Perceptions of the Stuart & Sons Piano Sound: Realising a creative, active vision

Abstract

This research examines the position of the Stuart & Sons piano in the three hundred year evolution of piano design. It demonstrates how the Stuart piano design is indicative of the technology of its period, the music of its period, and the place of its development. This thesis argues that the Stuart & Sons piano design implementations of the bridge agraffe and the expansion of its frequency ranges demonstrate that the new Australian instrument is of its time and place. Its use of 21st century technological advancements in steel wire drawing and its production of a distinctively new sound aesthetic which appeals to Australian contemporary music composition are indicative of a piano design of this period. The experimental ideas of the 19th century piano designers Henri Pape, John Broadwood and Sebastian Erard have been taken up by Stuart to expand the piano’s frequency range to the widest in the history of the piano, from 16Hz to 5587.65 Hz with a proposed extension of 6 higher notes to 7901.72 Hz. This proposed extension achieves a 108 note keyboard compass and eight full octaves for each pitch of the chromatic scale. The thesis examines Wayne Stuart’s claims that today’s modern piano design, standardized in the late 19th century, represents a pause in the evolution of piano design that has not adapted to the changes in musical style and technology of the 20th century, whereas the Stuart design supports the vertical emphasis in sound production implemented by the impressionist, contemporary & electronic music composers of the 20th century. This research compares the sound of the modern piano with the Stuart piano sound to demonstrate the differences of the Stuart’s vertically enhanced harmonic characteristics and its increased capacity to project a comprehensive tonal spectrum over a longer distance. How audiences decipher the differences found by this research, in the sounds of the Stuart and modern pianos is tested in a series of audience-survey concerts. Verbal attributes used to describe piano sound quality are complied into glossaries and used in survey questions. Australian aspects of the Stuart piano are described and associated with the oblique connection that exits between contemporary Australian music composition and Australian Aboriginal art forms. Compositions for the Stuart piano are devised from perceptions of the Stuart piano sound established by this research. The compositions reflect social aspects of Australian society and enable a musical activity and response to the urgent need for cross-cultural collaborations in the arts-education sector between Indigenous and non-Indigenous systems of education.