A keyboard that isn't straight:

And a Chickering cocked hat that may have been posted before:

Love the latest batch of pics! What was with all those pedals Ron?

Love the ergonomic rounded keyboard...I wonder if one could get used to that? and if one does, could they ever hit the right chords/notes while jumping?

I found a batch of new ones I think. No url though to get to them, so I have saved them and when I can will try the photobucket thing again and see if we can get them up.

ZORBA - you will love them!

R

What's with all the pedals?



Mostly about adding tone color. Sometimes it involves adding:
mute rail
zither rail (think of little metal discs between the hammers and strings for a plinky sound)
???

Pyramid piano:

Wait, here's another:


Grand piano by Anton Martin Thÿm, Vienna, ca. 1815. Seven pedals: una corda, harp, bassoon, damper, strong moderator, medium moderator, and Janissary (bells and bass drum). Such special effects were popular in Vienna at the time, particularly among upper-class young ladies, who were expected to provide music to entertain their guests.

The purpleheart case has an inlaid ebony/fruitwood edging that depicts a red vine with sunflowers and leaves, strings of red beads with an ink drawing of a woman's face in the center, and grapes and grape leaves. The vertical moldings contain three images--a portrait of a woman, a profile of a man, and a lyre. The piano is held up by four Nubian slaves with long, gold-painted turbans. The pedal support, also gold-painted, is in the shape of a fountain, supported by the tails of two dolphins.

quote:

Originally posted by Zorba:
But this beauty can be yours for only 9000 euro:



A pedal for every reason and every season...

Ummmm... Methinks that is a harpsichord, not a piano... The transverse bar aft of the tuning pins looks remarkably like a jackrail. It would be very unusual to have pedals on a classic harpsichord -- usually stops were operated with handlevers or kneelevers, although Wanda Landowska's "revival" harpsichords had pedals so that stops could be operated without removing one's hands from the keys.

Looks like there's a piano in the flower bed...

oo la la!

Oh yeah baby!

When can I expect delivery?

Are you sure you wouldn't like this instead, so you could join the square grand club?
It's a Steinway...

quote:

Originally posted by rontuner:
Are you sure you wouldn't like this instead, so you could join the square grand club?
It's a Steinway...

That one's got nicer wood and slightly different legs, but otherwise they're very similar:

Neat Steinway there Ron. Good luck OT with yours!

A really cool C. Bechstein - I'd love to have this one!

Are those mermaids?!?

Very nice...

This deserves another look:



Keyboard instruments with pedalboard – a brief history

However unusual or even bizzarre it may seem, the idea of a piano endowed with a pedalboard similar to that of an organ actually has a long history behind it. Its antecedents are the clavichord and the harpsichord with single or double keyboard, which also often had a pedalboard attached. The first citation of a clavichord with pedalboard appeared around 1460 in the section dedicated to musical instruments of the encyclopedic treatise written by the scholar Paulus Paulirinus (1413-1471). It was thus established as an instrument useful for "practice" reasons, in exercises useful for coordinating the hands and feet, that organists could also use if they wished to avoid having to activate the organs' bellows or the rigorous cold of the churches.

Johann Sebastian Bach owned a clavichord with two keyboards and pedalboard for which he composed the
Trio Sonata BWV 525-530, the Passacaglia in C minor BWV 582 and other works.


Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart owned a fortepiano with independent pedals, built expressly for him in 1785 by Anton Walter. In the autographed manuscript of the Concerto in D minor K 466, composed the same year, the magnitude of the bass notes is evident. Furthermore, in letters to his father, Mozart mentions use of this piano with pedalboard in public improvisations.

The instrument Robert Schumann refers to as a pedalflügel (piano with pedalboard) first entered his home in Dresden in 1845. Schumann's enthusiasm for this piano endowed with a pedalboard was so great that it inspired him
to compose three works: Studies for Pedalflügel Op. 56, Skizzen for Pedalflügel Op.58 and Six Fugues on the name
of "Bach" Op.60; he was also able to convince F. Mendelssohn Bartholdy to inaugurate a class especially for the pedalflügel in the Conservatorium of Leipzig.

There are various systems with which a pedalboard was attached to the piano: the most common was that of a pedalboard fastened under the piano that activated its mechanics-keyboard; another System, though less frequent,
was that of placing two independent pianos (each with its separate mechanics and strings) one above the other, as with the instrument Mozart required of Anton Walter. With time the request for this polyvalent instrument declined, so much so that works written specifically, such as those of Schumann, were performed more and more often on the organ,
or transcribed into versions for four-hands or two pianos.

Inspired by the compositions mentioned above, at the end of this last century the piano-maker Luigi Borgato realized a new instrument, the "DOPPIO BORGATO": a double piano of extensive form, joining a concert-grand together with a second piano activated by a pedalboard comprised of 37 pedals, thus augmenting the expressive qualities of its 18th century predecessors.


The "DOPPIO BORGATO" opens up a new page for the musical world, this particular instrument offering new possibilities to both composers and interpreters.

Notice anything different? (count the # of strings/note)