World’s longest piano creator tells all
The world’s longest piano creator, Adrian Mann, gave a presentation at Hamilton’s Creative Waikato about his background and process of building his musical masterpiece.
Through pictures projected onto the wall, audiences were able to relive the build through seeing the exact process along with Mann’s explanations and commentary.
Mann has always been someone who is interested in how things work and is reminded by his family of his handy work growing up.
His childhood was full of wonder and discovery as his tree house had a working phone system, running water, battery power and even an elevator along with an underground tunnel.
After being introduced to piano at 10-years-old, learning how to tune a piano and piano playing lessons, Mann become interested in the mechanics of the strings in a piano wondering how long the longest one could be.
At 22 feet long, the wire produced a strange and amazing sound and it was then that Mann wanted to build a piano, the longest one in the world.
When he was 16-years-old, he begun the build in a large car garage at Timaru’s Pareora Reserve in October of 2005.
He was given some timber to start off then in small amounts more timber and tools were being donated by neighbours, family and friends.
“I kept at the project facing many ups and downs and slowly the piano came together. When the media came on board things changed and offers for donations became substantially larger,
“A string was always attached somewhere in the work space and if I would get tired I would hit the string with a hammer and the sound it made, the sound I craved, would keep me going,” Mann said.
Without a fixed design and plan, many drawings of how things would physically work and multiple trials and errors Mann worked with a successful, ‘as it goes’ approach.
The piano was completed after four years and to celebrate, The Inaugural Concert was held on 4th April 2009. Supporters and friends were invited to hear the piano, The Alexander, for the first time.
Since completion Mann has traveled with his piano to Dunedin, Oamaru, and Auckland and is now at the premises of Creative Waikato, Alexander Street, Hamilton.
“I would love to build another piano; I will set a design to follow while building and change what bugs me about this one,”
“I’ll make it an inch bigger so it can be longer than this one,” Mann said causing laughter among the audience.
