Today, Lego announced that a PLAYABLE grand piano will be available for sale starting on August 1st, 2020
A while ago, we talked with the creation and interviewed its creator Donny Chen, who lives in Melbourne, Australia.
Below is the full interview transcript:
PL: Tell us a little bit about yourself?
Donny: I’ve been learning piano since I was 4 years old, and I am now a musician, piano teacher, and piano tuner. I am Chinese, and I live in Melbourne, Australia.
PL: How did the idea of creating a LEGO player piano come about?
Donny: I get asked by my students a lot about the inner working of the piano, and that’s what gave me the idea to build a functional model: to explain how a piano works to my students.
PL. How long did it take you to make it?
Donny: It took me about two months from scratch to finish. I spend 4 weeks on the designing process, after that, I started ordering LEGO bricks from all around the world, literally around the world. After finishing the initial model, I also spend quite some time to twist and adjust it to make it better.
PL: What’s the next step now? what exactly do you need?
Donny: It is now a LEGO Idea project gathering votes to become an official LEGO set. I have 2 years and 2 months to gather 10k supports to get into the review stage, which LEGO will consider making it into an official set. The project is doing really well, it has already got 6000+ supports in just over a month’s time, needs 4000 more.
PL: What was the most difficult step in building the set?
Donny: The most challenging part was actually the fallboard. There were quite a few restrictions when I was designing it. Firstly, the length (depth) of the fallboard needed to be long enough to cover the entire keyboard section when closed, but not higher than the rest of the piano frame when opened. Secondly, the positioning of the hinge needed to be higher than all the black keys, and when open, sit right behind all of them. The third challenge was to make it removable, in order to take out the keyboard action and at the same time make it with soft-close.
PL: Does the piano actually play pitches?
Donny: Unfortunately, it is not possible to make sound due to the material of the LEGO bricks, so all you can hear are plastic brick clicking sounds. But with the working mechanism, I think it may be possible to make noise if you swap out the plastic and cloth strings with hobby strings or some other material. However, as a LEGO Idea project, I can only use LEGO elements at the moment.
PL: Why do you think it needs to be an actual LEGO product?
Donny: So everyone get the chance to own and build this LEGO piano creation. It is a great display piece. I also believe it is a very unique and fun way to teach piano students how a piano works, they will learn the mechanical aspect of the piano through the building proces
PL: What would it mean to you if it happens?
Donny: I am a big LEGO fan, It would mean a lot to have my name on an official LEGO set.
So guys, are you going to get one?
