Da Vinci's Piano-Cello

[Uncle Al]

Listen to Da Vinci's Genius Piano-Cello Played for the Very First Time

Da Vinci' designed this 500+ years ago but it wasn't constructed until the last 5 years.

The viola organista was invented by da Vinci with characteristics of a
harpsichord, an organ and a cello. In the place of a piano's felt hammers,
spinning wheels draw across the strings like a violinist's bow. The player
operates a foot pedal to spin the wheels, playing notes on a keyboard
identical to a piano's. But the sound, sinewy like a stringed instrument
but with a piano's direct, well-defined tones, defies comparison to
traditional instruments.

Uncle Al

[crfriend]

Good stuff! Nice find, Al.

[Tor]

Great find. I've passed it on to a few others. An elegant solution to the attack of a piano that in some spaces borders on bothersome to my ears.

Thanks for posting that one. One of a relatively few videos I actually bothered to watch - and I'm glad I watched that one.

[Sarongman]

In some ways, a Hurdy-Gurdy on a grand scale, but then it, by far, transcends that instrument in so many ways. I love it, now off to the workshop