9 ms·

The Alexander Piano

307 points by KolmogorovComp 3y ago

throwaway1777 3y ago
The timbre of piano strings is an interesting subject, but to my ear honestly the sound isn’t that much different in this example.
- toolslive 3y ago
  I'm not an expert, but it might be that your speakers do not really respond to the low A (~27Hz). Check the speaker's response curve.
  - lmpdev 3y ago
    Reminds me of a saying in jazz circles "Listening to brass through a recording is like photocopying a steak and eating the copy" Some accoustic properties just can't be properly captured through microphones that aren't perfectly selected and reproduced through speakers engineered for the specific recording This is true especially for the low end (without prohibitively expensive 18"+ drivers and a near flawless accoustic environment to minimise standing waves and any other issues etc)
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      That's a hilarious quote.
- djtango 3y ago
  I have found that there are many aspects and dimensions to listening. For instance, I am now comfortable hearing very subtle nuance in musical performance, in particular piano performance. Meanwhile, my dad is an audiophile and not musically trained but can hear a whole world of detail when assessing sound scrapes and equalisation. I brought him along to help me choose a digital piano and was humbled by how many things he could hear that were inaudible to me. A friend of a friend was studying audio engineering and he recorded me playing the piano for a some coursework and the things he was focused on like acoustics, colour, fidelity and things like the very subtle hiss again were very different things I am used to listening out for. Podcasters will talk about the BBC sound as being the gold standard and while I can tell good from bad I can't internalise what makes a broadcast have a good or bad sound.... Meanwhile back to topic, I've gone piano shopping with professional pianists and they can hear so much more than I can. I love watching videos by this channel on the subject: https://youtube.com/@RobertsPianos https://youtube.com/@RobertsPianos
- rectang 3y ago
  For what it’s worth I’ve got a trained ear (trained musician, brief career as a mastering engineer) and the bass notes on these recordings sound freakishly distinct in pitch (identifiable, “tight”, “not boomy”). It’s similar to the difference between an electric bass guitar and an acoustic bass. Or more to the point, it’s one notch further in bass note clarity on a scale from small upright piano to baby grand piano to concert grand piano… to the Alexander piano. I expect that a Fourier analysis of bass notes struck in isolation comparing piano types would reveal increasing proportions of fundamental to side frequencies, with the Alexander having the highest ratio.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Yes. I've looked at what a 1.80 grand puts out in the lows and it is really quite muddy from a spectral perspective. You can still tell the pitches apart but there is a lot of smearing and the harmonics are, especially when you look at the high end, all over the place.
  - calf 3y ago
    Subjectively to me the low notes sound almost fake, like a default GarageBand piano sound. Or like the thin, metallic notes of a harpsichord.
    - rectang 3y ago
      Yes, you've got it! That's a great take! That quality, though it may seem a bit unreal, has benefits in terms of revealing musical gestures that would otherwise be obscured. (See my link to the Mussorgsky passage elsethread.) Speaking as an audio engineer, we are always fighting to achieve this kind of transparency.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  If you don't know what to expect then you probably should hear it side-by-side with a regular piano to pick up on the differences, that's much easier than to hear it being played because the effect is subtle enough that if you're not paying attention you will likely just think 'nice bass' and leave it at that.
Magi604 3y ago
>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.
- function_seven 3y ago
  Same here. We were too smart to try such an impossible thing. He naïvely thought he could “just build a piano” and… well dammit he did!
  - crdrost 3y ago
    In middle school, ~13 years old or so, one of my classmates set himself a goal of using shop class to make himself a guitar, wasn't half bad either. I regret that I didn't pick up the woodworking bug until later, I have made tables and bedframes and shelves now but still never got around to trying to make my own guitar. Occasionally I get jealous when I see folks with microtonal fretboards.
    - galangalalgol 3y ago
      When I was 16 I made an electric guitar, sort of. Mostly I was interested in making a pickup from scratch. The entire guitar was literal garbage, picture wire, fridge magnet some steel dowel I cut up for the cores. The tensionera were threaded hose clamps cut open. It only had four strings so I tuned it like a ukelele. No frets though, so it sounded bad. Amd the pencil sharpener motor didn't have that much wire so I had to turn the volume way up. I have been wondering lately what a pickup wound with wire made of lk-99 would sound like. SQUIDs for pickups...
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      I helped a friend make his. He got this insanely hard piece of wood for the neck and we spent a good couple of days shaping that. I'm pretty sure that if you were to look closely at that attic today you'd find that dust unchanged, that wood will never rot. It was also very heavy, a small off-cut would not float. I have no idea where he got that wood, I really should ask him because that probably makes for an interesting story but we rarely are in contact today. 42 years later and he's still into music. I wonder if he still has it.
Apploks 3y ago
“There is a powerful driving force inside every human being that, once unleashed, can make any vision, dream, or desire a reality.” Tony Robbins This is what it means to follow your dreams! A wonderful mother, supported the desire of her son. I would like to listen to Elton John playing such an instrument and hear his opinion.
Apploks 3y ago
“There is a powerful driving force inside every human being that, once unleashed, can make any vision, dream, or desire a reality.” Tony Robbins This is what it means to follow your dreams! A wonderful mother, supported the desire of her son. I would like to listen to Elton John playing on this instrument and to know his opinion.
- te_chris 3y ago
  You could at least ask his keys player, ha! There's a pic of him down the page. I studied music in Dunedin at the University of Otago and never heard of this. Interesting seeing some of the people associated with the music dept. in the pics. Amazing work! I can only hope some of the excellent classical recording engineers in NZ have caught wind of this by now and made some of their own recordings. Without wanting to sound too snobby, while his recordings are good as archival evidence it would be great to hear what a real pro with all the standard classical recording equipment could capture (for the uninitiated: better mics and hardware and a lifetime's experience using it can do wonders with audio).
- Terr_ 3y ago
  In Tony Robbins' case, the dream was to make a lot of money from gullible people. https://moneyinc.com/why-many-people-believe-tony-robbins-is-a-scam/ https://moneyinc.com/why-many-people-believe-tony-robbins-is...
- jamsch 3y ago
  From what I recall after chatting to Adrian around 2014, he couldn't get Elton to play on it because Elton was under contract to play with Yamaha-only pianos or something like that.
OldGuyInTheClub 3y ago
18'9"? That beats the 12'2" piano I heard in LA nearly 20 years ago by over 50%!
brenainn 3y ago
From the recordings section below, there's a pianist called "Hyperion Knight". That's the coolest name I've ever heard.
- padjo 3y ago
  Pretty sure that’s also a class of enemy in Elden Ring
eXpl0it3r 3y ago
Someone also applied the idea to an upright piano: https://www.worldpianonews.com/new-product/acoustic/worlds-largest-upright-piano/ https://www.worldpianonews.com/new-product/acoustic/worlds-l...
- mr_sturd 3y ago
  That was the first one I thought of when I saw the size of the Alexander Piano. I was looking to see if Nils had shown up to have a go on it!
- amelius 3y ago
  Being not a fan of the sound of church organs, I think this might be a proper replacement.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    I'm not a fan of church organ recordings but to hear them in person is amazing (and to play them even more so).
- gilbertbw 3y ago
  Is there a reason (apart from looking cool) to put the keys/player at the top, rather than have the keys at the bottom, with the strings going up?
  - mcdonje 3y ago
    The only thing I can think of is player comfort. I imagine that huge soundboard is extra loud. Best to not place it directly in front of the player's face.
lmpdev 3y ago
I love this Reminds me of Stuart & Sons, a company from across the Tasman, with their impressive 108 key Piano On a side note: can any piano experts chime in on why it seems impossible to DIY electric pianos in the same way? I'd love to see some experimental Rhodes, Wurlitzers or Hohner Pianet derivatives. The only successful ones seem to be the even more conservative Vintage Vibes and Rhodes MK8. I'd love to see the same DIY community grow around electric pianos as it has electric guitars and synths for the last 60+ years
- lucas_codes 3y ago
  There's one of these at Tempo Rubato, a concert venue in Melbourne Australia
- jacquesm 3y ago
  > can any piano experts chime in on why it seems impossible to DIY electric pianos in the same way It's absolutely doable, go for it! It's been on my 'to do' list for ages, to build my own but I realize how much time it would take and what I'd need in terms of tooling just to produce a serviceable action. So it will probably never happen. But there are zero obstacles to doing this if you are dedicated, have the space, the skills and the funds.
leoedin 3y ago
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 relationship between key force and sound). I guess as a complete piano novice my question is why would you want this over a normal piano?
- wirrbel 3y ago
  for string instruments, there are optimal ranges for string-length, tension and thickness that vary with its frequency. Which is why for example a violin has shorter strings than a cello or a contra bass. Similarly, acoustic (non-electric) bass guitars don't work so well, etc. To my understanding in a piano, the lower strings are "too short", this includes grand pianos at a concert hall for example. There is a compromise in the construction. The Alexander Piano has an adequate length of strings, so in principle it has better sounds in the lower frequency ranges.
- mrob 3y ago
  The difference is reduced inharmonicity in the bass notes. 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.
MetaMonk 3y ago
I love these thematic submissions to HN and wish the site had a way of cataloging /grouping them. This and Ravenchord were really cool to read about.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  You can 'favorite' the item (look at the top of the page near the title, the links there).
Synaesthesia 3y ago
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/una-corda/ https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/keys... https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/keys/the-giant/ https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/keys...
- junon 3y ago
  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.
  - pantulis 3y ago
    I know this isn't the topic of this thread, but regarding virtual pianos I find my favorite is Universal Audio's Ravel.
    - junon 3y ago
      Will check it out, thanks!
    - Synaesthesia 3y ago
      Nice, I like an electric piano sound from my computer, luckily there are a lot of good options in that regard. But I’ll try that out.
- yboris 3y ago
  Una Corda is one of my favorites - I came here to post it: https://klavins-pianos.com/products/una-corda/ https://klavins-pianos.com/products/una-corda/ And for a two-story version, see the Model 450i Vertical Concert Grand https://klavins-pianos.com/products/model-450i/ https://klavins-pianos.com/products/model-450i/
rectang 3y ago
This run from high to low, from The Great Gate of Kiev, the finale of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, illustrates the artistic problem that the Alexander piano is trying to solve: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzqpNEoL1vs&t=379s 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: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dawjlgehlqo&t=97s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dawjlgehlqo&t=97s
- dsubburam 3y ago
  Conversely, if composers knew of the Alexander piano's existence they may have written specifically for it taking advantage of the bass' clarity. I just heard the Liszt Funerailles played on the Alexander piano (YouTube on the embedded main page), and yes it sounds very unusually melodic in the bass.
- peteradio 3y ago
  Why does a bass guitar not suffer from this poor sound quality?
  - BizarroLand 3y ago
    It does, but pianos can go lower than the bass. Bass guitars typically bottom out around E1, 5 and 7 strings may go lower but typically bottom out around B1 or G0. Pianos go to A0, about 7.5 hz above the bottom of human hearing. These lower notes are the "muddy" ones, and since pianos have a tough time cleanly making those notes, then it would also mean that bass guitars would, too. Most 7 string guitars only play about a perfect 4th or a perfect 5th below standard tuning because of this inescapable muddiness, and the other extra strings tune upward into the low range of the guitar instead. Aside from that, it wouldn't matter anyway as guitar instruments are inherently "loose" in their tuning. They may be perfect at the open string and 12th fret if they are properly set up and intonated, but every note in between will be off by a small amount. Further, the act of fretting and plucking the instrument changes the tone of the generated note, specifically, where and how you strike the string to generate the note changes the overtones, and where and how hard you depress the string behind the fret causes minute shifts in the pitch of the string, not to mention that even minor bending of the string due to hand anatomy and grip pattern will also cause the pitch to change. Two players can mechanically play the same piece on the same instrument in the same way down to the microsecond, but no matter how accurate they are, there will be detectable differences in the resulting piece. A piano doesn't have that. You have your three pedals and how hard you depress the key. Still a lot of control over the sound, but if two different pianists play the same piece on the same piano with the same pedal work and finger strength, the results should be essentially identical. Therefore, the sound quality of the piano is fixed and set based on its original setup and the string lengths it is given, whereas a guitar player can compensate for low level muddiness by altering the playing pattern, striking closer to the bridge with a plectrum or their nails, whatever they need to do to put some brightness into a low note, whereas the piano player only has the option of striking harder or softer, so in the range where a bass and piano compete, the bass can have much less muddiness than a piano.
twelvechairs 3y ago
In the early renaissance period they didn't know how to make wound strings so they had long strings like this on instruments. The Theorbo is one. A nice video below https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nwg8gfVBUo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nwg8gfVBUo
NalNezumi 3y ago
Oh man this fills me with nostalgia. 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! [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurdy-gurdy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurdy-gurdy
- jacquesm 3y ago
  That's a touching story, and one thing that it highlights for me is that there will always be people that seem to relish pushing others down to their own level. That's such a frustrating thing.
  - i_am_jl 3y ago
    That's too bad. My takeaway is that there will always be people, like NalNezumi, that are looking to lift you up.
    - fifilura 3y ago
      Indeed. The same with the original story and the lady who said Go For Gold! Lending him her garage.
jacquesm 3y ago
Hah! Or rather Wow!! I was aware of this piano because of the Hyperion Knight recording and have always had an interest in 'one off' instruments, especially pianos. But I never caught on to this amazing story of how it came to be, the mixture of constraints, determination, inspiration and generosity working all out to result in this incredible creation. To 'build a piano' is no simple undertaking, even if you already have a lot of shop knowledge tools and instrument knowledge. I've rebuilt one that was neglected and that already required a ton of knowledge and I've made some (technically minor) modifications to existing instruments[1]. That doesn't begin to put me in a position where I would attempt to build a piano from first principles. All the parts have to collaborate just so to get a working instrument and the history of the piano is littered with failures. To see a one off made by a young man like this is impressive already. But to see one at this level of quality, that's something else entirely, I have no words to really express how impressed that leaves me. Thank you KolmogorovComp for posting this, it really makes my day (and my week, probably). [1] https://jacquesmattheij.com/midi-fied-baby-grand-piano/ https://jacquesmattheij.com/midi-fied-baby-grand-piano/
jamsch 3y ago
Had the pleasure of meeting Adrian around 2014 when he was showcasing his piano in Hamilton, NZ. All around a great guy (thanks for the birthday cake!). Still awed by how he pulled it off with essentially no experience!
Waterluvian 3y ago
I don’t recall ever getting a conclusive answer on if it sounded any good. I remember a video a while ago of various musicians playing it but it omitted any kind of feedback. It sounded fine for a YouTube video. Has anyone got a lead on those details?
raldi 3y ago
But why is it called that?
hanslub42 3y ago
See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27851857 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27851857
1-more 3y ago
A kiwi in a shed is nigh unstoppable. I have no idea why that's a national stereotype (maybe manufactured goods took a long time to replace for an agricultural/pastoral economy?) but it's pretty cool as national stereotypes go.
- justnotworthit 3y ago
  theres a stereotype about the british inventor in his shed too, right? maybe he went to new zealand where there's space for a bigger shed.
  - 1-more 3y ago
    ohh interesting!
zengid 3y ago
I have a degree in music so I am qualified to say this: that bass is crispy
- munificent 3y ago
  No degree here, but I spend a lot of time doing sound design and love low frequencies and I agree completely. Those bass notes just cut through the mix and are so delightfully zingy. It's so much easier to hear the pitch on them. It's an amazing sounding instrument.
  - zengid 3y ago
    Hi Bob, I'm honored to have you reply to my silly post. I love your work. Cheers!
    - munificent 3y ago
      Haha, thanks! :D "Crispy" is such a perfect adjective to describe the bass strings on this piano. They are delightful.
abeppu 3y ago
I'm kinda shocked by the pictures near the bottom of it being moved, including one where it's lifted by ... a tractor with a loader fork? Or loaded onto an open trailer?
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Welcome to NZ...
ElCapitanMarkla 3y ago
So cool to see a second Dunedin, NZ post on here in the last week or so.
jacknobody 3y ago
At the end, a link to a Chopin mazurka, beautifully played on the homemade piano.

The timbre of piano strings is an interesting subject, but to my ear honestly the sound isn’t that much different in this example.

toolslive 3y ago
I'm not an expert, but it might be that your speakers do not really respond to the low A (~27Hz). Check the speaker's response curve.
- lmpdev 3y ago
  Reminds me of a saying in jazz circles "Listening to brass through a recording is like photocopying a steak and eating the copy" Some accoustic properties just can't be properly captured through microphones that aren't perfectly selected and reproduced through speakers engineered for the specific recording This is true especially for the low end (without prohibitively expensive 18"+ drivers and a near flawless accoustic environment to minimise standing waves and any other issues etc)
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    That's a hilarious quote.
djtango 3y ago
I have found that there are many aspects and dimensions to listening. For instance, I am now comfortable hearing very subtle nuance in musical performance, in particular piano performance. Meanwhile, my dad is an audiophile and not musically trained but can hear a whole world of detail when assessing sound scrapes and equalisation. I brought him along to help me choose a digital piano and was humbled by how many things he could hear that were inaudible to me. A friend of a friend was studying audio engineering and he recorded me playing the piano for a some coursework and the things he was focused on like acoustics, colour, fidelity and things like the very subtle hiss again were very different things I am used to listening out for. Podcasters will talk about the BBC sound as being the gold standard and while I can tell good from bad I can't internalise what makes a broadcast have a good or bad sound.... Meanwhile back to topic, I've gone piano shopping with professional pianists and they can hear so much more than I can. I love watching videos by this channel on the subject: https://youtube.com/@RobertsPianos https://youtube.com/@RobertsPianos
rectang 3y ago
For what it’s worth I’ve got a trained ear (trained musician, brief career as a mastering engineer) and the bass notes on these recordings sound freakishly distinct in pitch (identifiable, “tight”, “not boomy”). It’s similar to the difference between an electric bass guitar and an acoustic bass. Or more to the point, it’s one notch further in bass note clarity on a scale from small upright piano to baby grand piano to concert grand piano… to the Alexander piano. I expect that a Fourier analysis of bass notes struck in isolation comparing piano types would reveal increasing proportions of fundamental to side frequencies, with the Alexander having the highest ratio.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Yes. I've looked at what a 1.80 grand puts out in the lows and it is really quite muddy from a spectral perspective. You can still tell the pitches apart but there is a lot of smearing and the harmonics are, especially when you look at the high end, all over the place.
- calf 3y ago
  Subjectively to me the low notes sound almost fake, like a default GarageBand piano sound. Or like the thin, metallic notes of a harpsichord.
  - rectang 3y ago
    Yes, you've got it! That's a great take! That quality, though it may seem a bit unreal, has benefits in terms of revealing musical gestures that would otherwise be obscured. (See my link to the Mussorgsky passage elsethread.) Speaking as an audio engineer, we are always fighting to achieve this kind of transparency.
jacquesm 3y ago
If you don't know what to expect then you probably should hear it side-by-side with a regular piano to pick up on the differences, that's much easier than to hear it being played because the effect is subtle enough that if you're not paying attention you will likely just think 'nice bass' and leave it at that.

Magi604 3y ago

>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.

function_seven 3y ago
Same here. We were too smart to try such an impossible thing. He naïvely thought he could “just build a piano” and… well dammit he did!
- crdrost 3y ago
  In middle school, ~13 years old or so, one of my classmates set himself a goal of using shop class to make himself a guitar, wasn't half bad either. I regret that I didn't pick up the woodworking bug until later, I have made tables and bedframes and shelves now but still never got around to trying to make my own guitar. Occasionally I get jealous when I see folks with microtonal fretboards.
  - galangalalgol 3y ago
    When I was 16 I made an electric guitar, sort of. Mostly I was interested in making a pickup from scratch. The entire guitar was literal garbage, picture wire, fridge magnet some steel dowel I cut up for the cores. The tensionera were threaded hose clamps cut open. It only had four strings so I tuned it like a ukelele. No frets though, so it sounded bad. Amd the pencil sharpener motor didn't have that much wire so I had to turn the volume way up. I have been wondering lately what a pickup wound with wire made of lk-99 would sound like. SQUIDs for pickups...
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    I helped a friend make his. He got this insanely hard piece of wood for the neck and we spent a good couple of days shaping that. I'm pretty sure that if you were to look closely at that attic today you'd find that dust unchanged, that wood will never rot. It was also very heavy, a small off-cut would not float. I have no idea where he got that wood, I really should ask him because that probably makes for an interesting story but we rarely are in contact today. 42 years later and he's still into music. I wonder if he still has it.

Apploks 3y ago

“There is a powerful driving force inside every human being that, once unleashed, can make any vision, dream, or desire a reality.” Tony Robbins This is what it means to follow your dreams! A wonderful mother, supported the desire of her son. I would like to listen to Elton John playing such an instrument and hear his opinion.

Apploks 3y ago

te_chris 3y ago
You could at least ask his keys player, ha! There's a pic of him down the page. I studied music in Dunedin at the University of Otago and never heard of this. Interesting seeing some of the people associated with the music dept. in the pics. Amazing work! I can only hope some of the excellent classical recording engineers in NZ have caught wind of this by now and made some of their own recordings. Without wanting to sound too snobby, while his recordings are good as archival evidence it would be great to hear what a real pro with all the standard classical recording equipment could capture (for the uninitiated: better mics and hardware and a lifetime's experience using it can do wonders with audio).
Terr_ 3y ago
In Tony Robbins' case, the dream was to make a lot of money from gullible people. https://moneyinc.com/why-many-people-believe-tony-robbins-is-a-scam/ https://moneyinc.com/why-many-people-believe-tony-robbins-is...
jamsch 3y ago
From what I recall after chatting to Adrian around 2014, he couldn't get Elton to play on it because Elton was under contract to play with Yamaha-only pianos or something like that.

OldGuyInTheClub 3y ago

18'9"? That beats the 12'2" piano I heard in LA nearly 20 years ago by over 50%!

brenainn 3y ago

From the recordings section below, there's a pianist called "Hyperion Knight". That's the coolest name I've ever heard.

padjo 3y ago
Pretty sure that’s also a class of enemy in Elden Ring

eXpl0it3r 3y ago

Someone also applied the idea to an upright piano: https://www.worldpianonews.com/new-product/acoustic/worlds-largest-upright-piano/ https://www.worldpianonews.com/new-product/acoustic/worlds-l...

mr_sturd 3y ago
That was the first one I thought of when I saw the size of the Alexander Piano. I was looking to see if Nils had shown up to have a go on it!
amelius 3y ago
Being not a fan of the sound of church organs, I think this might be a proper replacement.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  I'm not a fan of church organ recordings but to hear them in person is amazing (and to play them even more so).
gilbertbw 3y ago
Is there a reason (apart from looking cool) to put the keys/player at the top, rather than have the keys at the bottom, with the strings going up?
- mcdonje 3y ago
  The only thing I can think of is player comfort. I imagine that huge soundboard is extra loud. Best to not place it directly in front of the player's face.

lmpdev 3y ago

I love this Reminds me of Stuart & Sons, a company from across the Tasman, with their impressive 108 key Piano On a side note: can any piano experts chime in on why it seems impossible to DIY electric pianos in the same way? I'd love to see some experimental Rhodes, Wurlitzers or Hohner Pianet derivatives. The only successful ones seem to be the even more conservative Vintage Vibes and Rhodes MK8. I'd love to see the same DIY community grow around electric pianos as it has electric guitars and synths for the last 60+ years

lucas_codes 3y ago
There's one of these at Tempo Rubato, a concert venue in Melbourne Australia
jacquesm 3y ago
> can any piano experts chime in on why it seems impossible to DIY electric pianos in the same way It's absolutely doable, go for it! It's been on my 'to do' list for ages, to build my own but I realize how much time it would take and what I'd need in terms of tooling just to produce a serviceable action. So it will probably never happen. But there are zero obstacles to doing this if you are dedicated, have the space, the skills and the funds.

leoedin 3y ago

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 relationship between key force and sound). I guess as a complete piano novice my question is why would you want this over a normal piano?

wirrbel 3y ago
for string instruments, there are optimal ranges for string-length, tension and thickness that vary with its frequency. Which is why for example a violin has shorter strings than a cello or a contra bass. Similarly, acoustic (non-electric) bass guitars don't work so well, etc. To my understanding in a piano, the lower strings are "too short", this includes grand pianos at a concert hall for example. There is a compromise in the construction. The Alexander Piano has an adequate length of strings, so in principle it has better sounds in the lower frequency ranges.
mrob 3y ago
The difference is reduced inharmonicity in the bass notes. 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.

MetaMonk 3y ago

I love these thematic submissions to HN and wish the site had a way of cataloging /grouping them. This and Ravenchord were really cool to read about.

jacquesm 3y ago
You can 'favorite' the item (look at the top of the page near the title, the links there).

Synaesthesia 3y ago

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/una-corda/ https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/keys... https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/keys/the-giant/ https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/keys...

junon 3y ago
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.
- pantulis 3y ago
  I know this isn't the topic of this thread, but regarding virtual pianos I find my favorite is Universal Audio's Ravel.
  - junon 3y ago
    Will check it out, thanks!
  - Synaesthesia 3y ago
    Nice, I like an electric piano sound from my computer, luckily there are a lot of good options in that regard. But I’ll try that out.
yboris 3y ago
Una Corda is one of my favorites - I came here to post it: https://klavins-pianos.com/products/una-corda/ https://klavins-pianos.com/products/una-corda/ And for a two-story version, see the Model 450i Vertical Concert Grand https://klavins-pianos.com/products/model-450i/ https://klavins-pianos.com/products/model-450i/

rectang 3y ago

This run from high to low, from The Great Gate of Kiev, the finale of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, illustrates the artistic problem that the Alexander piano is trying to solve: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzqpNEoL1vs&t=379s 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: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dawjlgehlqo&t=97s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dawjlgehlqo&t=97s

dsubburam 3y ago
Conversely, if composers knew of the Alexander piano's existence they may have written specifically for it taking advantage of the bass' clarity. I just heard the Liszt Funerailles played on the Alexander piano (YouTube on the embedded main page), and yes it sounds very unusually melodic in the bass.
peteradio 3y ago
Why does a bass guitar not suffer from this poor sound quality?
- BizarroLand 3y ago
  It does, but pianos can go lower than the bass. Bass guitars typically bottom out around E1, 5 and 7 strings may go lower but typically bottom out around B1 or G0. Pianos go to A0, about 7.5 hz above the bottom of human hearing. These lower notes are the "muddy" ones, and since pianos have a tough time cleanly making those notes, then it would also mean that bass guitars would, too. Most 7 string guitars only play about a perfect 4th or a perfect 5th below standard tuning because of this inescapable muddiness, and the other extra strings tune upward into the low range of the guitar instead. Aside from that, it wouldn't matter anyway as guitar instruments are inherently "loose" in their tuning. They may be perfect at the open string and 12th fret if they are properly set up and intonated, but every note in between will be off by a small amount. Further, the act of fretting and plucking the instrument changes the tone of the generated note, specifically, where and how you strike the string to generate the note changes the overtones, and where and how hard you depress the string behind the fret causes minute shifts in the pitch of the string, not to mention that even minor bending of the string due to hand anatomy and grip pattern will also cause the pitch to change. Two players can mechanically play the same piece on the same instrument in the same way down to the microsecond, but no matter how accurate they are, there will be detectable differences in the resulting piece. A piano doesn't have that. You have your three pedals and how hard you depress the key. Still a lot of control over the sound, but if two different pianists play the same piece on the same piano with the same pedal work and finger strength, the results should be essentially identical. Therefore, the sound quality of the piano is fixed and set based on its original setup and the string lengths it is given, whereas a guitar player can compensate for low level muddiness by altering the playing pattern, striking closer to the bridge with a plectrum or their nails, whatever they need to do to put some brightness into a low note, whereas the piano player only has the option of striking harder or softer, so in the range where a bass and piano compete, the bass can have much less muddiness than a piano.

twelvechairs 3y ago

In the early renaissance period they didn't know how to make wound strings so they had long strings like this on instruments. The Theorbo is one. A nice video below https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nwg8gfVBUo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nwg8gfVBUo

NalNezumi 3y ago

Oh man this fills me with nostalgia. 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! [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurdy-gurdy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurdy-gurdy

jacquesm 3y ago
That's a touching story, and one thing that it highlights for me is that there will always be people that seem to relish pushing others down to their own level. That's such a frustrating thing.
- i_am_jl 3y ago
  That's too bad. My takeaway is that there will always be people, like NalNezumi, that are looking to lift you up.
  - fifilura 3y ago
    Indeed. The same with the original story and the lady who said Go For Gold! Lending him her garage.

jacquesm 3y ago

Hah! Or rather Wow!! I was aware of this piano because of the Hyperion Knight recording and have always had an interest in 'one off' instruments, especially pianos. But I never caught on to this amazing story of how it came to be, the mixture of constraints, determination, inspiration and generosity working all out to result in this incredible creation. To 'build a piano' is no simple undertaking, even if you already have a lot of shop knowledge tools and instrument knowledge. I've rebuilt one that was neglected and that already required a ton of knowledge and I've made some (technically minor) modifications to existing instruments[1]. That doesn't begin to put me in a position where I would attempt to build a piano from first principles. All the parts have to collaborate just so to get a working instrument and the history of the piano is littered with failures. To see a one off made by a young man like this is impressive already. But to see one at this level of quality, that's something else entirely, I have no words to really express how impressed that leaves me. Thank you KolmogorovComp for posting this, it really makes my day (and my week, probably). [1] https://jacquesmattheij.com/midi-fied-baby-grand-piano/ https://jacquesmattheij.com/midi-fied-baby-grand-piano/

jamsch 3y ago

Had the pleasure of meeting Adrian around 2014 when he was showcasing his piano in Hamilton, NZ. All around a great guy (thanks for the birthday cake!). Still awed by how he pulled it off with essentially no experience!

Waterluvian 3y ago

I don’t recall ever getting a conclusive answer on if it sounded any good. I remember a video a while ago of various musicians playing it but it omitted any kind of feedback. It sounded fine for a YouTube video. Has anyone got a lead on those details?

raldi 3y ago

But why is it called that?

hanslub42 3y ago

See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27851857 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27851857

1-more 3y ago

A kiwi in a shed is nigh unstoppable. I have no idea why that's a national stereotype (maybe manufactured goods took a long time to replace for an agricultural/pastoral economy?) but it's pretty cool as national stereotypes go.

justnotworthit 3y ago
theres a stereotype about the british inventor in his shed too, right? maybe he went to new zealand where there's space for a bigger shed.
- 1-more 3y ago
  ohh interesting!

zengid 3y ago

I have a degree in music so I am qualified to say this: that bass is crispy

munificent 3y ago
No degree here, but I spend a lot of time doing sound design and love low frequencies and I agree completely. Those bass notes just cut through the mix and are so delightfully zingy. It's so much easier to hear the pitch on them. It's an amazing sounding instrument.
- zengid 3y ago
  Hi Bob, I'm honored to have you reply to my silly post. I love your work. Cheers!
  - munificent 3y ago
    Haha, thanks! :D "Crispy" is such a perfect adjective to describe the bass strings on this piano. They are delightful.

abeppu 3y ago

I'm kinda shocked by the pictures near the bottom of it being moved, including one where it's lifted by ... a tractor with a loader fork? Or loaded onto an open trailer?

jacquesm 3y ago
Welcome to NZ...

ElCapitanMarkla 3y ago

So cool to see a second Dunedin, NZ post on here in the last week or so.

jacknobody 3y ago

At the end, a link to a Chopin mazurka, beautifully played on the homemade piano.