The extra low notes aren't really there to be played, even though they were requested by a composer for a transcription of Bach's organ works to piano and built starting in 1909. Mostly the extra keys are there because of the sympathetic string resonance that adds richness to all the notes you do play.
As a piano technician, I have always been fascinated with the Bösendorfer Imperial and its extra low notes. Thanks for explaining to the general public about them.
The C-0 sounds like “The Bloop”, a mysterious unknown underwater sound picked up by NOAA in 1997. It was believed to be a giant animal but it actually turned out to be ice-calving.
Well done. Your historical explanation for the extra bass keys is plausible, however there is an acoustic reason for them if you are a piano builder. Typically the lowest string at the bottom of the bass bridge on the soundboard is A0, as you state. The bottom end of any piano's bass bridge is inherently stiff and inflexible, more so than, say, F1, and so is the corresponding area of the soundboard. We are accustomed to hearing the pitch and tone of A0 in the typical concert grand piano. By adding notes (strings) lower than A0 we have made A0 no longer the lowest note on the bridge, because the bridge is longer to carry the lower notes, and the soundboard surface area is increased here, too. That duty (the lowest note) is now relegated to C0 in the case of the Bosendorfer Imperial. By doing this the bass bridge is freed up to some extent at A0, making it, in theory, airier and more powerful. The notes below A0 may or may not be musically useful, but the lowest pitches we are accustomed to hearing are improved. In other words, we have kicked the detrimental acoustical can father down the road.
I was gonna say that (less erudite and technically accurate). I studied piano and my teacher talked about his Steinway and the Bosendorfer with its added keys - and the richer bass they provide. He liked rich bass tones and used bass lines in is jazz performances.
Even when the extra notes aren't used, when the dampers are raised the extra strings add a warmth to the general sound of the piano. My partner and I are lucky enough to own one and having it in the house is really quite something.
The main “advantage” you get out of these keys and strings is the fact that there is a lot more space that can be used for a larger soundboard, which adds this extra richness to the sound.
For anyone who is intrigued by Bosendorfer pianos, I highly recommend Tori Amos' "Boys for Pele" album. She also plays Boseys in her live concerts - the low end growls under her hands and it's fantastic. If these sounds were a color, I'd call them "Burnt Umber." Enjoy!
I'm convinced it is those bass strings that generate overtones, when the sustain pedal is used, even though they are never played, which in turn give additional support to all other struck strings above them, and that is the magic of the Bosendorfer. Of course the length of the soundboard is important too. They seem to have really found the right balance of piano size, lower string vibration, wood aging, layering, and dimensioning, and that's why it is my dream piano. No other piano has ever made my eyes water with its sound. Only Bosendorfer.
Did you know that there's a videogame soundtrack that has a piano duo for the final boss theme,and that one of the pianos has extended range? It is a very beautiful piece called ''Gwyn,lord of cinder"
On my Nord Stage 2 digital piano the imperial sample is the default piano sound. It also has Steinway and Yamaha sample sounds, which makes for easy comparison. The Imperial has little competition from the others when it comes to fullness in the bass register to the extent where it sometimes becomes too intense, for certain music. It's quite an extraordinary instrument, thanks for the tour.
Better than saying it sounds like a helicopter, like my daughter said, and from the very first vibrating note he hit which didn't even start from the extra notes. Sounded terrible to me.
5:15 I would say _this_ is the most important thing about those extra notes. The even wouldn't need the keys to play them, they just could _be_ there, like the base strings on the chitarrone.
I've only seen ONE piano like this. It was in Carrollton, GA where a choral group that I was in were performing a Christmas special. That piano was MASSIVE! It was shiny black & the keys felt like GLASS . . . It was SO beautiful!!!
Interesting!! I hadn’t an idea there’s even one piano with more notes! Your presentation was informative with clear delivery and enthusiasm. I like your thought that the extra notes’ vibrations give our basic lower 88 a deeper and fuller sound. Thank you for posting this!
Your technique of playing each note "excited" the strings well without imparting harshness or heaviness. Good on you. The extras are black (or covered with a black flap) to avoid disorienting with low leaps. Damper- pedal use activates the sympathetic vibration with added strings fanned out across the overstrung frame.
Tori Amos plays Bosendorfer pianos in her concerts, although I don't know if any of them are the Imperial model. (I've seen her use both the concert grand and baby grand versions.) I've always loved the "growl" at the low end that comes out of these. I don't know if she actually uses those lower notes, or just loves the sounds that these beasts create. If you want to hear some good Bosendorfer music, all of her albums are great, but "Boys for Pele" has the best recordings and the widest variety of styles of music you'll find on any CD. Some parts sound like they could have been on "Sargent Pepper," while in another song she basically channels Led Zeppelin on a harpsichord. Throw in some bluesy New Orleans jazz and a soft 70's ballad and you START to get an idea of what there is to explore. Enjoy!
AWESOME!!! I could discern each of the extra octave's notes. they each had their own "personality." what a truly grand instrument, it needs a word grander than grand to describe it.
The Bosendorfer line of pianos have a sound that is quite unique, and very special. A great Bosendorfer piano is something that deserves a great deal of respect.
Watch some of James's other videos. There is a Fazioli f308 in the same room sitting next to this Bosendorfer 290 imperial. They are both awesome pianos.
My 1st year at Chicago Conservatory, it was recommended for 'out of City' students to stay at the Downtown 'YMCA' Building, until one was well acquainted with the layout of the city; there was a Bosendorfer Imperial Piano in the reading lounge- incredible! Loved practicing on this magnificent instrument when the room was practically empty.
Its amazing to me, really rather astounding, that so often the obvious is missed for the sake of theory. Its extremely clear that the low sound is not chaotic but not a pitch ether, those low notes produce obvious fast tempos, C0 is around 16HZ, a person can manually tap a table top at 8HZ and both sides of a container at 16 HZ, the same frequency as the piano string! Drummers bounce sticks to play at these speeds all the time, and much faster as well. Low fundamental frequencies below 16HZ continue to be heard as even slower tempos, we can hear waves down to less than 1HZ as tempos so long as the wave form has a sharp edge. The theory that we can't hear sound frequencies below about 16HZ is false, we can, but we hear these waves as a series of transients with a tempo rather than as a series of partials with a pitch, the piano strings prove this by acting exactly like transients in a fast tempo, its a fast beat,. very very steady.
The theory is that you can't hear a sine tone below 20hz. As in the lowest fundamental tone we can hear is about 20hz. Transients are made of much higher frequencies.
We can detect that a low frequency vibration is occuring either through feeling it or by hearing higher frequency sounds that are also happening because of it. However that is not hearing it. For proof in the form of a thought experiment imagine that the piano is locked in a room with no windows and thick walls that can block out any frequency above 20hz and somehow alow frequencies below that to go through. You would not be able to tell whether the piano was being played. (of course such a wall would be impossible but a piano would never be loud enough in low frequencies to penetrate a wall that could stop everything else.) In fact the fundamental frequencies of those notes are probably so low in volume that effectively they are not there to be heard in the first place.
Transients are made up of many frequencies, if you perform a Fourier Transform on a the transient of a signal you get a spectrum of frequency’s with varying power centred around some fundamental frequency. A square wave for instance is made up of an infinite number of sine waves all at odd frequencies (2n - 1)f0
As an organist as well as keyboard player and pianist I fully appreciate the extra bass notes. Great to see an Aussie company (we are Australians too) experimenting with extra bass and treble notes too. All adds to your own personal expressions through improvisation / composition.
James--when I was stationed in Japan in the early 2000s, I had the good fortune to be able to play on three different Imperials while on tour with the USAF Band of the Pacific-Asia. The name of the group was "Pacific Showcase" and it was a big band playing classic big band jazz and some of the modern stuff. The opportunities I had to play were spread out over about a two-year time frame and were in three totally different towns. The Japanese were absolutely scrupulous about maintaining their concert halls and the pianos in them. I once asked a Japanese tuner how he tuned one of these. He told me that he would depress a triad of keys in the area of middle C on the piano and then strike one of the low notes briefly. If all three notes in the triad sounded sympathetically, then he knew he had tuned the string correctly. Thus, he would do it for every string on every key in the extended low range, starting with the low C. I watched him do it, and yes, this really worked. It was fascinating to watch. Additionally, I found the low range very useful in a jazz big band setting. There are many times in that type of ensemble when the piano is used as a doubling instrument for it's tone color---either in the very low bass or the high treble. A lot of orchestra composers do this. There's a "ping" or a "bight", if you will, to the high treble that adds a very nice color to the higher trumpet lines (or string or woodwind lines in the case of an orchestra), and a real nice cutting "boom" that the lower register of a normal piano adds to the bass, bass trombone, and/or bari sax (or basses, bassoons, tuba, etc., in an orchestra). Add the extra octave on the Bosendorfer, and BOOM!----you've got some really deep bottom end color indeed. We were playing the West Side Story arrangement from the Buddy Rich Orchestra book, and that extra bass range sounded great in the right spots. It was a blast to play! One other thing about those pianos. The instrument is so much bigger than even a good Steinway D (which is my preferred instrument in a concert setting) that I'd have to work out on it for about an hour just to get used to the difference in feel, resistance, and sheer size ergonomics of the 8-octave Bosendorfer. I was always a little wiped out after a show with one of those, but it was an experience not to be missed. Thanks for posting this video. Respectfully, PMH
I wish I had one tenth of your knowledge and talent concerning pianos and classical music! I remember years ago there were a series of recordings made using a Welte push up player on an Imperial Concert Grand. They used a room with a long slot in one of the walls. So the piano and the player were in two different rooms to eliminate the mechanical noise of the Welte player. The results were wonderful. Keep up the great work!
Thanks, James. I especially liked your explanation at the end about how the extra strings may be boosting the regular bass strings thus making the overall bass sound richer and fuller. Though in no way do I have your expertise, I always wondered about that extra "something" I'd hear in the lower range in the B. Imperial versus a comparable Steinway. This, I think, said it perfectly.
I could Imagine using the lowest strings as "sympathetic resonators" by pressing them silently and securing them with the Sostenuto pedal. Then i can use the full range of the piano and still have the resonance effect
I've enjoyed your piano quest, James. I've briefly played 2 of these in stores. Wow. What a technician said that makes sense to me is: Forget about playing the low notes in most music. Play as you do normally, and realize... The extra width of the plate serves to remove A,Bb and B0 from being the last strings at the extreme end of the scale. That insult is born by the extra and mostly unused notes. A~B0 are now moved interior and stresses become more like the other normal bass notes. You do get additional sympathetic string resonance from the extra low strings, a benefit I think. A greater benefit may be in the consistency of the fundamental and overtone series now produced by the "moved interior" A~B0 and a few notes north of those, too. I'll guess the tuning stability of A0~C1 is also improved by being moved away from the pinblock end. What of the treble? The same benefits might apply there. The last few treble notes are very plinky on many pianos, and I bet a few more notes to E8 would really benefit G7~C8.
Nicely done. You might mention those extra keys are all colored black, so as not to disorient pianists. Acoustically, most piano's A0 string is at end of bass bridge - which is very close to the edge of case - where the soundboard has little flex available. This means the rigid area of the SB at A0 on most pianos does not allow good vibration (which affects tone). By adding extra notes below A0, it now sits farther away from the case, moved sequentially up the bridge, and in an area where the SB vibrates more freely. This is especially true of the Imperial. The added notes (strings, bridge length etc...) also mean the overall SB dimensions are larger to accommodate - which translates into tone. Finally, with the dampers off the strings (sustain pedal) all those super long bass strings add rich layers of sympathetic ringing.
...OK - AND - #OVERSTOOD - JUST USE - WITH THE F CLEFF - WOULD TAKE UP THREE (3) GROUPS OF LINES - RANGING FROM THE LEFT OF MIDDLE C... - ETC... - I LIKE IT - I LIKE IT A LOT - EXCITED ACTUALLY - SO JUST LIKE IT'S COUNTER PART THE G CLEFF - WOULD HAVE A - #MIRRORED IMAGE - SO TO SPEAK...
@@RWBHere I think the following works better: A waltz in A flat starts the neighbors in flat B complaining. (Can you explain the second joke? Sorry, I didn't get it.)
I played one once, and I am glad you played the basses quietly- I found that they are most effective played that way. I am also an organist and organ builder, so 32' stops are very familiar to me!
The problem with the low notes is that basically the fundamental frequency is missing. So that is managed by our cochlea that is sensible to the difference of harmonics (spacing). For example A0=f1 is 27.5 Hz. Check with a spectrum analyser, you won't find it. But you'll find 2f1 (low in anyway), 3f1, 4f1 and so on. Now if you do 4f1-3f1 or 3f1-2f1 all will give f1=27.5 Hz that is the missing fundamental.
Project Overturn aka RareBeeph use a fft, even with a smartphone, and check yourself. This is also explained in "Physics of the piano" by Nicholas Giordano.
The wavelength of sound becomes a problem at lower frequencies for any instrument with a sounding board. In an organ, a 64 foot rank, for example, is that in which the lower C requires an open pipe resonator length of 64 feet. (Closed pipes resonate at half the wavelength.) That's big. In domestic upright pianos, the sounding board cannot be made large enough to resonate efficiently at the fundamentals of the lower notes, and might be only 6 feet or so between the furthest extremities, so the predominant sounds heard from those strings which are equivalent to pipes bigger than about 6 feet in size will be the second and higher harmonics, so the octave is often the strongest sound, but in a really poor piano, the second octave might be dominant. The fundamentals are still there, because the strings are resonating at those frequencies, but they are comparatively weak. The bigger the piano, then generally speaking, the better the lower notes sound. That's why concert grands are so big. There are spectrogram samples online of various types of piano which illustrate the relative strengths of the lower notes of various types of pianos. In some of them, it becomes impossible to actually hear the fundamentals in the lower notes, because the harmonics are so much more powerful. The untrained ear and brain hear the most significant sounds, and can filter out the rest. That phenomenon is why mp3 and aac compression can be used without most people complaining. It's used in all TH-cam videos, btw, so you'll never hear good instrumental sounds properly on here. Incidentally, efficient resonance of the sounding board, etc, in a piano can be a problem for the higher notes too. That's one of the reasons why a cheap piano can also sound weak and decay very quickly at the upper end of its gamma.
persuadersonic Well put Tuning and scale design are a compromise to best fit those harmonic stacks that cochlea and brain so keenly respond to patterns within But while imperfect, the finest pianos minimize the misfit between harmonics and make a truely large powerful and clean piano less a compromise and a joy to tune as the many intervals used to cross heck fit so readily And like other acoustics, The best are delicious to feel With the bass running up the hairs standing on the back of your neck in person
I always wondered if there were pianos like this and there are. Sometimes when I play on an 88 key piano, I find myself running out of keys either end. It sound rediculous but it’s true, to know these exist really makes me wanna be able to play one someday
Roberts Pianos The Bosendorfer piano you sold has 92 notes, so it would be either a model 225 or a 275. I am the owner of the 290 imperial grand in this video. The big Bosendorfer grand pianos are wonderful instruments.
Great video - very interesting and informative! Funny enough, I happen to be playing a piece that does require an extra base note - Ravel's Miroirs (3 - Une Barque sur l'Ocean). A repeating phrase in the left hand requires a G# just below the normal piano's range, so an A is played instead to approximate (it's mostly there for effect of having resonance in the base range, and so doesn't need to be exact). It would be great to hear it played on a Bosendorfer Imperial. Even besides the extra note, the base sound is just so much richer than most other pianos. Once again, thanks for the great content!
Well done, James. Very informative and accurate. I once played the Bosendorfer model 225 which goes down to low F. The piece was The Heavens are Telling by Haydn from The Creation, for choir, and ended with low A flat octave. I played the written notes one octave lower! I don't know if anyone noticed! Ravel, Bartok and Dohnanyi used a few of the low notes, for example Rhapsody for piano and orchestra by Bartok. There is a transcription of a Bach Chorale Prelude and Fugue in E flat, transcribed by Busoni which uses the low A flat and the low G. John Ogdon's version may be found on You Tube and fantastic it sounds.
I read about the Bosendorfer in the mid 1980's and have a CD of Carol Rosenberger playing impressionist music on it. The stated reason for adding the extra notes was to improve the sound of the low A and a few of the notes above it. Some people complained that the lowest third to fifth of the bottom octave of most pianos sounds more like a "thud" than a tone. It was thought that being so close to the edge of the sound board, it lacked the ability to interact with it like the other notes above it. Extending the soundboard didn't seem to help. They thought that if they surround the low A string with all the other strings, hammers, dampers and other equipment, it would sound more consistent with the notes above it. I doubt that you can readily perceive that through computer speakers but I think the consensus was generally favorable among critics that it sounds better or at least more consistent. If you look at a spectrum analyzer of the lower notes of a piano, you will find that most of the sound energy is coming from the overtones above the fundamental frequency. The low A on a typical piano is tuned to about 27.5 Hz. If you filter out the overtones at 55 Hz, 82.5 Hz, 110 Hz, etc. you will be hard pressed to perceive 27.5 Hz from any piano. Neither the string or the sound board moves that much air.
The nominal lower limit of human hearing is 20 Hz (unlike high frequencies, these can be heard; just not as actual notes). C₀ ≈ 16 Hz. E₀ ≈ 20 Hz. A₀ ≈ 27.5 Hz. But James' point is a good one; about what those extra strings do to the sound of other, standard bass notes; also, even being unable to perceive the fundamental frequency of one of those 9 notes, its harmonics will still make it sound like some sort of "real" note. A few years ago I had the exceptional luck of sitting down at a B 290, owned by an acquaintance. I was blown away! It made my little Kimball upright sound like a toy piano. Fred
james, thank you for this very interesting video focussing on the extra keys, as videos on this topic are quite rare on youtube! i would say that (apart from the resonance effect) the extra notes should not be played in a solistic way, but rather in octaves to add some massive low end rumble, just as you do when using a 32' stop on a pipe organ. it would be silly to play that stop alone.
Hmm, in the hall of the mountain king seems like a song that could do this piano justice, a little bit of rearranging required, would be awesome to hear some growling thunder from c0 during the bass parts.
This is fantastic my friend. I love it and thank for sharing the beautiful of this video. Here I come to support your channel. Regards from California.
No this Video is to good and I wont accept it It is perfectly explained from a cool looking dude with good humor the perfect talking speed... I could go on for days and days
Yes. The purpose of the lower strings is to give color to the upper strings, making the instrument sound deeper and warmer through sympathetic harmonic motion. You don't actually play those lower notes.
Don't know how you'd go about finding it, but read years ago in The New Yorker of someone who made an incredible transcription of the coronation scene from "Boris Godunov" that can only be played on an Imperial (the extra notes stand in for the ominous sound of ringing bells proclaiming the new tsar)
Thank you for your wonderful and useful explanations, I had the chance to play on such a piano once but it's true that I never used the extra keys which by the way are opposite colors : the white keys are black and the black keys are white and this I think is to help the pianist to keep the width of the keyboard in his eyesight.
Thanx for posting this. I know have a GOOD reason for unpacking and installing my old Electrovoice Extended range(32Hz safely) bandpass cabinet. I'll be glad if my body and ears still react together and tell me the correct loudness to set it as I don't have a piano to acoustically compare volume and overtones with.
Another use for these low notes that sound muddy by themselves would be to double them at an octave above. The higher note would clarify the pitch while the lower note adds fullness/weight/heft (chose your metaphoric adjective...). We can see such compositional approaches in orchestral works with the frequent doubling of cellos and basses at an octave in the lower range (early classical era composers like Mozart often wrote a single part for both instruments), and also the doubling of first and second violins in the high soprano range, which is very common in 19th century orchestral works and adds a bright highlight to the melody that is usually heard as the lower note of the pair. Such octave doubling could be applied to high octaves on a piano that was extended in the upper range.
The progression of smiles as he goes lower and lower🙂☺️😊 🤗😁
Artem Cultura épic comment!
Sir, today you have won the internet
But there are none extra keys.
This is C n° 88: 😭
That's called a zygomatic progression
My keyboard can do that
*Uses -2 Octave on the digital panel*
Ha on my Roland RD 700 i can do -3 octaves
...and -12 transpose
@@neil7137 We're hitting levels of *really low grumble* that shouldn't be possible
You can get the same sound just transpose on a digital keyboard.and there it is.
@@emmanuelmcneil9153 True. I can probably get these lower notes by transposing on my Roland.
The extra low notes aren't really there to be played, even though they were requested by a composer for a transcription of Bach's organ works to piano and built starting in 1909. Mostly the extra keys are there because of the sympathetic string resonance that adds richness to all the notes you do play.
C zero definitely sounds like someone hitting a massive industrial wire
it sounds like a star wars blaster to me, which is pretty much how they got the sound in the first place
@@jaredsquirrels5242 not wrong at all th-cam.com/video/fl0wIdGxfbQ/w-d-xo.html
Noteblock extender
Bells to me.
Because... That's exactly what he's doing...
Ok, those extra low notes are insane!! As an organist, I can fully appreciate them.
Nikolai Harhai The piano equivalent of a Contra Bombarde?!
wow.. I thought they seem kinda useless for 99.9999% of all pianists. Am I wrong?
Still missing the -1st octave. :c
true was oragan student myself
Imagine having one of these hooked up to an organ. You'd have FOUR piano stop tabs, not just the usual 16' 8' and 4', but 32' as well!
As a piano technician, I have always been fascinated with the Bösendorfer Imperial and its extra low notes. Thanks for explaining to the general public about them.
The C-0 sounds like “The Bloop”, a mysterious unknown underwater sound picked up by NOAA in 1997. It was believed to be a giant animal but it actually turned out to be ice-calving.
then they heard the exact sound again... the bloop is alive
Well done. Your historical explanation for the extra bass keys is plausible, however there is an acoustic reason for them if you are a piano builder. Typically the lowest string at the bottom of the bass bridge on the soundboard is A0, as you state. The bottom end of any piano's bass bridge is inherently stiff and inflexible, more so than, say, F1, and so is the corresponding area of the soundboard. We are accustomed to hearing the pitch and tone of A0 in the typical concert grand piano. By adding notes (strings) lower than A0 we have made A0 no longer the lowest note on the bridge, because the bridge is longer to carry the lower notes, and the soundboard surface area is increased here, too. That duty (the lowest note) is now relegated to C0 in the case of the Bosendorfer Imperial. By doing this the bass bridge is freed up to some extent at A0, making it, in theory, airier and more powerful. The notes below A0 may or may not be musically useful, but the lowest pitches we are accustomed to hearing are improved. In other words, we have kicked the detrimental acoustical can father down the road.
BEST ANSWER
It's all about harmonics.... You don't have to play the extra keys to get the sympathetic resonation....
I was gonna say that (less erudite and technically accurate). I studied piano and my teacher talked about his Steinway and the Bosendorfer with its added keys - and the richer bass they provide. He liked rich bass tones and used bass lines in is jazz performances.
Even when the extra notes aren't used, when the dampers are raised the extra strings add a warmth to the general sound of the piano. My partner and I are lucky enough to own one and having it in the house is really quite something.
The main “advantage” you get out of these keys and strings is the fact that there is a lot more space that can be used for a larger soundboard, which adds this extra richness to the sound.
Yes!
Yes there are check out the center movement of the Bartok Sonata The middle movement calls for a low f
It calls for an F and a D flat the sixth
Thank you. You are precisely right. Larger soundboard, richer sound.
The sound board? It's just the harmonics/resonance of the strings. Right?
For anyone who is intrigued by Bosendorfer pianos, I highly recommend Tori Amos' "Boys for Pele" album. She also plays Boseys in her live concerts - the low end growls under her hands and it's fantastic. If these sounds were a color, I'd call them "Burnt Umber." Enjoy!
What has me puzzled is why a piano that expensive is in a room with 1970s wood paneling.
It was a nice sounding room, he might be starting a new trend.
jcfretts I thought the same thing !
Obviously, once you've paid for the piano, there remains no money to pay for a decent house or studio isolation :-)
because wood paneling is awesome
Hey - Don't knock it - if anyone has any spare panels I'm looking for some.
When that chord is played at 2:42, it sounds like some blood-curdling, scary-as-hell moment in a horror movie.
It would be good in a horror movie! Like Salem's Lot!!
I agree.
I'm waiting for Bach's Air on the Richter Scale.
HILARIOUS
I only logged in here to give a "thumb up" to a 2 year old comment
Richter is just 10 to 1 even to 0.001 hz
I'm convinced it is those bass strings that generate overtones, when the sustain pedal is used, even though they are never played, which in turn give additional support to all other struck strings above them, and that is the magic of the Bosendorfer. Of course the length of the soundboard is important too. They seem to have really found the right balance of piano size, lower string vibration, wood aging, layering, and dimensioning, and that's why it is my dream piano. No other piano has ever made my eyes water with its sound. Only Bosendorfer.
Did you know that there's a videogame soundtrack that has a piano duo for the final boss theme,and that one of the pianos has extended range? It is a very beautiful piece called ''Gwyn,lord of cinder"
On my Nord Stage 2 digital piano the imperial sample is the default piano sound. It also has Steinway and Yamaha sample sounds, which makes for easy comparison. The Imperial has little competition from the others when it comes to fullness in the bass register to the extent where it sometimes becomes too intense, for certain music. It's quite an extraordinary instrument, thanks for the tour.
THIS is the kind of IMPERIAL demo i always wanted to see!!!
Thank you.
I love how excited you are over a topic that, to the general public, would be boring. Your enthusiasm is contagious.
Thank you James. Indeed the Bosendorfer is the finest piano I've ever played and dream of doing a concert one day on it!!
as he played lower and lower his smile got bigger and bigger
Bosendorfer Imperial to pipe organ: "I can play very low notes"
Pipe organ to Bosendorfer Imperial: "Hold my beer"
10 string guitar with octaver and drop tuning: how nice!!!
The extra notes sound like stock music footage from a horror movie.
Better than saying it sounds like a helicopter, like my daughter said, and from the very first vibrating note he hit which didn't even start from the extra notes. Sounded terrible to me.
Reminds me of the thing in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture."
5:15 I would say _this_ is the most important thing about those extra notes. The even wouldn't need the keys to play them, they just could _be_ there, like the base strings on the chitarrone.
I really love seeing how James smiles and shows obvious passion and a love for what he is doing.
I've only seen ONE piano like this. It was in Carrollton, GA where a choral group that I was in were performing a Christmas special. That piano was MASSIVE! It was shiny black & the keys felt like GLASS . . . It was SO beautiful!!!
Interesting!! I hadn’t an idea there’s even one piano with more notes! Your presentation was informative with clear delivery and enthusiasm. I like your thought that the extra notes’ vibrations give our basic lower 88 a deeper and fuller sound. Thank you for posting this!
Your technique of playing each note "excited" the strings well without imparting harshness or heaviness. Good on you. The extras are black (or covered with a black flap) to avoid disorienting with low leaps. Damper- pedal use activates the sympathetic vibration with added strings fanned out across the overstrung frame.
Thank you so much for your videos. Your enthusiasm shines through in every one I’ve seen so far. Very enjoyable and informative!
Tori Amos plays Bosendorfer pianos in her concerts, although I don't know if any of them are the Imperial model. (I've seen her use both the concert grand and baby grand versions.) I've always loved the "growl" at the low end that comes out of these. I don't know if she actually uses those lower notes, or just loves the sounds that these beasts create.
If you want to hear some good Bosendorfer music, all of her albums are great, but "Boys for Pele" has the best recordings and the widest variety of styles of music you'll find on any CD. Some parts sound like they could have been on "Sargent Pepper," while in another song she basically channels Led Zeppelin on a harpsichord. Throw in some bluesy New Orleans jazz and a soft 70's ballad and you START to get an idea of what there is to explore.
Enjoy!
AWESOME!!! I could discern each of the extra octave's notes. they each had their own "personality." what a truly grand instrument, it needs a word grander than grand to describe it.
I think it is really great when a piano builder dares to be different, but still builds one of the worlds best pianos.
The fullness of that piano is apparent even through this video! Very cool.
These extra notes sound like a synthesizer
This is excellent James, I was lucky enough to play a Bosendorfer once, a wonderful experience!!!
The Bosendorfer line of pianos have a sound that is quite unique, and very special. A great Bosendorfer piano is something that deserves a great deal of respect.
Try playing a Fazioli.
And quite warm. Really, really really warm lol.
Watch some of James's other videos. There is a Fazioli f308 in the same room sitting next to this Bosendorfer 290 imperial. They are both awesome pianos.
ThePianoforever Can Yamaha U3 upright piano be an ultimate piano, I mean life span quality like those top notch pianos?
takes to a different dimension with those extra keys. Game me goosebumps...2:07-2:33
Incredible! Very interesting video! That jacket rocks, too.
This is one of my favorite Bosendorfers of all time, it just a really good Bosi!
My 1st year at Chicago Conservatory, it was recommended for 'out of City' students to stay at the Downtown 'YMCA' Building, until one was well acquainted with the layout of the city; there was a Bosendorfer Imperial Piano in the reading lounge- incredible! Loved practicing on this magnificent instrument when the room was practically empty.
I think James hit it correctly when he mentioned the issue of the harmonics, not necessarily the notes themselves.
Also, compression does weird things to audio - noticed this on some Aphex Twin tracks when converted to MP3, notably on the end of Windowlicker.
Its amazing to me, really rather astounding, that so often the obvious is missed for the sake of theory.
Its extremely clear that the low sound is not chaotic but not a pitch ether, those low notes produce obvious fast tempos, C0 is around 16HZ, a person can manually tap a table top at 8HZ and both sides of a container at 16 HZ, the same frequency as the piano string!
Drummers bounce sticks to play at these speeds all the time, and much faster as well. Low fundamental frequencies below 16HZ continue to be heard as even slower tempos, we can hear waves down to less than 1HZ as tempos so long as the wave form has a sharp edge.
The theory that we can't hear sound frequencies below about 16HZ is false, we can, but we hear these waves as a series of transients with a tempo rather than as a series of partials with a pitch, the piano strings prove this by acting exactly like transients in a fast tempo, its a fast beat,. very very steady.
The theory is that you can't hear a sine tone below 20hz. As in the lowest fundamental tone we can hear is about 20hz. Transients are made of much higher frequencies.
We can detect that a low frequency vibration is occuring either through feeling it or by hearing higher frequency sounds that are also happening because of it. However that is not hearing it. For proof in the form of a thought experiment imagine that the piano is locked in a room with no windows and thick walls that can block out any frequency above 20hz and somehow alow frequencies below that to go through. You would not be able to tell whether the piano was being played. (of course such a wall would be impossible but a piano would never be loud enough in low frequencies to penetrate a wall that could stop everything else.) In fact the fundamental frequencies of those notes are probably so low in volume that effectively they are not there to be heard in the first place.
Transients are made up of many frequencies, if you perform a Fourier Transform on a the transient of a signal you get a spectrum of frequency’s with varying power centred around some fundamental frequency. A square wave for instance is made up of an infinite number of sine waves all at odd frequencies (2n - 1)f0
As an organist as well as keyboard player and pianist I fully appreciate the extra bass notes. Great to see an Aussie company (we are Australians too) experimenting with extra bass and treble notes too. All adds to your own personal expressions through improvisation / composition.
The timbre of the Bosendorfer's extra low notes are surprisingly clear and articulate.
When you played that A zero ALONE, I was stunned. Incredible piano
James--when I was stationed in Japan in the early 2000s, I had the good fortune to be able to play on three different Imperials while on tour with the USAF Band of the Pacific-Asia. The name of the group was "Pacific Showcase" and it was a big band playing classic big band jazz and some of the modern stuff. The opportunities I had to play were spread out over about a two-year time frame and were in three totally different towns. The Japanese were absolutely scrupulous about maintaining their concert halls and the pianos in them. I once asked a Japanese tuner how he tuned one of these. He told me that he would depress a triad of keys in the area of middle C on the piano and then strike one of the low notes briefly. If all three notes in the triad sounded sympathetically, then he knew he had tuned the string correctly. Thus, he would do it for every string on every key in the extended low range, starting with the low C. I watched him do it, and yes, this really worked. It was fascinating to watch.
Additionally, I found the low range very useful in a jazz big band setting. There are many times in that type of ensemble when the piano is used as a doubling instrument for it's tone color---either in the very low bass or the high treble. A lot of orchestra composers do this. There's a "ping" or a "bight", if you will, to the high treble that adds a very nice color to the higher trumpet lines (or string or woodwind lines in the case of an orchestra), and a real nice cutting "boom" that the lower register of a normal piano adds to the bass, bass trombone, and/or bari sax (or basses, bassoons, tuba, etc., in an orchestra). Add the extra octave on the Bosendorfer, and BOOM!----you've got some really deep bottom end color indeed. We were playing the West Side Story arrangement from the Buddy Rich Orchestra book, and that extra bass range sounded great in the right spots. It was a blast to play! One other thing about those pianos. The instrument is so much bigger than even a good Steinway D (which is my preferred instrument in a concert setting) that I'd have to work out on it for about an hour just to get used to the difference in feel, resistance, and sheer size ergonomics of the 8-octave Bosendorfer. I was always a little wiped out after a show with one of those, but it was an experience not to be missed.
Thanks for posting this video.
Respectfully,
PMH
Do you have a link to y'all performing?
Wonderful. Smart, articulate, thoughtful young man. Thank you for that.
Excellent presentation and obvious deep knowledge. Kudos.
Cool video! Nice demonstration and explanations.
I wish I had one tenth of your knowledge and talent concerning pianos and classical music! I remember years ago there were a series of recordings made using a Welte push up player on an Imperial Concert Grand. They used a room with a long slot in one of the walls. So the piano and the player were in two different rooms to eliminate the mechanical noise of the Welte player. The results were wonderful. Keep up the great work!
Terrific explanation. I like the “added resonance “ idea. I’ll keep watching. Thanks
James, this was a great demonstration! Liked and subscribed.
Hi James, those lower notes are certainly fit for use by Hollywood movies. Thanks for sharing such an interesting video.
Regards,
Carol
Thanks, James. I especially liked your explanation at the end about how the extra strings may be boosting the regular bass strings thus making the overall bass sound richer and fuller. Though in no way do I have your expertise, I always wondered about that extra "something" I'd hear in the lower range in the B. Imperial versus a comparable Steinway. This, I think, said it perfectly.
I could Imagine using the lowest strings as "sympathetic resonators" by pressing them silently and securing them with the Sostenuto pedal. Then i can use the full range of the piano and still have the resonance effect
This I really want to hear
This is a great video. Thank you for uploading it. Very informative.
I've enjoyed your piano quest, James.
I've briefly played 2 of these in stores. Wow.
What a technician said that makes sense to me is:
Forget about playing the low notes in most music. Play as you do normally, and realize...
The extra width of the plate serves to remove A,Bb and B0 from being the last strings at the extreme end of the scale.
That insult is born by the extra and mostly unused notes.
A~B0 are now moved interior and stresses become more like the other normal bass notes.
You do get additional sympathetic string resonance from the extra low strings, a benefit I think.
A greater benefit may be in the consistency of the fundamental and overtone series now produced by the "moved interior" A~B0 and a few notes north of those, too.
I'll guess the tuning stability of A0~C1 is also improved by being moved away from the pinblock end.
What of the treble?
The same benefits might apply there.
The last few treble notes are very plinky on many pianos, and I bet a few more notes to E8 would really benefit G7~C8.
You are such a smart guy. Thank you for sharing ... learning new things is good.
Nicely done.
You might mention those extra keys are all colored black, so as not to disorient pianists.
Acoustically, most piano's A0 string is at end of bass bridge - which is very close to the edge of case - where the soundboard has little flex available. This means the rigid area of the SB at A0 on most pianos does not allow good vibration (which affects tone). By adding extra notes below A0, it now sits farther away from the case, moved sequentially up the bridge, and in an area where the SB vibrates more freely. This is especially true of the Imperial. The added notes (strings, bridge length etc...) also mean the overall SB dimensions are larger to accommodate - which translates into tone.
Finally, with the dampers off the strings (sustain pedal) all those super long bass strings add rich layers of sympathetic ringing.
...OK - AND - #OVERSTOOD - JUST USE - WITH THE F CLEFF - WOULD TAKE UP THREE (3) GROUPS OF LINES - RANGING FROM THE LEFT OF MIDDLE C... - ETC... - I LIKE IT - I LIKE IT A LOT - EXCITED ACTUALLY - SO JUST LIKE IT'S COUNTER PART THE G CLEFF - WOULD HAVE A - #MIRRORED IMAGE - SO TO SPEAK...
If you don't C sharp, then you will B flat.
Actually, if you don't find A sharp you will B flat.
A Waltz in A Flat starts the neighbours complaining.
What key do you have when an industrial elevator fails?
(Scroll down.)
A Flat Minor.
Bye!
@@RWBHere I think the following works better: A waltz in A flat starts the neighbors in flat B complaining.
(Can you explain the second joke? Sorry, I didn't get it.)
But can you Change a B natural to a B flat?
Weatherboi that comment is A Major funny one!
I played one once, and I am glad you played the basses quietly- I found that they are most effective played that way. I am also an organist and organ builder, so 32' stops are very familiar to me!
I love pipe organs too, and hope to get invited to play some really nice ones. Thank you for your comment, and for coming by as well.
Omg I love it!!! That would awesome in jazz fusion. The tonality of the bass end made me just melt.
The problem with the low notes is that basically the fundamental frequency is missing. So that is managed by our cochlea that is sensible to the difference of harmonics (spacing). For example A0=f1 is 27.5 Hz. Check with a spectrum analyser, you won't find it. But you'll find 2f1 (low in anyway), 3f1, 4f1 and so on. Now if you do 4f1-3f1 or 3f1-2f1 all will give f1=27.5 Hz that is the missing fundamental.
How would a physical instrument fail to sound the fundamental frequency?
Project Overturn aka RareBeeph use a fft, even with a smartphone, and check yourself. This is also explained in "Physics of the piano" by Nicholas Giordano.
The wavelength of sound becomes a problem at lower frequencies for any instrument with a sounding board. In an organ, a 64 foot rank, for example, is that in which the lower C requires an open pipe resonator length of 64 feet. (Closed pipes resonate at half the wavelength.) That's big. In domestic upright pianos, the sounding board cannot be made large enough to resonate efficiently at the fundamentals of the lower notes, and might be only 6 feet or so between the furthest extremities, so the predominant sounds heard from those strings which are equivalent to pipes bigger than about 6 feet in size will be the second and higher harmonics, so the octave is often the strongest sound, but in a really poor piano, the second octave might be dominant. The fundamentals are still there, because the strings are resonating at those frequencies, but they are comparatively weak. The bigger the piano, then generally speaking, the better the lower notes sound. That's why concert grands are so big.
There are spectrogram samples online of various types of piano which illustrate the relative strengths of the lower notes of various types of pianos. In some of them, it becomes impossible to actually hear the fundamentals in the lower notes, because the harmonics are so much more powerful. The untrained ear and brain hear the most significant sounds, and can filter out the rest. That phenomenon is why mp3 and aac compression can be used without most people complaining. It's used in all TH-cam videos, btw, so you'll never hear good instrumental sounds properly on here.
Incidentally, efficient resonance of the sounding board, etc, in a piano can be a problem for the higher notes too. That's one of the reasons why a cheap piano can also sound weak and decay very quickly at the upper end of its gamma.
persuadersonic Well put
Tuning and scale design are a compromise to best fit those harmonic stacks that cochlea and brain so keenly respond to patterns within
But while imperfect, the finest pianos minimize the misfit between harmonics and make a truely large powerful and clean piano less a compromise and a joy to tune as the many intervals used to cross heck fit so readily
And
like other acoustics,
The best are delicious to feel
With the bass running up the hairs standing on the back of your neck in person
Priceless for trailer music! Great work Bosendorfer!
I always wondered if there were pianos like this and there are. Sometimes when I play on an 88 key piano, I find myself running out of keys either end. It sound rediculous but it’s true, to know these exist really makes me wanna be able to play one someday
This was really cool! I had no idea such pianos existed.
I really want that piano. That has one of the best sounds ive ever heard in my opinion. The bass on that thing is simply amazing.
Thanks for this video; some extra insight which was certainly new to me. I have just sold a 92 note Bosendorfer which I love very much. Marcus
Thanks for dropping by the channel, I'm really glad you enjoyed the video! I have watched yours for a long time, you make excellent content.
Roberts Pianos The Bosendorfer piano you sold has 92 notes, so it would be either a model 225 or a 275. I am the owner of the 290 imperial grand in this video. The big Bosendorfer grand pianos are wonderful instruments.
Hi James, I enjoyed that video very much, you learn something new everyday. About 4 months into lessons and having fun.
Thank you for your positive feedback.
Great video - very interesting and informative! Funny enough, I happen to be playing a piece that does require an extra base note - Ravel's Miroirs (3 - Une Barque sur l'Ocean). A repeating phrase in the left hand requires a G# just below the normal piano's range, so an A is played instead to approximate (it's mostly there for effect of having resonance in the base range, and so doesn't need to be exact). It would be great to hear it played on a Bosendorfer Imperial. Even besides the extra note, the base sound is just so much richer than most other pianos. Once again, thanks for the great content!
Well done, James. Very informative and accurate. I once played the Bosendorfer model 225 which goes down to low F. The piece was The Heavens are Telling by Haydn from The Creation, for choir, and ended with low A flat octave. I played the written notes one octave lower! I don't know if anyone noticed! Ravel, Bartok and Dohnanyi used a few of the low notes, for example Rhapsody for piano and orchestra by Bartok. There is a transcription of a Bach Chorale Prelude and Fugue in E flat, transcribed by Busoni which uses the low A flat and the low G. John Ogdon's version may be found on You Tube and fantastic it sounds.
I read about the Bosendorfer in the mid 1980's and have a CD of Carol Rosenberger playing impressionist music on it. The stated reason for adding the extra notes was to improve the sound of the low A and a few of the notes above it. Some people complained that the lowest third to fifth of the bottom octave of most pianos sounds more like a "thud" than a tone. It was thought that being so close to the edge of the sound board, it lacked the ability to interact with it like the other notes above it. Extending the soundboard didn't seem to help. They thought that if they surround the low A string with all the other strings, hammers, dampers and other equipment, it would sound more consistent with the notes above it. I doubt that you can readily perceive that through computer speakers but I think the consensus was generally favorable among critics that it sounds better or at least more consistent.
If you look at a spectrum analyzer of the lower notes of a piano, you will find that most of the sound energy is coming from the overtones above the fundamental frequency. The low A on a typical piano is tuned to about 27.5 Hz. If you filter out the overtones at 55 Hz, 82.5 Hz, 110 Hz, etc. you will be hard pressed to perceive 27.5 Hz from any piano. Neither the string or the sound board moves that much air.
The nominal lower limit of human hearing is 20 Hz (unlike high frequencies, these can be heard; just not as actual notes). C₀ ≈ 16 Hz. E₀ ≈ 20 Hz. A₀ ≈ 27.5 Hz.
But James' point is a good one; about what those extra strings do to the sound of other, standard bass notes; also, even being unable to perceive the fundamental frequency of one of those 9 notes, its harmonics will still make it sound like some sort of "real" note.
A few years ago I had the exceptional luck of sitting down at a B 290, owned by an acquaintance. I was blown away! It made my little Kimball upright sound like a toy piano.
Fred
james, thank you for this very interesting video focussing on the extra keys, as videos on this topic are quite rare on youtube!
i would say that (apart from the resonance effect) the extra notes should not be played in a solistic way, but rather in octaves to add some massive low end rumble, just as you do when using a 32' stop on a pipe organ. it would be silly to play that stop alone.
For sure.
Hmm, in the hall of the mountain king seems like a song that could do this piano justice, a little bit of rearranging required, would be awesome to hear some growling thunder from c0 during the bass parts.
I left that jacket you are wearing on a bench in T.O. in 1988...glad you found it. Your videos rock!
I was wondering about the leather jacket
I like those sounds when they are part of a cord above.
This is fantastic my friend. I love it and thank for sharing the beautiful of this video. Here I come to support your channel. Regards from California.
I am glad you found it interesting.
With the harmony the extra notes sound epic!!
Thunderous tone! Almost like with a tremolo or vibrato effect!
I wonder what’s the octave ratio there? ~2.2?
No this Video is to good and I wont accept it
It is perfectly explained from a cool looking dude with good humor the perfect talking speed... I could go on for days and days
Sounds so brutal 🖤 I love it!
That Bosendorfer sounds AMAZING !!!
Yes. The purpose of the lower strings is to give color to the upper strings, making the instrument sound deeper and warmer through sympathetic harmonic motion. You don't actually play those lower notes.
Thank you! Beautiful instrument!
Many thanks for this review! Very interesting!
Don't know how you'd go about finding it, but read years ago in The New Yorker of someone who made an incredible transcription of the coronation scene from "Boris Godunov" that can only be played on an Imperial (the extra notes stand in for the ominous sound of ringing bells proclaiming the new tsar)
Good on you for sharing your knowledge JPS. Awesome looking piano
Very interesting, I enjoyed your presentation. I have listened to some large Pipe Organs and can relate to the Imperial. :)
Very useful information. Thank you!
4:21 This is how double basses tune too, I believe
Do a give away with that piano.
Yeah, I'll be happy to take one, for free of course..... the thing must cost as much as a house. Right? Lol
Love the growl!
Thank you for your wonderful and useful explanations, I had the chance to play on such a piano once but it's true that I never used the extra keys which by the way are opposite colors : the white keys are black and the black keys are white and this I think is to help the pianist to keep the width of the keyboard in his eyesight.
Thank you for your comment, and feedback.
Wow, bonus point for saying Bosendorfer the right way:)
Thanx for posting this. I know have a GOOD reason for unpacking and installing my old Electrovoice Extended range(32Hz safely) bandpass cabinet. I'll be glad if my body and ears still react together and tell me the correct loudness to set it as I don't have a piano to acoustically compare volume and overtones with.
I truly enjoyed watching this video. One day I will own a Bösendorfer and won't separate from him
Wow! Such a great sound!
It literally just sounds like thunder toward the end. Or more like "raw textures" than notes of sound, per se. Love it.
Another use for these low notes that sound muddy by themselves would be to double them at an octave above. The higher note would clarify the pitch while the lower note adds fullness/weight/heft (chose your metaphoric adjective...).
We can see such compositional approaches in orchestral works with the frequent doubling of cellos and basses at an octave in the lower range (early classical era composers like Mozart often wrote a single part for both instruments), and also the doubling of first and second violins in the high soprano range, which is very common in 19th century orchestral works and adds a bright highlight to the melody that is usually heard as the lower note of the pair. Such octave doubling could be applied to high octaves on a piano that was extended in the upper range.
I Can Say A Few Yrs Back-I Finally Played One... Incredible Experience🎼🎵🎶🎹🎹!!!
Love the harmonics in the very low notes. But also curious about the sound of the wall intercom.
Thanks what a brilliant young man