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It looks to me like it's a Steinway D with a new set of keysticks, without the black keys. Swap the keysticks back out and it probably plays like normal.

The black key actions were also removed,

Yes, the article says it has "the same number of strings as a normal piano" so I assume if you put in a different action it would play like normal. And upon closer inspection it does indeed appear very similar to a Hamburg Steinway model D. Wonder why Sinhakken can put their own name on it though..? All they did was build a custom action? Hmmm

Not strictly true; you'd still have D Dorian, E Phrygian, F Lydian, G Mixolydian, etc., all of which have their own distinctive and useful sounds. But your point about limitations is still well-made. And how would I live without secondary dominants?

Larry.

It's a Steinwhite... Seems to have been done for some kind of demonstration purpose.

It reminds me of the Peanuts cartoon where Lucy notices that the black keys on Schroeder's piano were just painted on. When she asked how he could play all the music he did, he replied, "Practice!"

Ok, we've seen the white-key piano, but here's an antique all-black-key piano!

https://oddnumbersonly.wordpress.com/tag/black-keys/

At least this one has all 88 keys.😃I was wondering if it only had sharps which would be even more limiting.

Yes but most pieces use functional harmony.,Often extremely chromatic chords are used (see Chopin or Debussy) You could not have much harmonic rhythm in a piece playing only in Cmajor.
We no longer use those modes much now, although Debussy did but he also used extensively complex harmony and at times polyphony always with extreme chromaticism.
The result was often a sense of (floating) non functional progressions of chords.This gave us the impressionistic style the we so enjoy in that composer.

The only sense of interest here in composition on this piano could be through an extremely varied rhythmic approach -- by a robot !
If the expressionist Arnold Schoenberg only had this piano to compose on, I do believe he would either have become mad -- or he would have taken a hatchet to it !
Just looking at that keyboard , I think listening to a little Webern or Schoenberg right now could give me great enjoyment .That is something not often felt when listening to those composers.

Yikes! I think I just heard Bartok clawing his way out of his grave!

... or perhaps he would have written something for you using seven-tone rows. I'm actually loving that thought.



Larry.

Yes but even Bartok could never have coped with just those white notes .Modes or key signatures
you have to use modulation or transposition.
Actually Schoenberg did write some late romantic music. He was on a crusade to write a new type of music.Wagner in his operas had caused tensions in functional harmony to be delayed more and
more before resolution and at one point in a particular opera had ventured into atonality .
That was one of the reasons Schoenberg felt he had to create a new music.

Thank you Larry, but if I lived in Schoenberg's time he certainly would not have had time to write music for me.You see he was Jewish and desperately needed to escape the Nazis. When he got to
America he had to live in cheap hotels for many years.

This instrument does not fit in with the classical musical tradition or history at all unless we all want to stand around it at Christmas and sing Gregorian Chant-- what fun , Larry do you not think ?

Well, there is a lot of Gregorian chant for Advent and Christmas, but wouldn't we rather do something where we could take turns playing the organ?




Larry.

Is that an ancient organ ? Just wondering where the keyboard is ?

Is that an ancient organ ? Just wondering where the keyboard is ?

You're looking at it! Four ranks, thirteen keys.

Does that keyboard perhaps remind you of a more recently-discussed piano? I was hoping you'd see the connection.



Larry.

Yes I did wonder about it .The keys are so large that I was not sure and yes you are correct ,no black
keys.So yes perhaps used in the early to mid Renaissance in some church or chapel in some castle.
We have often been to Europe but I do not think I have ever seen such an instrument in real life.Of course it reminds me of an organ played by angels in some painting from about this time. Perhaps even Botticelli painted such a picture.But of coarse you are correct in that music in different church modes would have been used in the music performed on that organ.So how 🤔 do you really feel about this piano with no black notes ?

Larry,
Keep loving that thought ,but it would all have been in vane-- even if he had the time to write music in 7 tone rows especially for me ,he would not have considered it.You see I am not important enough!
By the way the number of your posts from this quote say 666. I just thought you would be interested--- purely from a numerical coincidence 😉.

A piano made of sausages? Of course there is

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=alQADvyCuf8

Every jazz musician I know uses modality to inject flavor within improvisation and arrangements. I believe that many composers are thinking "modally", particularly late Romantic and early 20th C. composers, IMHO.

Yes but do not try and tell me they do not use modulations, transposition and of course chromatic harmony.This means BLACK NOTES .
Obviously I meant they do NOT uses model structures in the way it was used in rennassance music
or medieval church music where especially Gregorian chant was used without modulation.

Can you really use modal structures in this white key piano and make use of modulations ?Did Bartok stick to white notes apart from his children's pieces ?
Please do not quote what I say out of context.