Edison's Concrete Piano Experiment

What does a concrete piano sound like? Thomas Edison's concept of a concrete piano is tested by covering a wooden upright with a layer of cement. This is our homemade video - the Discovery Channel also filmed it for Daily Planet news program.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Thomas Edison
• concrete piano
• piano
• concrete
• inventors
• experiments
• Judy Wearing
• JudyWearing
• Edison's Concrete PIano
• failed inventions
• cement

[PhonoboyAD1984]

It worked ... Amazing

[hillarwee]

nasty j could have done better.

[Bobstew68]

I thought at first that you were going to somehow make a piano out of concrete, substituting all or nearly all the wood, as it seemed like Edison meant. That would have been a big failure sound-wise, I'm sure. A thin coat of concrete outside a piano doesn't seem like that much of a change, since the sound still bounces against wood inside the piano, even if the wood isn't allowed to vibrate as much.

[814wild418]

Hi - the video was made all in one day. The piano was played in this video with the concrete wet. John Hall, curator of the Canadian Piano Museum and current owner of the piano played it again after it was cured and there was no change from what you see her. Cured and wet concrete had the same sound.

[GreedIsYourGod]

I was not entirely sure if you let the concrete cure or not before doing the evaluation? The reason I say is because the video seemed to give the concrete a somewhat glossy sheen and I expect cured concrete to be light in color and have low or now gloss. But I know some concrete does take a gloss if finished neatly. So basically I just can't tell from the video

[crogersrx]

I would have to agree, the piano sounds equally as horrible now covered in concrete as it did before was covered in concrete. Now, it will be alot easier to sink to the bottom of lake Ontario!

[tomriddolls]

Thanks! The 6-nippled sheep was a favorite for me too. Tom thought dry concrete would sound different. So we tested it; it didn't. No, covering a piano with concrete is not the same as constructing a piano from concrete. Ideally, to test Edison's idea, a piano frame is made from wood, then the "guts" are removed and remade with a concrete frame. But, the guts might be altered and affect results. We tested how concrete alters piano sound. We can conclude that a concrete piano could sound fine.

[shannonlarratt]

Wood covered concrete isn't really the same thing as pure concrete (and also fully cured concrete versus the still wet concrete that you used would have a very different sound as well) -- I really don't think that the sound you're getting has much relevance to an actual concrete piano. BTW, I suspect that a real concrete piano would actually sound much better, and could of course be optimized for the construction material's properties.

Your book is great though! I liked the chapter on the sheep.