[CAUT] 1/4 tone piano conversion

[Fred Sturm]

On Dec 3, 2007, at 10:27 AM, Andrew Anderson wrote:

> He explained it to me as an upright that had been converted.  Quite  
> possibly it was two pianos as described.  I'll have to pin him down  
> on more details.  My first reaction was, you can't do that with this  
> type of piano, you'll have to buy a Sauter Microtonal piano (problem  
> is it does 1/16" tone)
> http://www.sauter-pianos.de/english/pianos/microtone.html.
> He was insistent on the possibility and then I explained how bass  
> strings would break and how the treble would go dead.  Not having  
> much experience here I said I would inquire into the possibility of  
> re-scaling the piano to do the job.  I think I have the answer  
> though. :-)  Much easier to do two especially when playing...imagine  
> one octave every 24 keys.  He could...
>
> Andrew Anderson


The link from Sauter includes the following quote:
"Quarter tone instruments have already been around for a long time."
I was curious, so I Googled quarter tone piano. A couple links:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,738789,00.html (Time  
Magazine 1930 article, two keyboard instrument made by Baldwin)

http://www.jstor.org/view/00274631/ap020048/02a00050/0 (Musical  
Quarterly 1926 article, three keyboard instrument made by German firm  
Forster)

	That's a much time as I had (between tunings - mental health break),  
but there were probably a few more specific pianos and designs. Along  
with sites talking about two pianos tuned 1/4 tone apart and  
references to electronics.

Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico
fssturm at unm.edu

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/caut.php/attachments/20071203/4ac9d6b0/attachment.html