A curious thought occured to me.

I live in a small victorian house space is a premium. However the ceiling is 3 metres tall, this is bad because the heating rises up out of the area where I am sat. Which means $$$$ heating costs. Other rooms have false ceilings.

Longer strings = better right?

On a grand piano this means bigger = longer strings.

Uprights have tricks where they cross string it (excuse the lack of the proper term). To lengthen the strings.

If celings in some houses like mine are 10ft tall, then why not have an 'upright piano' which is like a 9ft grand concert piano but vertical instead of horizontal? Ok so 9ft is pretty absurd but most ceilings are at least 7ft tall..... so how come we never see more 6-7ft upright pianos?

Wouldn't that be absolutely ear bleedingly awesome?

That isn't such a crazy thought.

You mean something like this piano?



go to http://www.klavins-pianos.com/ to learn more!

I think he means like this:

Isn't this what the giraffe pianos of yore were?

not so crazy after all!

Longer strings = better ... Not agree!

There's a current piano sold using type of design - called the Mammoth or something.

Zoom in on the pic - that is a Mammoth!

I don't know how that Mammoth sounds, but it is certainly a beautiful piece of furniture.

I always say a very short baby grand is just an upright that fell over...

>If celings in some houses like mine are 10ft tall, then why not have an 'upright piano' which is like a 9ft grand concert piano but vertical instead of horizontal? Ok so 9ft is pretty absurd but most ceilings are at least 7ft tall..... so how come we never see more 6-7ft upright pianos?

Because once you get into that kind of size, the prices are equal to a grand price as well. And the actions of grands are much better than those of uprights. Also generally a grand sounds better (I think because the lid is opened on a grand but usually not on an upright and also because it's not against a wall as usual with an upright)

You can tell its an upright action. I'm wondering how much better a Fandrich designed action would sound?

Has anyone played one of these? I know that in the Golden Age of pianos, a lot of uprights were taller than the tallest ones usually built now and they called them cabinet grands. Some sounded pretty amazing, even years later. (I have owned three or four of the big ones over the last 40 years but let them all go at one time or another. I couldn't play much in those days so I bought and sold because I love pianos.) Recently I have not found any uprights that I would be happy with. I wondered how the Mammoth sounded?

I like this crazy 10pm thought...
The answer to "how come we never see more 6-7ft upright pianos?" is obviously because.....we wouldn't be able to reach all the sheet music stacked on top!