Standing on the verge of a breakthrough
The track is a truly multi-instrumental affair. Rob and other local musicians DJ Harman of Wild Isles, Sean Ivens of All Ears Avow and Tom Haynes provided an impressive backing of guitar, bass, drums and keyboards. A host of other musicians made their contributions using cutting-edge music tech.
First Light Piano founder Sarah Nicolls played the Inside-Out Piano, her prototype for the Standing Grand, a vertical grand piano that tackles the space limitations of modern homes. The Standing Grand is easy to move around and lightweight, thanks to the contemporary engineering and materials used to build it.
Sarah’s research and development of the Standing Grand was supported by two grants from Innovate UK.
Through her own style of playing the strings as well as the keys, she invented the new piano shape, which makes every part of every string available to the performer, adding to the piano’s palette.
On the track, local musician and producer Tom Haynes played ROLI’s Seaboard controller. This is a futuristic keyboard with a soft, touch-sensitive surface that lets musicians bend, slide and shape sounds as if they were playing a string or wind instrument.