A silly question about pianos

All instruments that aren't guitars (or bass guitars).
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Dave
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A silly question about pianos

Post by Dave » Fri May 30, 2008 2:34 pm

This is a bit of a ridiculous question, but I've been wondering this.

What type of piano makes that old-style cowboy saloon type of tone? It's a distinct piano tone that I don't understand since I know nothing about pianos. What is different about that type of piano which makes it sound different from others?

You can hear an example of what the hell I'm talking about in the piano solo at about 02:40 in "LA Woman" by The Doors
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Re: A silly question about pianos

Post by northern_dirt » Fri May 30, 2008 2:42 pm

Dave wrote: This is a bit of a ridiculous question, but I've been wondering this.

What type of piano makes that old-style cowboy saloon type of tone? It's a distinct piano tone that I don't understand since I know nothing about pianos. What is different about that type of piano which makes it sound different from others?

You can hear an example of what the hell I'm talking about in the piano solo at about 02:40 in "LA Woman" by The Doors
Thumb tacks on the hammers!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tack_piano
'cleanest, best pleasure'

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Re: A silly question about pianos

Post by Orang Goreng » Fri May 30, 2008 2:43 pm

I think this is what you're talking about:
Honky-tonk is usually played on an old-fashioned full-upright piano that is slightly out-of-tune and rigged to produce the familiar tinny sound. The idea is to give the impression that the piano is a relic, worn out from a lot of hard playing. Normally, such pianos are not useful musical instruments, even for honky-tonk.

Rigging follows a number of schemes, but two are the most common. First of all, honky-tonk pianos are not entirely out of tune. A honky-tonk piano is initially tuned in a conventional manner and then deliberately detuned by slightly loosening one of the two or three strings comprising each note on the keyboard. Individually, each note is then out of tune with itself, but the piano overall is in tune with the tempered scale. It is not usually desirable to detune the single bass strings.

The tinny sound is achieved by either inserting tacks in the hammer felts, or placing a piece of cloth laden with flat metal buttons or rivets between hammers and the strings. Although the tacks can be removed from the hammers, it is not advisable to do this too often as repeated insertion and removal will eventually soften the face of the hammer felt, impairing the tone of the instrument. This method is usually for pianos dedicated to honky-tonk. The riveted cloth, however, can be raised and lowered by a lever beneath the keyboard enabling the performer to honky-tonk, or not.

In either case, the tacks or rivets only extend from about an octave below middle C on up because the tone of the bass octaves is weakened by the metallic impact.
From here: http://userpages.bright.net/~walkers/pa ... twork.html
Last edited by Orang Goreng on Fri May 30, 2008 2:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: A silly question about pianos

Post by ugly casanova » Sat May 31, 2008 3:58 pm

that's how we do it! yeeehaaww!! *bang, bang*

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Re: A silly question about pianos

Post by StevenO » Sat May 31, 2008 4:02 pm

Jon Brion used some Tack Piano on the Punch Drunk Love soundtrack:
http://www.last.fm/music/Jon+Brion/_/Punchy+Tack+Piano

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