I feel very fortunate to have had the experience of working with many talented and experienced professional people throughout the course of this research project. It has been wonderful to be free to produce intuitive and creative research about the sound of the Stuart & Sons piano, in conjunction with the expertise provided by these professional people. The whole journey has added to my total sense of what it means to be a creative working musician.

Thank you to the Albert family for making this research possible by providing the Stuart Scholarship to the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Thank you to Wayne Stuart OAM. The thrill and excitement of meeting regularly with Wayne on the premises of the Stuart & Sons factory was always a privileged experience. To work with Wayne in recording sessions, on the making of the Byal-la DVD, and in setting up the Menindee ‘Painted Piano’ project culminated in life changing experiences for me. Thanks also to Katie Stuartfor her continued assistance.

My academic supervisors Professor Anna Reid and Dr Keith Howard have managed to allow the creative process to continue throughout the entire period of this research. I greatly appreciate their guidance, experience, advice, patience and encouragement. Thank you also to Dr Helen Mitchell for her preparatory and ethical assistance.

Thank you to the audio technicians involved in this project, Yao Wang, John Bassett, Phil Sawyers, and Jonathan Palmer. Each technician has engineered recordings and produced videos that illustrate the processes and outcomes of this research. I am also grateful for the assistance I have received from several piano technicians, Ron Overs, Vahe Sarmazian, Owen Geary, David Kinney, and Geoffrey Pollard. Special thanks also to the French piano and strings maker Stephen Paulello and technician historian Paul Corbin for their continued assistance, their contributions to the research and communications over the long distance.Thank you to Peter McMurray for his production of the Byall –la DVD and the high quality footage of the collaborative ‘Painted Piano’ project filmed on location in Menindee NSW.

Thank you to Ass. Professor Rod Cross from the school of Physics, Sydney University for enabling us to observe the vibrations of the piano soundboards as the piano sounds were being recorded.
Special thanks to Associate Professor of Statistics Peter Petocz for his tireless contributions to this paper by producing statistical patterns of evidence associated with the 384 piano sounds examined in this study.

Special thanks to electronics engineer and reproducing piano expert Peter Phillips, for constructing the electronic striker and for conducting the string vibrations tests in chapter two.