Entertainment reporter, L.A. Times
According to Azoff Management, David Archuleta will tour Asia and the United Kingdom with a left-handed piano, one of the first of its kind.
The piano is made by Cristofori, the Italian makers of the first modern piano. The treble register begins at the left-hand side and ends with the bass register at the right, a perfect construction for a left-handed player like Archuleta. Since it is a fortepiano, it is light enough to be transported easily.
Built with solid wood frames, two strings per note, and Honduran leather-covered hammers, the piano’s keys are the opposite coloring of most modern-day pianos: the natural keys are black and the accidental keys are white.
The extended keyboard has 97 keys instead of the usual 88, enabling the pianist to increase range and harmonics. To avoid visual distraction, the extra keys can be covered by closing a small hinged lid over them. Because these keys vibrate sympathetically with other strings whenever the damper pedal is depressed, they produce a richer, fuller tone well suited to Archuleta’s blues-infused pop vocals.
For several weeks Archuleta has been rehearsing on the new piano, studying the Mayorgan left-handed technique. Musical scores and keyboard fingering do not change; the only change is that the treble clef is played with the left hand. For this reason, the piano will be placed on the stage so that Archuleta’s left hand — and the piano’s lid — face the audience. Archuleta will enter from stage left.
Jive Records tells Recording Artists magazine that tour promoters are excited about this unique opportunity to showcase Archuleta’s piano-playing as well as his hit-making vocal talent.
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Tags: left-handed · piano · tour
Filed in: music|news|performances
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Ahahaha!!!!
Ahahaha! Sill laughing here, Minna! You got me good!!!
Sorry I didn’t get in here yesterday when it really was April Fools Day!!!
Now I’m going to go find my dunce cap!
Cathy, another feature of the left-handed piano will make tour promoters very happy. The piano has a GPS device built-in. Jive hopes it will help reduce travel costs by maintaining a constant leftward flight pattern. The tour jet will fly from Utah to the Left Coast, continue on to Asia, then to the U.K, and finally back to Utah.
It is always cheaper to fly in one direction. An added bonus is at the end of the tour, David will be able to claim that he has been ‘around the world’ in less than 30 days.
I think this is great! It sounds so authentic that you could have easily fooled me. Luckily I saw this post on the 2nd. 😀
Four days past April Fools and you still got me!
Well, shoot it’s day 7 after April Fool’s and I’m still wondering about this. How did come up with this if it isn’t so?????????????
Wow, Minna – great article! I hope you don’t mind if I copy it and send it to SnarkyArchies. I think this is the neatest thing I’ve heard about David playing any instrument!
oh, April Fools was years ago – Hahahahaha!!!!
No, I didn’t figure it out till later – but I didn’t send it to anyone either!!! Thank goodness – still laughing!
go on and send it to the Snarkies and let’s sit back and wait to see how long it takes those clever girls to figure it out! haha!
Minja, I thought this article was so clever that I wanted to share with other Archuleta fans, so, I posted it on idol forums. I hope you don’t mind. Since I did this on April 2nd, I told them it was an April fools story.
http://idolforums.com/index.php?showtopic=601144