The Moon Shard

The Moon Shard was an attempt to build something like an Array Mbira, from a laser cut steel comb.

(Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

It was a complete failure for several reasons:

The steel I chose (1.4301) was too soft and thin, since I intended to bend the ends of the tines for softer touch I made them longer than calculated, and the frame construction was flawed too.

For some years the combs (I had cut two, one for give away) lay in some corner, unused.

Until one day in 2024 I rediscovered it, sampled it with a 5,- € contact microphone, picked a single one of the notes, resampled and bandlimited it with some Pixilang code I wrote, mapped it on the MPC One and spontanously recorded a whole album:

The unfamiliar sounds I got this way just inspired and amazed me.

This was when the idea of the Open Piano began to manifest in my mind.