Perceptions of the Stuart & Sons Piano - PhD

​​Jazz musician and composer Kevin Hunt, completed a PhD in 2016 at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, which focused on the influences a piano like the Stuart & Sons can have on creative and performance paradigms.  Kevin's study  'Perceptions of The Stuart & Sons Piano'  involves an examination of the tonal colour of the Stuart piano sound, and it's application in composition and jazz genres.

Thesis ​Introduction Extract - by Kevin Hunt
​This research is essentially a record of my investigations and perceptions of the Stuart & Sons piano sound. Since the launch of Stuart piano No.1 in 1995, this new Australian piano design has keenly interested pianists, composers and listeners from all over the world because of its new sound. My evaluations of its tonal qualities and my compositional settings of its sound are collectively presented in this paper as a journey of practical investigation and research.

The overarching aim of this research is to demonstrate how my artistic musical objectives are informed by my research objective. More succinctly, how my engagement with the Stuart piano sound in composition and performance, is informed by my objective to describe distinctive qualities of its sound.

By recording the piano sounds and implementing processes of tonal analysis, I have detected four distinctive characteristics in the Stuart & Sons piano sound that combine to produce its unique tonal colour:
The detailed processes and theories used to measure and illustrate these characteristics are presented in chapters three and four of this paper.

The Stuart piano sound itself engendered for me the promise that an exploration of its characteristics would produce composition that could connect me musically with Australian Aboriginality. So I invited several Aboriginal musicians who were connected culturally in the Sydney region to collaborate
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  1. A slower rate of decay in the fundamental partial frequency
  2. An earlier transition into the after-sound states of string oscillation.
  3. A wider harmonic spectrum in the onset state of the sound.
  4. A more comprehensive projection of sound to 6 metres
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​Painted Piano Project


​The children of Menindee Central School near Broken Hill, NSW were part of a project initiated by Kevin Hunt to paint scenes on the shell of a piano cabinet to launch Hunt’s composition Byalla. “So much is achieved in understanding culture by listening, and music plays a vital role in this communication,” says Hunt, whose PhD focuses on the connection between ancient Indigenous music and contemporary Australian life. 

The Painted Piano  Extract - By Kevin Hunt
At the very same time the preparations for OUR MUSIC 2012 were under way, Wayne Stuart suggested that a good research opportunity was on offer for me, to go to Menindee Central school, in Western New South Wales, to supervise and musically participate in the painting of a Stuart piano! Stuart had noticed in a television documentary, that the highly regarded visual artist Mr Rick Ball was directing Indigenous art students at the Menindee Central school to produce art works of a very high standard. So Stuart offered them the project of painting shaped panels that would fit on the outside of the Stuart piano cabinet. My part in the process would be to host the Menindee school painters and musicians at the approaching OUR MUSIC day in Sydney. It was planned that this would be the first occasion the school students would see their art work actually on the piano.