Someone that can appreciate a day for dressing up:

Has this been posted yet? It's a Manx piano???

No, I don't think we've seen that one.... I wonder how much those "pianos as sideboards" really got played. Seems like most of the pianos I see have lots of stuff that lives on top of the piano. If you couldn't play until the whole thing was opened???

Here's another one of those car/piano combos:

Somebody has way too much time and money.

Another "Zorba Approved (TM)" Upright:

Now that's what you called a ruffled piano.

Having just visited my favorite fabric shop in the whole world this weekend (Zimmans, in Boston) I was wondering the other day if anyone has ever upholstered their piano top. It could serve the dual purpose of muffling he sound and accenting one's decor. Imagine, you could hang some really fancy tassling all around the rim. I saw some with bells! . . . . the possibilities are endless.

Oh my Goddess....

I never thought of this...

I'm a Belly Dancer - I could go *NUTS* with this idea. Beaded fringe... Tassles... Bells and other tinkly, shiny bits...

Sigh....

If you ever come to the east coast, I'll take you to Zimmans. You'd go nuts!

I like the piano with the tractor-like driver's seat. Why don't you ever see Steinways in crappy makeovers like this?

Hey, I have an idea. Put a big Steinway up there ahead of the tractor, with a nice Steinway logo on the side. Then see how much "The Instrument of the Immortals" will pay you not to drive it around.

Here's another look at that Pleyel double piano from way back near the beginning of this thread:

So would you simply charge double your normal fee to tune that? After all--you have to keep running back and forth to get the two sides in tune with each other.

Here's another one of the Playel.



The fact that, little short of a miracle, a double grand manufactured in 1904 - having escaped the catastrophe of two world wars - suddenly appeared for sale in Switzerland in 1995, brought a decisive moment in the career of the Egri & Pertis Duo. The instrument has consequently been in the duo's possession since 1996.

and some info:

The Pleyel Double Grand Piano is truly a unique musical instrument, as only a handful now remain throughout the world. Some 50 double grand pianos were produced in the Pleyel piano factory in Paris but, sadly, most of these were eventually destroyed in the mayhem of two world wars.
This type of musical instrument was originally developed by the company in the 19th century and the last double grand was said to have left the factory in around 1930.

The two keyboards are placed at opposite ends of this 2.5 meter long instrument that weighs nearly 600 kilograms. The brilliance of the design lies in the fact that, although the two pianos are housed in one body, both have their own sets of wires, pedals and mechanism. (With a special switch, the Pleyel design also makes it possible for one of the players to operate the pedals of the other if necessary, and this of course also works the other way round.) At the same time, the casting and the resonance - an important element of the instrument - are common to both. All the sounds produced are emitted in a shared space, the overtones enrich each other, and all of this results in a warm and wonderfully full sound.

from: http://www.egri-pertis.com/english/double.htm

quote:

Originally posted by pianojuggler:
So would you simply charge double your normal fee to tune that? After all--you have to keep running back and forth to get the two sides in tune with each other.

It would be a little LESS than double, as I offer a multi-piano tuning discount. (something Rick might be able to appreciate...) As tradition-bound as tuning is, using a Verituner is the only way to go for duo-piano tunings. Let the machine do all the heavy lifting.

quote:

Originally posted by markjpcs:
Here's another one of the Playel.

When I was looking at that double yesterday, I was wondering about it with regard to the things Del has said over the years about the need for a soundboard to be appropriately sized from treble to bass to avoid unwanted resonance that develops with an over-large soundboard. I'm curious what that beast is like tonally. I'm curious about what sort of cutoff bars or fish have been incorporated in it that we can't see in those photos that might mitigate those obvious problems. It'd be really interesting to see a photo from underneath.

The other point that struck me from that overhead shot is that the bass strings seem to shorten unneccessarily from highest to lowest. I'd have thought with all that room longer bass strings and a less-curtailed bass bridge sweep would have been preferrable. I'd have thought the bass bridge sweep could have nicely paralelled the treble bridge sweep of the opposite side, just far enough away to allow good backscale length.

This is a "Full Compass" single string practice piano. I'd love to see the guts of it.