microtonal piano(don't be excited!)

Hello all

Lets say that in the future people finally accept that 12ET is not the best system .
Do you think that it is possible for a microtonal piano to be build (maybe with a Bosanquet keyboard) considering the number of strings , tension and size implicated ?
I am asking for your insight because I don't know much about piano technical matters .
I see that many people use piano samples and MIDI controllers to do that , but I think all pianists working with microtonality have dreams of playing an acoustic one!

Thanks

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Alexandros Papadopoulos

/tuning/topicId_52947.html#52947

<Alexmoog@o...> wrote:
> Hello all
>
> Lets say that in the future people finally accept that 12ET is not
the
> best system .
> Do you think that it is possible for a microtonal piano to be build
> (maybe with a Bosanquet keyboard) considering the number of
strings ,
> tension and size implicated ?
> I am asking for your insight because I don't know much about piano
> technical matters .
> I see that many people use piano samples and MIDI controllers to do
> that , but I think all pianists working with microtonality have
dreams
> of playing an acoustic one!
>
> Thanks

***I think this may be a rather silly notion, since outside of New
York and some more "traditionally minded" cities, acoustic pianos do
not even exist anymore. In the Midwest, where I am from, a friend of
mine who owns a music store used to sell acoustic pianos, some
grands. He no longer does. All people want now is "keyboards..."
and that pertains to 12-tET, so the idea of creating acoustic pianos
to play microtonality seems currently a little off the mark...

J. Pehrson

on 3/19/04 1:55 PM, Alexandros Papadopoulos <Alexmoog@otenet.gr> wrote:

> Hello all
>
> Lets say that in the future people finally accept that 12ET is not the
> best system .
> Do you think that it is possible for a microtonal piano to be build
> (maybe with a Bosanquet keyboard) considering the number of strings ,
> tension and size implicated ?
> I am asking for your insight because I don't know much about piano
> technical matters .
> I see that many people use piano samples and MIDI controllers to do
> that , but I think all pianists working with microtonality have dreams
> of playing an acoustic one!

Well, JP's comment aside (about acoustic pianos perhaps becoming obsolete),
I just want to say I am very interested in the same thing. There will
probably be piano makers for some time to come. Less people wanting them is
at least for a while more of a concern for sellers than it is for someone
who *does* want one, though of course this will drive the price up.

Norman Henry, a guy in Oakland, has a Patchian harpsichord with 29 notes per
octave - based on an 11-limit diamond. I believe he built it himself. He
is a harpsichord tuner/technician/etc.

So the thing about harpsichords in this regard is that the required width
per note for the action and strings is less than it is for the piano, so it
is quite a bit easier in general to pack more notes into an octave.
Bosanquet layouts with much front/back depth might pose more challenges, but
if 29/octave is possible then 31/octave should be possible with the standard
octave width. I'm not sure how the standard octave width fits with the
expectations of Bosanquet users.

I don't know whether pianos with >12 notes per octave exist, but I would
certainly be interested in hearing about it.

-Kurt

Please excuse the somewhat late response.

On Saturday, March 20, 2004, at 06:38 , tuning@yahoogroups.com wrote:

> Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 23:55:14 +0200
> From: Alexandros Papadopoulos <Alexmoog@otenet.gr>
> Subject: microtonal piano(don't be excited!)
>
> Hello all
>
> Lets say that in the future people finally accept that 12ET is not the
> best system .
> Do you think that it is possible for a microtonal piano to be build
> (maybe with a Bosanquet keyboard) considering the number of strings ,
> tension and size implicated ?
> I am asking for your insight because I don't know much about piano
> technical matters .
> I see that many people use piano samples and MIDI controllers to do
> that , but I think all pianists working with microtonality have dreams
> of playing an acoustic one!
>
> Thanks

2 things I happened upon after reading your post :
---

De: American Music Center [mailto:center@amc.net]
Enviada em: quarta-feira, 1 de outubro de 2003 17:17
Para: cdmusica@unicamp.br
Assunto: October NewMusicBox Online Now!

There are over 10 million pianos in the United States. Every U.S. President
has owned a piano save three: Gerald Ford, George Bush, and George W. Bush.
Are you surprised? The October 2003 edition of NewMusicBox, our largest
issue to date, examines our affinity for and attachment to the piano. In
this issue:

La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela, creators of The Well-Tuned Piano in The
Magenta Lights, reflect on their pioneering artistic legacy and how the
piano became an integral part of it.

(http://www.newmusicbox.org/)
---

Groven Piano Project
http://vms.cc.wmich.edu/~code/groven/index.html

The Groven Piano is digital network of acoustic pianos whereby a master input piano controls the actions of three separate output pianos via a computer interface...

- Joel