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Siamese Pianno is a two person instrument based on an upright piano.
The easiest way to visualise the Pianno is to imagine a standard
upright piano with another keyboard attached to its back. This
generates one set of strings being shared by two opposing key
boards.
Obviously this results
in one musician having to learn how to play
with a reversed keyboard layout. It also means that special music
must be composed to enable two musicians to play in concert. ie it
won't work properly if the same string is ever being struck by both
pianists.
Other consequences include the potential for multiple fingered
chords, along with subtle internal harmonies to be created that
are currently not possible to achieve on a single instrument.
[link]
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// reversed keyboard layout // |
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Not necessarily. With a bit of mechanical trickery, the keyboard layout could be preserved.
Or suspend the second pianist upside down ... |
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What if they just want to practice ? |
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Actually, I quite like this it would be good for piano duets - shame "Chas and Dave" is now just "Chas" as I recon they would have been able to turn this idea into a right old cockney barrel o'monkeys old Mother Brown rhyming jellied knees up...oi! |
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For even more joiner-inners, the tripiano, quadripiano, heptapiano and hexapianos might allow 3,4,5 or 6 players to engage simultaneously in percussive stringed harmonisation. |
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The only problem would be in having to do away with the pedals since they can only have a global effect. In fact the whole keeping a key depressed to lengthen the note might have to be rethought as it would effectively take that "note" out of everyone else's scales for the period of time it was depressed. Ah but i notice you mention this in your idea. |
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I think this would work better on a grand piano with each person sitting on a straight side. The mechanism for a 2nd normal keyboard layout would be relatively simple assuming it doesn't matter what part of the string you strike. |
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It would also allow the players to see each other and if there were an audience, the piano could be rotated 45 degrees so that the lid is less of an obstruction. |
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I did think of a grand piano format, for which it works if the key boards are placed at about a 60 degree angle relative to each other. The upright has a simplicity about it though, which I prefer. (Note name alteration) |
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//damper pedals// could easily be made in such a way that the string(set) is individually undamped as part of the hammer action when the pedal is depressed then damped again when the pedal is released... bugger up full-harp resonance of course: sorta like a sostenuto in reverse. |
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No reason they couldn't use the same string though as long as you're hitting it at a node point or whatever: unlike a digital instrument you won't get cancellation. |
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However, to avoid having to learn how to play upside-down or backwards, why not have the piano on its side ? One player would be laying on their left side, the other on the right (on custom benches of course). |
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I'm sitting next to an older upright, and she just
whispered to me that she prefers to be called
"conjoined". Just thought you should know. + for the
idea, btw. |
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