
Leonardo Da Vinci's piano heard for the first time after 500 years - ballard
http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/music/leonardo-da-vincis-wacky-piano-is-heard-for-the-first-time-after-500-years-20131118-2xpqs.html
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benologist
Direct link instead of 3rd-generation rewrite:

[http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/music/leonardo-da-
vin...](http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/music/leonardo-da-vincis-wacky-
piano-is-heard-for-the-first-time-after-500-years-20131118-2xpqs.html)

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vojant
According to wikipedia it is not first reconstruction of "viola organista’’.

"Akio Obuchi built several instruments as early as 1993.[1] In 2004, a modern
reconstruction of the viola organista by Akio Obuchi was used in a concert in
Genoa, Italy . In 2013, Sławomir Zubrzycki constructed and performed on his
own viola organista[2] at the Academy of Music in Kraków."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_organista](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_organista)

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gpvos
As soon as 100 years after Da Vinci, one was built in Nuremberg.

[http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/11/viola-
organista/](http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/11/viola-organista/)

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kordless
I guess you could say Da Vinci was a true resonance man.

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Zenst
Interesting sound, a bit of a cross between a oboe and harpsichord with an air
of church organ about it.

I do feel though this type of sound is more adapt towards lighter, slower
tempo music and may not be played in its element in the video along with the
article. I could very much imagine it being fantastic compliment music wise
for stage shows and given the time and period this was conceieved, then too me
that makes perfect sense. Perhaps if you got an electric guitar and went back
500 years and played music of the time and period then the aspect that certain
instuments lend themselfs much easier too certain music types and styles and
tempo would stand out more.

I do though often wonder how Da Vinchi would of got on with a patent system of
out times and the endless media distractions, still think of the fun he would
have with a 3D printer and in part many great inventions of past time never
came about thru cost, time and in most cases technology of the time. This on
the other hand does not appear to be a tecnology based limitation and would
appear to be something that may of been made and past into anominimity beyond
the blueprints per say. Though we do not know beyond "The effect is a sound
that da Vinci dreamt of, but never heard; there are no historical records
suggesting he or anyone else of his time built the instrument he designed.".
Certainly would appear to be a commision based design and something that would
be less elaborate than most and completely viable for the time to construct
and with that I'm inclined to believe he did hear it, even if it was only in
his head.

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amagumori
it's very very cool, but i'm gonna be honest, i just want to pick it apart. as
a string musician of many years, it sounds to me like a shitty viola that can
play more notes at once. no offense to ol' da vinci.. but i think it could be
improved. i say this because a huge amount of the skill in playing a bowed
instrument is controlling changes of bow direction and the beginnings of
bowings. if you aren't skilled enough, your bow transitions and beginnings are
jarring, rather than the liquid sound of a skilled string player.

the reason this machine sounds so bad to me is that its design removes a lot
of the variables that are important for nuanced tone quality. bowed
instruments simply have a lot more variables involved than struck instruments
such as pianos or harpsichords. in a violin, viola, or cello, the bow has
uneven tension along its length, allowing for many different articulations -
it also means that when you start the bowstroke at the top or bottom of the
bow, the hair tension is higher at those points. so, given an even downward
bow pressure, the start of the stroke at either end of the bow has less
friction and therefore less volume than the higher-friction middle, creating a
naturally smooth attack as you draw the bow. this says nothing of the ability
of the musician to change the bow pressure along the bowstroke, another
variable.

the viola organista, on the other hand, presses a metal string to a rotating
bow of even tension with constant force. since the string and bow are both
evenly tense along their length in this design, there is no possibility of
controlling the attack and release of a note, giving a binary, on/off, jerky
sound with less continuity between notes.

but theres even more to this. a traditional bowed instrument not only has
uneven tension in the X-axis (the bow axis), but also has uneven tension in
the string axis. violins, violas, and cellos all have a bridge. the bridge not
only transmits the vibration to the soundboard, it creates a tension
differential just like the bow. but the resonant property of the bridge means
that the string tension corresponds to resonance. the closer you bow to the
bridge, the louder, fuller, and more resonant the tone. but also, the closer
you bow to the bridge, the less the tension of the string is affected by the
downward bow pressure (since the string is higher tension). so, bowing closer
to the bridge, the resonance is large and doesn't change very much with
differing bow pressure, while bowing further away from the bridge, the
resonance is relatively less but is also affected more by bow pressure (since
the string is less tense, so increased downward pressure by the bow pushes the
string down and raises its tension).

the point of all this shit is to say that traditional bowed string instruments
are incredibly complex dynamic systems and a lot of their dynamism has been
thrown away in this design, yielding something that offers less tonal control
with no tangible benefits beyond being able to bow more strings at once. sorry
da vinci.

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baddox
I think you're looking at this the wrong way. I don't think anyone involved in
this thing, from da Vinci, to the modern builders, to the performer, to the
audience, thinks for one iota that the purpose or destiny of this machine is
to replace or diminish string musicians to any extent.

I see this as an exercise in technology and history, and a celebration of what
was certainly an innovative idea in da Vinci's time. Really, it makes more
sense to think of the viola organista as a synthesizer or a sampler, invented
centuries before the modern electric and electronic incarnations.

On the more practical side, before synthesizers and samplers, this would
probably have been a ground-breaking tool for composers. To be able to play
and hear rough arrangements of string pieces (again, not to replace string
musicians, but rather to easily hear a much closer approximation than any
contemporary keyboard instrument could produce) would no doubt have been
amazing for composers in that period.

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fragsworth
It has plenty of room to be perfected and I see no reason to discard the
possibility that it could become a legitimate instrument in a concert hall.

There are plenty of possible variables in how you play it - the sharpness,
speed and strength of hitting keys... the rate at which you spin the bow...
and damping. It might be considered more complex than a piano.

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marquis
It's a beautiful instrument for what it is, but absolutely not as much
diversity or complexity as a piano. You can hear the entire music is at almost
a single volume, more like a pump organ. The reverb you hear is from the room.
I think it's an interesting and new way to hear Marais (which for me was the
most successful of the pieces) but it's a period piece, the same way the
harpsichord never made much past the 18th century.

note: Actually interesting to read the Youtube comments on this.

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csmuk
Would love some samples from this so I can stick them in my Korg Triton.

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ecocentrik
I have a few issues with the claims or omissions made regarding this
instrument. The piano forte wasn't invented until the 18th century. A few
people have already mentioned that the hurdy-gurdy is very similar in function
to this instrument. This instrument looks like four hurdy-gurdies stacked for
an extended octal range stuck inside a piano enclosure. So what exactly was Da
Vinci's contribution to this instrument and how much of Da Vinci's design was
"augmented" by the builders?

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ballard
Would like to see it closer up in construction and operation.

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eksith
It's called a "Viola Organista"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_organista](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viola_organista)

Precious little detail on the construction and the only website of a builder
seems to be down intermittently.
[https://web.archive.org/web/20121031145914/http://obuchi.mus...](https://web.archive.org/web/20121031145914/http://obuchi.music.coocan.jp/index-e.htm)

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xerophtye
This is pretty amazing stuff! Makes me wonder what else is written in that
Codex Atlanticus. Anyone got a link to a digital version of the original
manuscript?

PS: Yes, the word "Codex" especially in conjuction with Da Vinci reminds me of
Assassin's Creed

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fallingOff
Does anyone know how long use of this instrument persisted? Wikipedia says
that a similar instrument was built in 1575.

I expected to hear period pieces, but instead the performer played Baroque and
Classical era music.

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ffk
The wording of the article suggests it has never been played to an audience
until this year. I suspect it was never built until now.

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mgnn
According to this interview:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOrn_z9m9lU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOrn_z9m9lU)

There were several old builds of the instrument, but they were all lost one
way or another.

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kzrdude
Thanks! A much better video since you can see partly how the instrument works.
I like his decoration of the instrument, including the text and year in latin;
I guess he is planning for this reconstruction to survive the centuries where
the others didn't.

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rumcajz
The principle seems similar to organistrum:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurdy_gurdy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurdy_gurdy)

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tbarbugli
sounds like shit!

