Why I Love Upright Pianos

This upright has this special mechanism... and taught me about the beauty of imperfection and embracing a lack of clarity...

Video produced and edited by Nahre Sol

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As always, thank you so much for watching, and thank you to all of you that leave comments.

[IIIJames]

I absolutely adore the muted sound of the upright. Feels like a home cooked meal, you know it's not gourmet food and it's not the most refined but it gives you a hugging feeling.

[DBruce]

Video, music, art and documentary - a perfect gesamtkunstwerk (-:

[kazuhasgloves]

man, I haven't heard anything this beautiful and calming before. I love it.

[genepozniak]

Restless uncertainty
A blurred sense of disappointment
Quiet heartache
And a sense of searching
With just enough optimism:
Cloudy emotions produce a muted rain
Of magical imperfect notes. ❣

[MateusVerde]

Makes me feel like I'm laying down holding someone I deeply care about in the late afternoon. It's raining outside.
Thank you for giving your music to the world. What a beautiful thing. Brought tears to my eyes.

[gunnarolbrand]

I'm a pretty emotionally stable person, as in, I don't tear up much. But the sound of a piano, beautifully played, seems to be the key to my (bottled up?) emotions. Always brings a tear to my eye within seconds... Beautiful composition.

[ivanfaigenbom]

Videos like this only reaffirm that you are one of my favorites, not only youtubers, but also musicians and composers. Love your style and the way to narrate your art craft process.

[ZhilBear]

imagine if we had videos like this to explain pieces by older composers, it's such a perfect sidenote to a piece of music

[OfficialStevenCravis]

It definitely works the way you mic’d the piano, Nahr. After many years of releasing acoustic piano albums, some structured and some improvised, I recently released felted piano recordings with more mechanical noises.
I received feedback from some long time (clear piano) fans that they don’t like hearing ‘noises’ in the recordings, however the felted piano recordings got a lot more monthly listens than past releases. I personally love the ‘Murky Fingers’ sound even though it doesn’t resonate (no pun intended) with all piano music fans.

[NicholasStein]

I was reminded of some of Debussy's quieter pieces that kind of float like Expressionist paintings. You nailed it with the pointillism analogy. I enjoyed the chord extension. They added a lot of color.

I am at the risk of sending you down the audio engineering rabbit hole...but...

In answer to your instrument noise, you could use more than one mic. For example, mic one with instrument noise and one without. They go into separate tracks and you can change the "balance" between them in mixdown.

Audio engineers will often use multiple microphones. With electric guitar they put one in the center of the speaker to get the cone sound, a second back from the cabinet to get the cabinet sound, and a third to pick up the ambient room sound. These could also be mixed with direct input sound or with a piezo electric pickup. The guitar goes into a direct input box, which goes into your interface. One can then add effects such as distortion, chorus, reverb in your digital audio workstation.

These positions are, of course, translated to positions relative to the sound hole in acoustic guitar. The acoustic guitar could also have a magnetic or piezo pickup built into the guitar which get a different sound than coming from the sound hole. There could even be a tiny mic inside the body of the guitar.

Drums are even crazier.


Your creativity and collaborations are always interesting and refreshing. Why not collaborate with an audio engineer or DAW expert like Sangah Noona or Meyer Street Records or slpianoproject.

[Олег-юй]

Nahre, you are a real treasure and a blessing to this world. Thank you for all the things you're sharing with us in your videos. I'm so greateful to you for all that I've learned from your videos. God bless and protect you and your family.
Much love from Ukraine

[DhyanMadathil]

I think all of us would be forever grateful if you sampled and released this absolute magic. Love this sound.

[wellurban]

Really lovely! Nils Frahm released an album about 10 years ago called “Felt”, which was entirely recorded on muted piano, and since then I’ve always loved that intimate, tentative sound. I like your explanation about how chords become less functional and more ambiguous as you add more extensions, and it really suits the nebulous sound and mood of this piece.

[skane]

Nahre Sol, you represent the best of what YouTube is. It’s the alchemy of your music, language, artistic discovery, vulnerability and charisma that together draws us in and holds us in your sweet amber. Thanks for all your posts. 💐

[matthewnell]

4:02 - “Unbroken Clouds”

Beautiful composition. Constant figuration in the right hand with occasional pointed comments from the left. You can often hear fragments of the left hand melody repeat shortly afterwards like echoes. The muted timbre, colorful harmonies, and ambiguous rhythm make the work dreamy and alluring.

[kilps]

I loved this. Growing up, I was always made to play with the dampening felt thing so that I wasn't annoying everyone else in the house so much. Seeing you embrace it brings a whole new perspective I hadn't even considered before.

[nicolasbautista]

The felt gives the sound an otherworldly vibe… loved your piece!! Notes shimmering like light through clouds ⛅️ keep up the good work! Just like bad thoughts, all clouds move and light will come :)

[InfiniteAO]

Nahre's beautiful soul, seen in every video, heard in every word, felt in every note she plays... You are inspiring and your art is life-affirming, thank you for bringing light to the world ❤️

[marcpatersn]

Your description of your emotions so accurately reflected how I've been feeling lately it's spooky. Love the music 💖

[Chaoriz]

Those emotions come and go for me, every now and then they're harder to ignore. Depending on the day, music like this also hits me so hard. An artist that does something similar is Hania Rani. Songs like "Home", "Tennen", and "Letter to Glass", have these repetitive and contemplative sounds that just hit. It also helps that she uses her voice sparsely throughout so it has so much more of an impact. Another is GoGo Penguin, they also do this sometimes but they tend to explore jazzier sounds. Their song "Window" has been my absolute favorite for over 3 years now. And of course Olafur Arnalds, his textures are perfect to melt away in.
As for the mechanical sound in pianos, I would recommend experimenting with multiband compressors. Since that sound is mostly the same in the frequency range, you can zero in on it and reduce it without compromising everything else, mostly. Depends how you use it of course.
Wonderful video btw!