Here's a photo of what I call the soundboard. It's the spinet piano I had as a child with all the action removed. All the strings are tuned to pitches in the B flat scale with the intervals being more just than equally tempered. There are more strings tuned to single pitches than there are on a regular piano and the white cloth threaded through the bass strings is there to help me keep straight which strings are tuned together.
The original idea was to strike the strings with felt mallets to get a nice humming going and to record that sound as a wash to go behind tracks on the Mantra Mountain CD we did for Lama Tashi.
Currently it's mostly there to help me play in tune on the horn and flute. When you play the note in tune and with good tone, it sings back the note and others in the harmonic series as well, especially when some nice condenser mics are placed close to it and run through the sound system. When the Friday group meets it's a handy way for us to tune together.
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