Introducing the 'fluid piano'

[NitramZiarreh]

Doesn't look like that tuning mechanism could stay in tune under the strings' tension if it can be moved so easily and smoothly with one's hands.

[alexandergreenb]

Also, it doesn't "beg the question." It *elicits* the question. Begging the question means assuming the conclusion in one's premises.

[alexandergreenb]

"This instrument sounds like a sitar so begs the question 'why not just get a sitar?'" The player is used to Indian scales, so she tends toward a sitar pitching, but it doesn't have to sound like a sitar. Also, one imagines that with some modifications, the tones could be much richer and louder.

[sanoichiro]

Thumbs up if you tried to click away the banner at 0:26.  I did....oooops

[thetrain1919]

So It sounds just like a sitar but its the size of a piano... hmmm That's going to make playing it on a street corner quite a chore.

You should probably mention in your description that the purchase of this instrument has yet to be covered under any government welfare programs... that news will probably limit your customer base.

[Sabored]

The only problem I see with this is that you can't freely use both hands at all times. If they could somehow control the adjustments with their feet this thing would be perfect.

[LIGHTRONIX]

it's like manual pitch bend :P

[olddog5655]

Now, Who has 300,000$?

[winstondepp1]

@olddog5655

buy a sitar ??XD

[kylemichaelbecker]

Far Out!



[axsys212]

Nice work!

[BendorBlackwolf]

Nicely done! wow...!

[horuscurcino]

A keyboard pitchbend is more effective :)

[BendorBlackwolf]

@horuscurcino I think u have missed the idea here.. :/

[Metalistforlife]

@horuscurcino no it would be impossible. Every note in this "Piano" has has its own unique deviance from standard tuning depending on the settings. Some might be 1/4 tone sharp. Some might be 1/4 tone flat..Multiple combinations of these types of keys may be used together. So no.

[undathebridge]

i like the idea. it really is incredible. but i'd be completely overwhelmed if i was placed in front of one.

[krizzz100100]

Question #1: What's the point of showing multiscale "piano" if you don't play the (supposedly) 24-TET scale but almost unchanged 12-TET? Question #2: If it looks like piano and uses similar mechanism but sounds completely different can you still call it piano? Question #3: Why does it have a Western keyboard layout?

Interesting project but smells like a bit of BS.

[Virtuosic1]

I don't think he'll have to worry about production not being able to keep up with demand.

[peterbufano]

It doesn't sound much like a piano but I'd love to have one.

[Erdschmelze]

4:20

[444Hatter444]

so, by the looks of it you cant tune the whole piano into quarter tones? or smaller? There doesnt look like there is enough "lee-way" for that to be a possibility? If not then it is certainly a great step in the right direction!! Does any one know?

[Bojangulz87]

The piano was fine the way it was, 24TET etc doesn't sound so good to europeans so it probably wont catch on. Even the possibilities of just intonation don't merit such a creation because you can't modulate without adjustment. The future of all keyboard instruments is in electronics. Things like inharmonicity could be illiminated and just intonation could be possible with a set of pedals controlling the key. This instrument sounds like a sitar so begs the question 'why not just get a sitar?'

[SeeMeRot]

@Bojangulz87

ya it does sound like a Sitar, but i think of it as kinda like when a guitarist wants to do some synth sounds but doesn't want to learn/play a keyboard.... so they resort to just using some effects petals and such....

[matacoz]

I want one!

[gibbsies]

HOLY FUCK

[gQuaresma07]

oxi clean my ass

[gannonsamuel]

doesnt sound much like a piano though.... i'd like to hear one with felt hammers rather then those wooden ones.... looks like wood... i could be wrong....

[talkinglens1]

A natural extension for a stringed instrument.

[mokkshaa]

The sound reminds me of a santoor.

[mokkshaa]

Finally, tweaking for acoustic musicians!

[MarcheseCadmio88]

Sounds like a Japanese koto...

[221Dw]

I thought most other musical scales pretty much make use of the 12 notes in western scale, just they might be using just 5 of them?

[StefanCornelius]

@221Dw

you're right. basically all this really does is is allow you to play in any key perfectly in tune, without having to compromising the pitch of notes. Since C# isn't really the same note as Db, a regular piano has to compromise between the two so that it sounds good regardless of what key you play in. With this, you can set it perfectly for each key.

[The1snarky]

this is a low tension sounding unit in a away it is devolution (i tune pianoes for years) allthough i do like what your doing here a lot i really do ,its really incredable

[WhynotMiha]

So, only 1 string per tone + 1 which is not directly hit by the hammer?

[doobalaki]

I want one!

[acuvox]

Brilliantly conceived and executed. A few rebuttals: if it has a Cristoferi action, it is a piano. I find cast iron frames crude and the wood frame is splendid. 2: Bach did not advocate the twelfth root of 2.  On the frontispiece of "Das Wohl-temperiert Klavier" he inscribed the beats for tuning the "Bach Temperament". For for new music made possible by the fluid piano, it will take time to develop the new vocabulary based on the specific tonal limitations and the unique timbre.

[fookenbored1]

truly marvelous idea, well done! It just seems a massive shame that the 'first ever fluid piano' isn't really adding much in this vid other than what is already there in eastern drone music. If it has released the shackles of western temperament, why use it as just 'another' drone instument', It'd be nice show how it stands up on it's own and create new styles of it's own to spur on new orchestral progression. westen collective orchestration>eastern drone regardless of temperament

[IndighostOfficial]

Hmmm, maybe two people could play it at once, one on teh keys and one on teh sliders

[pauldiffenderfer]

thanks Geoff Smith, this instrument has been missing... this opens so many doors to new experimentation, new music, as well as to established music, Hindustani or Karnatic, which has been impossible on the old fixed and tempered piano. Can't wait to hear what will be played on it! If only Bach had had one of these things??? What would he have written on it?? The Well-Untempered Klavier!!!!

[light4darkness]

Harps have been doing this for centuries.

[jorgeabatocab]

Just Awesome!

[MarkVeenman730314]

The western scale works because it is based on the natural overtone sequence of upper partials. It isn't "limited culturally"; it is an outgrowth of thousands of years of research in acoustic physics beginning as early as Pythagoras. I would also worry that this constant sliding of the fluid tone adjusters would rather quickly (and surely) knock all those bichords out of tune. But calling it a piano is a misnomer at best, outright musical blasphemy at worst.

[ninly]

@MarkVeenman730314 Not true. Western tuning is based on centuries of compromise *away* from the natural overtone sequence. This developed largely because of the constraints of instruments like the piano, which require a fixed tuning and mapping of pitches to a key- or fretboard. Such compromises can be done in countless ways, with each tuning system offering different approximations of the natural overtones, and each having strengths and weaknesses compared to 12-equal temperament.

[faithm]

This is more than epic :) and I agree with @flyinghorseknuckles, way overdue

[tobyisatramp]

posh twats!

[FlyingHorseKnuckles]

Brilliant, and long overdue! Kudos to you.

[gbirbilis]

if you could also switch all the sliders together using presets - could use plastic masks for that maybe that allow the slider handles to fit only at certain places

[gbirbilis]

microprogramming for pianos ;-)

[whatever7x7]

sounds like an indain on crack with a sitar 

[Jackhamma07]

This is pretty incredible, and I absolutely love seeing new instruments incorporate microtones. I'm worried about the strings, though. I can't help but think they'd be terribly hard to get back into the 12 EDO system after you move any of the sliders. I absolutely love the idea though.

[headbangingonfolk]

now you can play the early western tuning, with flats that sound other than sharps. AWESOME

[Keytaster]

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for innovation, but there is no real use for this instrument... I mean, imitating traditional Indian music on a piano doesn't give me a thing. What I'd really like to see is a practical, playable quarter-tone piano. I know Ives helped to construct one, but still even that is not fully playable... Try this instead. I would open our minds sooo much!

[MrCluckingchicken]

Not a bad idea at all. If one could make it in different tambres or colors it would be pretty marketable. Either that or make a regular piano with this tuning mech on it so that you would possibly never have to have a tuner ever tune it again!!!

[NIHIL1334]

I want it for christmas!

[12618again]

New things break new ground snd in some this provokes a fear of freedom. Music is like an individual, it must grow or die. Embrace life and be embraced, create and be re-created. Bring down the barriers, let the light in.

[scentline]

Great, but if you put this system also to pedal, it would be more practical for microtonal music :)

[rjdent69]

This is amazing - a piano that has finally been freed from the tyranny of western tuning. About time too. Hats off to the inventor for having the vision to make this instrument available to those who want it.

[WhynotMiha]

@rjdent69 You say it like tempered tuning is a bad thing.

[krizzz100100]

@rjdent69 You can tune any piano to use different scales. At least they will sound like piano.

[Hyronious]

@rjdent69 Tyranny is definitely the wrong word.

[sirvidia]

@rjdent69 equal temperament was invented so the piano could work :)

but yeah, still a cool thing if they can get the bridges to sound nice.

[rjdent69]

This is a truly amazing invention - a piano that is finally freed from the restrictions of 'fixed' western tuning. About time too. Hats off to the inventor for having the vision to realise this and make it available to those who want it.

[eltonjohnfan100]

EHH id still buy a $100,000 steinway D...oh wait...i already have on...^^ this piano sucks...why dont i see any? because they are not in demand at all :)

[Tony1M]

The single greatest problem with this instrument is that it sounds absoluely nothing like a modern piano. It sounds more like a harpsichord. I'll bet this is a low-string-tension instrument. I will fit in to a group of musicians playing tradition Indian or Chinese music, but that's about the extent of it.

[bustthewave]

I dunno, I'm all for music innovation, and changing the way we think of music, but this seems lacking. It sounds like specific other instruments I've heard before (which begs the question of why a new way to play the same sound is needed...), and with the attack being so fierce I can't imagine it filling any other gap besides mid-eastern or oriental music.

It's limited by it's methods rather than enhanced. The piano I would think, would have more uses.

[SynonymousWithMusic]

The video length is 4:20 ... Coincidence? I think not!

[nadampski]

Yeah but can you play Eastenders on it?

[ronnysoeberg]

People who don't see the use of this instrument are either ignorant or just terrified of change.. I wouldn't mind some more microtonal compositions tbh. And neither would movie score composers. Just listen to Requiem by Gy Ligeti from the movie 2001. Scares the poo right out of me.

[Vernowned]

wow, that's so useless.

[njphishphan]

At one point he was just saying nouns and adjectives. Adversity, banana hammock, music hybrid, hippopotamus, circle, hunger. aquarium, Nepal, dinosaur. tearing down the walls. The pianos cool the guy is a whack o doodle

[devourment8800]

fuckin adverts

[SteveBrownOfficial]

Great stuff.

[FluteTramp]

great... now you can like... um. make acoustic music out of 396 417 528 639 741 852hz, and you can do just intonation. the possibilities are endless. i wonder if you tune it to a chromelodeon's 42 octave scale probably not, but I'm sure one could be built. i mean. that would be sooo fun to play with. Man... if i had one of these with some like minded musicians, a vile of acid(+weed), and a month of non stop jamming and collaboration , I'd probably create music that could levitate stones.

[jamieleesis]

god damn i want one

[Roger281972]

Tom Jobim would like that. He used to tune the piano at home.

[TaeZX]

Remins me of a great show Carnivale

[thegmanyo]

There should be both "sheet music" for playing and for tuning the piano (a different system would need to be made for the tuning music). That way, people could do duets, one person on the tuning one person playing.

[TheJukkaHenrik]

Terrific! Could you do the same for the two-row accordion, please!

[beansandwiched]

its a good idea but how would you write this in music terms since its altered to whatever you want? Now new forms of key would have to be created after somebody or something just so people would understand what they are talking about. good idea but only for the advanced.

[khz96]

Sounds like a hybrid of a harpsichord and an Ungarian cymbalon...

[legoJmaster]

i like it!

[gingervirtuoso]

not to be a hater... but ive seen keyboards with little levers that do something similar, i think i spotted a peak of the actual lever under a coat of dust.

[timothydungao28]

lol? fluid as in waater????? ^_^ where is the fluid thing?

[davidegol]

@timothydungao28 maybe coz you can do the real glissato...

[saxcretino]

@sevishmusic For instance, most 'tuned' wind and string instruments depend on the performer to actually get a precise pitch. However, depending on how one plays it, one can identify and have control of microtonal variations. It is not just by listening to it or checking the visual results analyzed by machines, but also by feeling it. I guess for its nature, a piano has not got such pitch facilities. The tension on strings is a little to hard to be easily manipulated. It's keys are just hammers

[saxcretino]

... and they only change amplitude in relation to the weight and strength of the fingers. Anyway what would be the reason for having more than a tune for each key? There should be than only a single key that would change the pitch in accordance to the location of the finger on it(like a chaos pad). It wouldn't be a piano-like thing at all.

[Gianlux89]

OMG!! just buy a keyboard and adjust the tune settings! This is not a sound of a piano but may be a great invention. maybe..

[iptik]

oh wow I don't think you can get more pretentious than that guy.

[flipperboy]

hmmm sounds more like a harpsichord than a piano but still epic invention

[sweetlikeADAM]

I would like it more with softer mallets.

[dumnuts1]

talk about a useless invention

[sevishmusic]

It's a cool idea, but 1 tone range for each key is not flexible enough for the serious microtonalist.

[saxcretino]

@sevishmusic That's easy to say when one works with computer generated sounds.

If one wants to experiment a deeper relation with sounds, try producing them acoustically.

[sevishmusic]

@saxcretino It's easy to say because it's true. Nothing to do with computer generated sounds. Though I do wonder what method of acoustic sound generation you suggest allows one a "deeper relation" with sounds...

[jansumi]

Nice idea - but miles to go yet I think. I once watched a brilliant piano tuner illustrate how many sounds he could get out of just one regular piano key. I'd really prefer to hear the wonderful resonant piano tones being fine-tuned & varied, but they're not even included in what instead seems to be a whole new instrument that doesn't sound like a piano at all

[Alexott]

Great idea and a marvelous sound. Those who can't appreciate the microtonal capabilities are simply tone deaf, and probably narrow minded. It will naturally take time for it to be appreciated as so few musicians can play the damn thing yet.

[Sonialovebunch]

Well, I don't find the sound seductive. The strings are hammered as Ikmrn325 said, and I guess the action is technically more like a Clavichord ? But all this micro tuning leaves me cold I'm afraid. It's this desire to "get between the notes" but instruments like the Cello/violin etc, and the Saxophone as used by some of the great Jazzer's of our time has explored that are much better than anything else...so far.

[candymintz]

we should organize a concert together, the fluid piano and the wurlstratzer, now that would be original.....2 british inventors... twiggy [) () |-  ( () /\/\

[PKamargo]

Too much blablabla and too less playing.

[tunglour]

It sounds like a harpsichord... does it have dynamics?

[hs127]

@tunglour

Yes. More subtle than the modern piano, but it has dynamics. It's got a soft pedal too.

[Sonialovebunch]

Also, this sounds nothing like a piano, it should have been called a Fluid Harpsichord.

[lkmrn325]

The strings are hammered though.

[Sonialovebunch]

I have an open mind, but my experience of devices that have micro-tuning has been entirely negative, and the results (not just mine) have always been disappointing, as if we are trying to copy and paste the tuning of other cultures on to our instruments, which just doesn't work in my opinion, as they are not designed for it, from a sonic point of view. Like trying to impose equal temperament on an Arabic instrument of some sort it just wouldn't work, I just can't see the point ?

[barnumeffect5]

@Sonialovebunch you dont have to use an existing tuning system. you would get the most beneficial sound by having a purpose for your frequencies.

[robobrow]

hey can you get tori amos to play this plz

[TheNativeDialect]

Can you say Drop D piano? I can.

[MuzikJunkyAES]

This is the next instrument to be incorporated into Indian classical music! Peace.

[PersianTunedPiano]

This is a wonderful attempt and important for those of us that are involved with and interested in retuning (acoustic) keyboards to scales other than the standardized well-tempered. Thank you very much for posting.

[violedw]

wonderful!

anyone heard about Cesare Picco an Italian piano player into experimental and impro-music? He's just gone through amazing performance in total darkness!! check him out

[az101010]

WOW- a real musical instrument.. not many of those around..

[Pianotec]

Mr PureIntonation, if you choosed to show your experimentation with the same modern information canal you would not in a situation of ranting today.

as a practical solution you could join the left wing "franc massonist" and may be also chnge your sexual preferences, it would certainly help your fight against ET "tyranny" ! to be recognized!

[justinintonation]

Pianotec: your facetiousness is rather foul. I'll have you know that I will NOT change my sexual preferences - I have been out and proud for all my adult life and it is this very fact which prevents my work from being taken seriously. Latent homophobia is rife.

[Pianotec]

Indeed that is all but a piano, no hammers, no repetition action, no basses.( low tension, no dampers, no framing.

But the mechanism look well conceived.

same with at last a simple piano action would be fun.

The blabla is pretentious as usual ! it looks very well suited for Indian music, for what I can understand of it.

[justinintonation]

How did this get so much publicity?  I've built equivalents of these - I've been working for decades building instruments to escape the tyranny of equal temperament... with BUGGER ALL recognition!! It seems to me that nobody gives a hooting shitblast about genuine artistic efforts now unless you're in the secret elite left-wing fraternity.

[codecxo]

@justinintonation Don't be bitter. Just make a video.

[jstarret]

Just post your music to Youtube. Everything has changed -- you are out front with everyone else.

[arifreeman]

It's cool. The unwound strings make the basses rather tinny. I wonder if this could be overcome? Maybe by using flatwound bass strings like on a double bass?

Just an Idea, treat it as your own if you like it.

[soulrongang]

FAR OUT ! I love the sound - like a cross between a santoor a rudra-vina. The lady is so right about the sound of the western piano being so rigid - especially after developing a fondness for Indian music, and this is a fine solution.  My compliments to the chef!

[j4s0nst4nf13ld]

I don't know why there isn't any interesting music on the video (or why the sound of the piano is buried beneath a voice-over), but maybe there's nothing interesting yet to play. The modern piano isn't made for microtuning; it's the result of counter-intuitive tuning theory and acoustic engineering - the embodiment of Western tuning and science. Just my impression, but this is like saying "why can't an aircraft carrier be a car as well as a boat?"

[rmaccrea]

The future of music is not repeating the past. It is moving forward. This idea is cool because it is NEW. Instead of criticizing for not being just like a piano, why not look at its potential? This allows the string stretching techniques employed by guitaritsts and violinists to be employed by a keyboardists. The best musicians of our time broke ground with new ideas. The Beatles, Paul SImon, and many others. This instrument in the right hands has potential to go where no man has gone before.

[j4s0nst4nf13ld]

I don't disagree that the instrument has merit, but I'm speaking from a certain context. Part of my job is designing music instruments, which means looking at them from a feature-to-benefit perspective. Innovations like this are neat, but unless they have practical value, they're just gimmicky. The tuners on this interest me more as a (potential) means of keeping pianos *in* tune. Microtuning is a neat musical device, but it won't replace Western psychoacoustics, which date back 2500 years.

[codecxo]

@j4s0nst4nf13ld Listen to Terry Riley's "The harp of New Albion"

[butterfingersbeck]

Sounds more like a hammered dulcimer or Cymbalon, a keyboardless close relative of the piano. Why doesn't this thing have normal felt hammers, and WHY, OH WHY is nobody actually demonstrating the much-vaunted possibilities of the thing?

[estiej]

it's so refreshing to listen to, completely different in sound from the traditional piano.

[nivsha]

People its not about changing the piano, its about bending the mind one micro tuning at a time. Fluid thinking, fluid music making besides being rigid or conventional.

[ballsyh11]

doesn't sound like a piano... just buy a synth - or some actual eastern instruments!

[tubastuff]

Shades of Harry Partch!

But doesn't this gizmo still imit the player to 12-tone octaves? How does one play a Partch work scored for 43-note octaves?

[diki29]

i was wondering the same thing.....why doesnt someone play a whole song on it.?u would think to introduce it they would be eager to .

[dbadagna]

If A. R. Rahman gets one of these you're going to hear it in all the Bollywood movie soundtracks.

[dbadagna]

Wonderful! Does it have metal hammers?

[tcrangle963]

doesnt this mean that the strings will need changed? like on a guitar? its gonna be alot harder on the strings. i cant help but feel that strings would snap on it

[sergiobdbd]

Sounds interesting, but, why doesn't anyone play something interesting on it ???

[SGPlayer0008]

I'm a pianist. It's about bloody time. Breaking out of the western scale is the only way we're going to get "new" music.

[geoffdellow]

Fantastic idea. I'd love to get my hands on one of these.

I love creating sound with strange chords and this could do it!

Look forward to hearing some compositions and being able to buy something like this - maybe and electronic simulator that would be in the range of my pocket!