
| It is a great showcase of the instrument
| petercooper wrote:
| In his later years (and as dementia was beginning to set in) my
| dad spontaneously decided to start building acoustic guitars in
| all sorts of shapes and sizes, trying out various weird ideas
| he had. He _hugely_ enjoyed it and it 's left behind some
| interesting heirlooms and a legacy that he otherwise never
| expected to leave. A piano is at a different scale (pun
| intended) but if you have a modicum of practicality, you can
| build something like that with enough time.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| and access to either some very enthusiastic amateur smelters,
| one enthusiastic professional smelter, or some _really_ good
| welders, because wood you can easily find, but a pre-cast
| plate for an unusual size piano... very not so much.
| whatshisface wrote:
| I wonder how much of the necessary structure could be
| obtained by drilling and bolting.
| Wistar wrote:
| Better be really well-engineered as the the string
| tensions on a conventional grand piano ranges into the
| low 10s of tons. Yamaha pianos, for example, are around
| 20 tons.
| aliswe wrote:
| any photos?
| TheMagicHorsey wrote:
| My dad is starting to get dementia, but all he does is watch
| TV. I wish he would build guitars.
| exikyut wrote:
| Hmm, maybe try figuring out what things he likes and/or can
| engage in without effort - whatever he can do well without
| thinking.
|
| And maybe track this over time. Borrowing the analogy of
| HDD/SSD corruption, which can impact critical filesystem
| metadata just as easily as file contents, it's impossible
| to predict how that fundamental capacity to engage will
| shift and change in confounding and lateral ways.
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| I had a similar experience with my grandmother. Her
| motivation and curiosity left her. I tried to interest her
| in new things a number of times, thinking she'd be so much
| happier. The data, though, led me to decide she was in fact
| happier when I just accepted who she had become.
| xyproto wrote:
| This is my greatest fear, more than death: to stop
| learning, to stop creating, to stagnate. I wonder if
| nutrition or exercise has an impact on this. I would eat
| broccoli every day if I thought it would improve my
| chances.
| soperj wrote:
| very interested in seeing what those look like
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