Apologies for what you're about to witness...
This is the (frankly insane) story of YouTuber and musician Mattias Krantz, who decided to run a little experiment involving one gorgeous grand piano, and 130 LITRES of water.
Mattias, from Sweden, is known on YouTube for his very original videos involving various musical instruments. Recent videos include shocking a piano with 1 million volts of electricity, tuning every single note to E, and restringing a piano with guitar strings.
It may sound like a disaster in waiting to us piano lovers, but the experiment actually brings about some fascinating insights.
In the video, Mattias is seen purchasing a used, very out-of-tune, Hofmann grand piano for about $2,000. He then waterproofs the piano by sanding the finish and sealing all the gaps, before applying what looks so be waterproof paint.
After giving the piano a good tune, he slowly starts adding water to the piano.
Not much happens until we reach about the 20 litre mark, and we hear a change in the sound of the piano. Not a good change. It sounds terrible.
40 litres in and the strings are completely submerged. From then on, as more water is added, the piano takes on a very muted sound with a short decay; a little better than it sounded around the 20 litre mark.
The piano unfortunately was not salvageable by the end of the video, but it was very interesting to see just how much water does affect the inner workings of a piano.
You can watch the entire 20 minute video below.