Pianos made before the Steinway revolution are of interest today primarily to music historians, antiquarians and collectors of furniture.
Those made since have adopted the Steinway’s main features or earned a rapid obsolescence.9
The Stuart piano and the modern piano share many similar characteristics of design. The fundamental difference is how the piano strings are attached (coupled) to the bridge and soundboard. This research has established evidence that finds the manner in which the strings are coupled to the bridge influences the string vibration and subsequently the quality of the sound, the tonal colour. This evidence of the Stuart piano’s unique string vibration is illustrated and discussed in chapter two. Comprehensive evidence of the unique Stuart piano soundscape is analytically illustrated throughout chapter four. The contrasting transient tonal qualities of the Stuart & Sons and the modern piano are clearly demonstrated both visually and aurally.
In the chapter five, the research discussion is opened up for interaction with public audiences. Audience responses to survey questions about the differences in the Stuart and Steinway piano sounds are collected from a series of six audience survey concerts which presented performances on both the Stuart and Steinway pianos.Audience members were encouraged to answer survey questions about the sounds they are experiencing. The pianos used in the concerts are the same pianos tested in chapter four. The derivation of the verbal attribute terminology used in the survey questions was compiled into glossaries and presented throughout chapter five.
My perceptions of the Stuart piano sound are detailed throughout chapter six. Here I suggest how my musical background has influenced how I interpret the qualities of the sound. A glossary of sounds created on the Stuart piano is presented to illustrate how the characteristics I have identified as being distinctive of the Stuart sound are integral in creative sounds. Following this, the Indigenous influences on my concepts of composition are discussed and the collaborative compositions are presented in audio and manuscript extracts.
When I first heard the Stuart & Sons piano I aurally envisaged new Australian piano composition. Following the long gestation time of this research, I felt buoyed with the knowledge and experience of the new Australian piano sound to compose with it collaboratively. The knowledge and experience provided the impetus I needed, emboldening me to enquire how I could collaborate musically with the first peoples’ of this nation in their music practices. I subsequently used Stuart piano sounds as ‘my sound’ to collaborate musically with a collective of Australian Aboriginal musicians. The collaborations introduced me to the contemporary vibrancy and artistic depth of Aboriginal culture here in this busy cosmopolitan city of Sydney. As an outcome of these collaborations and with the assistance of Gadigal descendent and researcher, Julia Torpey Hurst, and Darug composer and educator Dr Chris Sainsbury, I instigated an educational model for Indigenous and non- Indigenous music students. Entitled OUR MUSIC, performing place, listening to Sydney, we devised the model to encourage and facilitate the creation of intercultural music collaborations. In 2012 and 2014, I produced two OUR MUSIC events at which Indigenous and non- Indigenous music students performed with the Stuart & Sons piano. Manuscripts and links to the recordings of these events are also presented in chapter six.
9CyrilEhrlich,The Piano A History(New York:Oxford University Press Revised Edition, 1990),47.
