Piano Design
High Speed Imaging

Stephen Birkett

Research
Piano Design
Piano Action Dynamics
Felt
High Speed Imaging
Organology
Physical Systems
Animal Growth Modelling
Environmental Systems

Teaching
Linear Algebra
Numerical Methods
Computational Mathematics
Musical Instruments

Music
Erard
Pleyel
Lipp
Marcia Hadjimarkos

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High speed videos of various piano components are provided at the links below. Right-click (or mac equivalent) on the images and download. Playback options (all downloads suggested below are free):

Windows - use Windows Media player, but you have to have ffdshow installed.

Mac OSX & Linux - use mplayer . The compression format used will NOT play in Quicktime.

Cross-platform - use the video player VLC. Note. We have found that some of the videos will not play in VLC, but this is caused by a bug in the player software, so beyond our control.

A#14 bichord standing wave initiation forte blow
2000fps
1/2000s shutter
2263 frames
1280x256pix
playback 8fps

A13 damper forte staccato blow
2000fps
1/2000s shutter
1947 frames
1280x256pix
playback 15fps

D6 damper forte staccato blow
2000fps
1/2000s shutter
2717 frames
1280x256pix
playback 30fps

C64 damper forte staccato blow

2000fps
1/2000s shutter
843 frames
1280x256pix
playback 4fps


C64 bridge forte blow

2000fps
1/2000s shutter
982 frames
1280x256pix
playback 4fps


Conventional green woven felt front punchings forte staccato blow
2000fps
1/8000s shutter
807 frames
1280x256pix
playback 10fps

Wurzen hammer felt front punchings forte staccato blow
2000fps
1/8000s shutter
838 frames
1280x256pix
playback 10fps

All videos were prepared with a Photron FASTCAM-X 1280PCI model 16K high speed digital camera. The piano used was Steinway Model 'S' #281816 Hamburg 1937 rebuild 1975.
     



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©2004 Stephen Birkett