31–40 of 103 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I built my tube amplifier (along with some effects pedals) for my electric guitar at 17. Now that I have kids, I wonder how my folks let me work with 400V of electricity and not freak out. Makes me wonder what kind of weird things my kids are going to get into.
400v? what that what your mains was packing?
>Fifteen year old me said “Mum I’m going to build a piano!” This part is just amazing to me. I can't remember what I was doing when I was 15, but it sure as heck was nothing as close to wanting to build a freaking piano.
I built my tube amplifier (along with some effects pedals) for my electric guitar at 17. Now that I have kids, I wonder how my folks let me work with 400V of electricity and not freak out. Makes me wonder what kind of weird things my kids are going to get into.
I think kids these days are much more likely to do something digital than build things like this from discrete components.
Native Instruments have sample packs of two extraordinary pianos - the one "una corda" only has single strings for every note, the other is a massive upright piano just like this one, with exceptionally long strings called "the Giant" https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/keys... https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/keys...
The giant isn't actually my favorite, I find it to be too crisp and clear. Thanks for the Una Corda link, I haven't seen that one before.
There's quite a lot of discussion about how it was made (which is pretty interesting, and impressive for a 15 year old!) but not very much discussion about the results. My understanding is that it has a normal range of notes, but with a different type of string - is that true? Or can it go lower than a normal piano? How is the experience of playing it? Is it the same? Or does it respond differently (eg a different re…
A sound we hear as a single pitch is made from multiple different sine waves playing simultaneously, called "partials" in general, or "harmonics" when those sine waves are integer[0] multiples of the lowest frequency, which is called the "fundamental".
In an string instrument, the ends of the strings are fixed in place. This means any standing wave in the string must have "nodes" (points where the wave has zero amplitude) at the ends. When you pluck or strike the string, you induce multiple different standing waves at once. In a mathematically ideal string (modeled with zero thickness), these standing waves are sine waves. Because the ends are always nodes, and because nodes and anti-nodes (points of maximum amplitude) of a sine wave are evenly distributed along the length of the wave, there will always be an integer number of anti-nodes. The frequency of the wave is proportional to the number of anti-nodes, so you end up with a harmonic sound, where the upper partials are integer multiples of the fundamental. Music played in standard Western tuning sounds the most consonant when it uses harmonic sounds.
But a real string instrument is not mathematically perfect. The strings have thickness, which makes them resist bending. Higher frequencies cause sharper bending of the string, so they are more affected by the bending resistance. This results in a standing wave that's very close to a sine wave, but with the end nodes shifted slightly towards the center of the string. The higher harmonics are effectively played on shorter strings, so their frequency is increased. They are no longer integer multiples of the fundamental, so the sound is "inharmonic".
Bass strings are typically thicker, so this effect is most noticeable in the bass. It's a big enough problem in a traditional piano that a special tuning technique ("stretched tuning") is used to try to hide it, but it still results in a kind of muddy/blurred sound. The only alternative to making the bass strings thicker is to make them longer, which is what the the Alexander piano does. The result is an unusual clarity in the bass.
[0] In practice people use "harmonics" to mean approximately integer multiples too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzqpNEoL1vs&t=379s
At the top, the notes are easily identifiable, but near the end the pitch gets increasingly murky.
The damage to the artistic intent by the limitations of the instrumental technology is substantial in this Mussorgsky passage because you can’t discern the implied harmony nearly as well as the composer could have imagined it in their head.
I would love to hear this run on the Alexander. (Or all of The Great Gate of Kiev for that matter — with its big broad chords spanning the keyboard it’s ideally suited to this instrument.)
It also possible to use the murkiness of the piano’s low end as an artistic device. Here’s a Bartok passage (from Out of Doors) where the low notes are effectively percussion strikes and what matters is that the final note is “lower”, not that it has a distinct pitch which fits into a harmonic plan:
Someone also applied the idea to an upright piano: https://www.worldpianonews.com/new-product/acoustic/worlds-l...
>Fifteen year old me said “Mum I’m going to build a piano!” This part is just amazing to me. I can't remember what I was doing when I was 15, but it sure as heck was nothing as close to wanting to build a freaking piano.
I built my tube amplifier (along with some effects pedals) for my electric guitar at 17. Now that I have kids, I wonder how my folks let me work with 400V of electricity and not freak out. Makes me wonder what kind of weird things my kids are going to get into.
In (public) Suburb middle school I had a friend who played folk music as a hobby, and also made his own instruments. Mostly violin and hurdy-gurdy [1], probably because his parents were farmers in the suburb and owned a smith/wood workshop. His unique hobbies made him a bit of an outcast and people made fun of him in school, but I was in to classic music so we got along well.
A year or two later I changed school to a private school in the city who specialized in classic music, which was a drastically different environment; most of my classmates from then are professional musician.
It didn't work out for me that well in the end, but one good thing that came out of it was that I contacted him and suggested he also switch, which was a great life changing moment for him because everyone (including the dean) loved him because of his craftsmanship. Some people even commissioned instruments, at the age of 16.
It was surprising how happy & how fast he grew in his passion/hobby as soon as the environment changed from making fun of him to respecting the craft. There was only one school in the entire country that could give him that and by a coincidence he stumbled upon this, and to this day, almost 20 years later, enjoys that passion in the small community he found :)
Always wholesome whatever field, to see these people flourish rather than giving up their passion for conformity!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The giant isn't actually my favorite, I find it to be too crisp and clear. Thanks for the Una Corda link, I haven't seen that one before.
I know this isn't the topic of this thread, but regarding virtual pianos I find my favorite is Universal Audio's Ravel.