The result is a piano that sounds unlike any other.
It's our most important musical instrument but it's hardly changed in sound or design for more than a hundred years, until recently that is. A few years ago Newcastle-based piano maker Wayne Stuart came up with a new way of attaching the piano strings to the soundboard. The result is a piano that sounds unlike any other.
BLANCH : Richard Aedy spoke to Wayne Stuart about how he hit upon a way of making pianos sound better.
STUART : It was to research and define a way of coupling the string to the soundboard that would maximise its energy transmission and give us greater dynamic range and clarity across the frequency range.
AEDY : So in effect, you've come up with a new way of connecting the string to the soundboard?
STUART : Actually it's not, technically speaking, a new way - a lot of things have been done in the past, technology has limited the application because it was either too costly to actually do or the outcome wasn't really where the fashion was and people didn't really want to hear or weren't receptive to the advantages.
AEDY : Let's look then at the traditional way in which a piano string is coupled to the soundboard, how does that work and what's wrong with it as far as you're concerned?
STUART : Well, many people would accept that the piano really grew out of the harpsichord or the early string keyboard instruments. Now in the harpsichord the string is coupled to the soundboard which is the diaphragm that actually moves the air and enables us to hear the sound using a zig zag pin arrangement where the wire was very easily coupled, if you like, or attached to the soundboard.
AEDY : And that's the arrangement on a traditional non Stuart Piano as well isn't it?
STUART : It is, that's right, so the early piano just adopted and adapted that principle.
AEDY : Now what's wrong with that Wayne?
STUART : Well, it has significant limitations from the point of view that the wire is bent in a different plane in which it's actually excited or struck in the case of the piano.
AEDY : So when I play a note on a piano it's struck a hammer in effect.
STUART : In a Grand Piano it's struck vertically. AEDY : Yes and so there's a vertical vibration that travels along the string - I'm waving my arms around here.
STUART : That's right, the first mode of vibration is vertical.
AEDY : Yes.
STUART : And because the string is bent horizontally through a zig zag clamp if you like, on the traditional piano, that horizontal bend tends to produce a stress in the wire that causes the direction, that first vertical mode of vibration, to change and become elliptical and it then vacillates between vertical and horizontal.
AEDY : And what effect does this have on the sound?
STUART : Well, wherever you have changes in energy flow you have damping and variations in pitch and unstable characteristics coming into the sound. Now we accept that in the traditional piano sound. You have the strong impact noise, then you have the quick decay and then it wobbles off into what we call "the sustain".
AEDY : Right, now how does your coupling work?
STUART : Well, the coupling actually bends the wire in the vertical plane or in the same plane as the initial mode of vibration and that tends to keep the wire vibrating vertically so that when the hammer strikes the string, it sounds, and then it just stays there. You don't have this drop and wobble effect as it decays away, so the ear picks up a message in those first few milliseconds and it holds onto that message that this sound is a different experience.
AEDY : So your piano still sounds like a piano but it has...the sonic qualities of it are different?
STUART : That's right.
AEDY : So if we return to the coupling itself, you said there's nothing new under the sun, how much does this innovation depend on new materials?
STUART : We were able to experiment with new materials like partially stabilised zirconia and various other modern materials that have only been around a relatively short period of time.
AEDY : That's a sort of ceramic really isn't it?
STUART : That's right.
AEDY : You've also, I understand, incorporated some other differences a bit more obvious, there's this extra half octave - traditional pianos have seven and a half but yours has eight.
STUART : Well, you see people don't understand, generally, that the piano doesn't have a fixed keyboard. We determine that using eight octaves, so from sub-contra F to F above top C it kept the keyboard central, as it were, in terms of how the pianist relates to it, but it opened up the prospect of the sub-contra octave down to F - there is music written for the sub-contra octave and above top C. They're very useful notes and just because we haven't got them on pianos, up until now, it is not the reason why we shouldn't be building them into pianos.
AEDY : Now all of this sounds like a rather expensive instrument. I clearly could not afford one for my spare room.
STUART : Well, it's not really very expensive. If you consider how much hand-built pianos cost, you cannot buy a Steinway for nothing. It takes a year to build, essentially what are handmade pianos, and therefore the cost is reflected in that. Our concert pianos range from $180,000 - $200,000 plus GST and the smaller Grand that we build is a 2.2 metre - that ranges from $130,000 - $150,000. That price differentiation depends on the materials used for the decorative part of the instrument. You know, for instance, ebony can cost up to $80,000 a cubic metre.
AEDY : A snip at the price Wayne! So these are mainly for the concert market, how many have you built so far?
STUART : Well, they're not really for the concert market because Steinway pianos - most of them are sold to wealthy individuals. It's for the carriage trade.
AEDY : You're after the wealthy individual?
STUART : We're after the carriage trade, we're after the ...
AEDY : It sounds better to say carriage trade than wealthy individuals doesn't it?
STUART : Well, I think that's how it's defined.
BLANCH : Richard Aedy from "The Buzz" talking with Wayne Stuart of Stuart and Sons Piano Makers for the carriage trade.
More information:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/buzz/stories/s781883.htm
