Musician Replaces the Wooden Hammers on His Piano With 88 Metal Tuning Forks

Swedish musician Mattias Krantz, who previously put the strings of his piano on his guitar and the strings of his guitar on his piano and replaced the hammers on his piano with actual hammers, decided that he wanted to find out what one of his pianos would sound like if he inserted 88 tuning forks where the hammers used to be.

If I exchange every hammer with an actual tuning fork and modify the forks to match the notes on the piano, I will have the first piano in the world that will never go out of tune.

The project turned out to be more challenging than he originally planned, but Krantz turned to Discord and YouTube to figure what was going on. It turns out it was his drill. Luckily, Krantz’s father had the equipment he needed. He was able to replace the hammers with the tuning forks and began playing. While the sound wasn’t perfect, Krantz had accomplished his mission. He did, however, make an honest observation.

This whole idea is kind of stupid now when I think about it but I also realized something else. …I realized that they get a bit worn down from hitting the strings and eventually all of the forks will get out of tune from playing and there’s no way to tune them back. So I actually made the only piano that when it goes out of tune it will never go back in tune.

Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.