Piano: Difference between revisions
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However, large departures from intended tuning, for example, from 12edo ― require changes to string length, gauge, tension, scaling, or even the frame and soundboard, rather than simply retuning the existing strings. A typical piano will only handle about a semitone of retuning before breaking strings becomes an issue. Additionally, excessive string stretching produces a timbre that sounds increasingly inharmonic and more bell-like. | However, large departures from intended tuning, for example, from 12edo ― require changes to string length, gauge, tension, scaling, or even the frame and soundboard, rather than simply retuning the existing strings. A typical piano will only handle about a semitone of retuning before breaking strings becomes an issue. Additionally, excessive string stretching produces a timbre that sounds increasingly inharmonic and more bell-like. | ||
As such, purpose-built microtonal pianos | As such, purpose-built microtonal pianos are required to accommodate tunings that would be impractical or unsafe to realize by retuning a conventional piano. Likewise, multiple pianos can be used: a solo player can play two keyboards at a right angle, or many players can play many pianos. | ||
Electronic plugins like {{W|Pianoteq}} can be used to retune a modeled piano to arbitrary pitches with high precision, without the mechanical limitations that are found in the process of building a physical instrument. | Electronic plugins like {{W|Pianoteq}} can be used to retune a modeled piano to arbitrary pitches with high precision, without the mechanical limitations that are found in the process of building a physical instrument. | ||
Latest revision as of 07:11, 7 September 2026
The piano is a percussive keyboard instrument, in which an action of felt-covered hammers strike strings stretched on a metal frame attached to a resonant soundboard.
The history of the piano is closely intertwined with the standardization of 12edo in the West. The development of steel frames with precision machining gave them the necessary capacity to hold the high level of tension (180–300 kN) to remain in tune reliably over time.
The piano can be used to play microtonal music in a variety of ways. A single piano's strings can be retuned. Like other keyboard instruments, the strong advantage that this provides for microtonal music is that due to pitch exactness and precision machining, an acoustic piano can also be constructed or rebuilt for essentially arbitrary pitches and tuning systems, satisfying any exact pitch placement that desired.
However, large departures from intended tuning, for example, from 12edo ― require changes to string length, gauge, tension, scaling, or even the frame and soundboard, rather than simply retuning the existing strings. A typical piano will only handle about a semitone of retuning before breaking strings becomes an issue. Additionally, excessive string stretching produces a timbre that sounds increasingly inharmonic and more bell-like.
As such, purpose-built microtonal pianos are required to accommodate tunings that would be impractical or unsafe to realize by retuning a conventional piano. Likewise, multiple pianos can be used: a solo player can play two keyboards at a right angle, or many players can play many pianos.
Electronic plugins like Pianoteq can be used to retune a modeled piano to arbitrary pitches with high precision, without the mechanical limitations that are found in the process of building a physical instrument.
Retuned standard piano
Ben Johnston used pianos tuned in 12-tone just intonation scales for his Sonata for Microtonal Piano (1964) and Suite for Microtonal Piano (1978).
The table below shows the tunings used in Terry Riley's The Harp of New Albion (1986), La Monte Young's The Well-Tuned Piano (1964-present), and Michael Harrison's Revelation (2007). [1] [2] [3]
| Harp of New Albion | The Well-Tuned Piano | Revelation | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ratio | Cents | Ratio | Cents | Ratio | Cents |
| 1/1 | 0 | 1/1 | 0 | 1/1 | 0 |
| 16/15 | 112 | 567/512 | 177 | 567/512 | 177 |
| 9/8 | 204 | 9/8 | 204 | 9/8 | 204 |
| 6/5 | 316 | 147/128 | 240 | 81/64 | 408 |
| 5/4 | 386 | 21/16 | 471 | 21/16 | 471 |
| 4/3 | 498 | 1323/1024 | 444 | 729/512 | 612 |
| 64/45 | 610 | 189/128 | 675 | 189/128 | 675 |
| 3/2 | 702 | 3/2 | 702 | 3/2 | 702 |
| 8/5 | 814 | 49/32 | 738 | 27/16 | 906 |
| 5/3 | 884 | 7/4 | 969 | 7/4 | 969 |
| 16/9 | 996 | 441/256 | 942 | 243/128 | 1110 |
| 15/8 | 1088 | 63/32 | 1173 | 63/32 | 1173 |
Kyle Gann's Hyperchromatica (2018) was written for three Disklavier pianos with the just tunings shown in the table below.[4]
| Piano 1 | Piano 2 | Piano 3 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ratio | Cents | Ratio | Cents | Ratio | Cents |
| 1/1 | 0 | 121/64 | 1103 | 63/32 | 1173 |
| 135/128 | 92 | 33/32 | 53 | 65/64 | 27 |
| 35/32 | 155 | 143/128 | 192 | 143/128 | 192 |
| 9/8 | 204 | 75/64 | 275 | 75/64 | 275 |
| 5/4 | 386 | 77/64 | 320 | 39/32 | 342 |
| 21/16 | 471 | 165/128 | 440 | 81/64 | 408 |
| 11/8 | 551 | 11/8 | 551 | 169/128 | 481 |
| 3/2 | 702 | 45/32 | 590 | 91/64 | 609 |
| 49/32 | 738 | 99/64 | 755 | 195/128 | 729 |
| 105/64 | 857 | 25/16 | 773 | 13/8 | 841 |
| 7/4 | 969 | 55/32 | 938 | 27/16 | 906 |
| 15/8 | 1088 | 225/128 | 977 | 117/64 | 1044 |
Arnold Dreyblatt employed a 40-key miniature pianoforte in his Orchestra of Excited Strings, tuned to the 11-limit Dreyblatt tuning system.
Two standard pianos a quarter-tone apart
Two standard pianos tuned a quarter-tone apart can be used to play music in 24edo. Examples include Charles Ives' Three Quarter-Tone Pieces (1924), Ivan Wyschnegradsky's 24 Préludes (1934), and John Eaton's Microtonal Fantasy (1965).
Retuning two pianos
In 1992, Georg Hajdu published a report of the "17 Tones" project[5], in which five composers wrote music featuring two player pianos tuned to 17edo.
In 2006-2008, Jacob Barton had two surplus grand pianos tuned to 17edo and produced the Seventeen Tone Piano Project, a series of four calls for works and concerts at Rice University.
In 2008, Aaron Krister Johnson produced an event featuring two upright pianos tuned to 19edo as part of Midwest MicroFest (now UnTwelve).
Philip Golub's Loop 7 (2025) uses two pianos retuned to play in 22edo.
Microtonal music with more than two pianos
- Georg Friedrich Haas: Limited Approximations (2010) for orchestra and 6 pianos tuned to 1/12th tones (72edo
- Taylor Brook: Virtutes Occultae (2017) for "six physically modeled virtual pianos, each with a unique tuning in an extended 11-limit just intonation
Custom-built pianos
Some pianos with multiple manuals have been made for playing quarter-tone music.[6] The table below, adapted from the Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, shows some of them.[7]
| Inventor/builder | Date | Manuals |
|---|---|---|
| G.A. Behrens-Senegalden (Berlin) | 1892 | 2 |
| Ivan Wyschnegradsky (Paris), built by Pleyel | 1922 | 2 |
| Alois Hába (Berlin), Ivan Wyschnegradsky, built by Grotrian Steinweg | 1923-4 | 3 |
| Moritz Stoehr (New York) | 1924 | 2 |
| Alois Hába (Prague), built by Förster | 1924 | 2 |
| Ivan Wyschnegradsky, built by Otto Pappe | 1924 | 3? |
| Alois Hába, built by Förster | 1925-9 | 3 |
| Hans Barth (New York), built by George L. Weitz of Baldwin | 1928 | 2 |
| Ivan Wyschnegradsky, built by Förster | 1928-9 | 3 |
There are some videos of Steve Cohn playing a Förster three-manual quarter-tone piano available on YouTube.
Julián Carrillo had pianos constructed in a range of tunings from 1/3-tones to 1/16-tones.[7] These pianos metamorfoseadores, also known as Carrillo pianos, used conventional piano keyboards, so the range decreases as the divisions of the tuning get smaller.[8]
Michael Harrison's harmonic piano plays a 24-note just scale and can be heard on From Ancient Worlds (1992).
Exciters for strings
By using some device to excite harmonics of the piano strings, it can be used to play notes higher up the harmonic series. For example, the magnetic resonator piano uses electromagnets to excite the strings. This can be heard on Xenia Pestova Bennett's Atomic Legacies (2020).
Further reading
Helmholtz discusses the acoustics of pianos in On the Sensations of Tone.[9]
Owen H. Jorgensen's Tuning discusses historical temperaments used on the piano.[10]
Ivor Darreg's 1967 essay Shall We Improve The Piano? addresses head-on a number of issues faced by music-makers wanting to use acoustic pianos.
References
- ↑ Kraig Grady, Riley's 5 limit tuning for "Harp of New Albion"
- ↑ Kyle Gann, La Monte Young's The Well-Tuned Piano
- ↑ Michael Harrison, Revelation Tuning
- ↑ Kyle Gann, Hyperchromatica Note: this recording is an electronic realization, and the piece remains unperformed on acoustic pianos.
- ↑ Georg Hajdu's 1992 ICMC paper on the 17-tone piano project
- ↑ Elisa Järvi, Performing on the new quarter-tone piano – re-discovering repertoire
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Hugh Davies/Alexander Bonus, Microtonal instruments. The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, Second Edition, 2014. Volume Three, page 461.
- ↑ Carrillo piano, Huygens-Fokker Foundation
- ↑ Helmholtz and Ellis, On the Sensations of Tone. Longmans, Green, and Co, 1895.
- ↑ Owen H. Jorgensen, Tuning. Michigan State University Press, 1991.