True, each piano is unique because each part has its own
features, and when put together with alal the rest of the parts, the sum makes
for a unique playing experience and sound. However, pianos overall seem pretty
much standard with grand, upright (e.g., spinet), portable and electric types.
Nevertheless, pianos have been made that are visibly unique.
Pianos have been made of crystal; Liberace’s piano was
covered in rhinestones. Upright pianos have been known to include aquarium
tanks. You can even make a piano from legos.
Speaking of toys, a Swede created a piano tutorial using Minecraft.
More professionally, Sony created the world’s smallest grand
piano that actually works. Each key is only four millimeters wide, and the
whole piano is less than a food wide.
You may have seen giant floor pianos where the players step
on the keys. (It’s more common to see very limited keyboards, known as step
piano mats, as children’s toys.)
One piano is in the shape of an open circle (think of a very
large skinny doughnut), and the pianist plays inside it.
The Schindler yacht piano is upright with foldable
keyboards.
Bed-ridden? Back in 1935 a piano was made specifically for
such individuals? Basically, the piano keyboard folded out of a cabinet, tipped
at an angle so one could play it while lying down.
When is a piano like an organ? When it has multiple pedals:
a pedal board. That feature goes back as far as to Mozart, who had his own
piano with a pedal board. He would even travel with it for his performances,
operating the pedals as easily was with his hands because he was also expert on
the organ. Hundreds of years late, in 2000, a double-decker concert grant piano
was design with an additional 37 pedals.
You may be familiar with pianos in cocktail bars. What about
a pianocktail that mixes drinks, based on the combination of notes played? Each
note has a corresponding drink, such as a wine, a spirit, a liquor, or a fruit
juice. A soda is created from a cadenza in F-sharp. Even pedals are part of the
mixology; the load pedal puts in egg flip, and the soft pedal adds ice.
And if you are interested in all-in-one musical instruments,
watch this video of a marble machine: a musical instrument using 2000 marbles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvUU8joBb1Q
