Keyboards Back from the Dead

jonp72 — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 16:46:49 -0800

Dead musical instruments... brought back to life by YouTube? Check out this mellotron demo film, a rare trautonium keyboard in some guy's garage, trautonium music by composer Oskar Sala, an original Ondes Martenot, a documentary on the telharmonium (parts 1, 2, and 3), and the Sonovox (used to funny but not-suitable-for-work effect in this parody of Sparky's Magic Piano). Meanwhile, avant-gardists have revived the art of prepared piano, but more mainstream acts such as Tori Amos and Ferrante & Teicher have also experimented with it. Last but not least, another performer of prepared piano is Margaret Leng Tan, but I think she should get more accolades as the best virtuoso of the toy piano since Schroeder from Peanuts.

Mark — Wed, 05 Apr 2000 15:37:26 -0800

Yahama has made the Rolls Royce of pianos.
'Built around an Intel Pentium III computer chip, the piano allows functions to be controlled by a user's voice and lets the user watch an artist's performance stored on disc while hearing the concert. When the disc is inserted into a built-in DVD player, the performance is displayed on a computer monitor as keys and pedals move up and down recreating the piano part.'
And only $333,000, where do I sign up?

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Keyboards Back from the Dead