Tendens
A portable concert instrument developed to deliver maximum musical authority, clarity, and control — without the compromises of traditional concert grands.
The Instrument
A New Category of Concert Piano
Tendens is a ballistic concert piano — a true member of the piano family, not a digital surrogate and not a traditional grand.
Tendens is a portable concert instrument that does not fit existing categories. Where digital instruments reduce playing to abstract control data, and traditional concert grands depend on massive mechanical inertia, Tendens restores the direct physical relationship between pianist and sound — without the weight, fragility, and constraints of 19th-century instruments.
Ballistic Response, Not Velocity Playback
Traditional digital pianos are velocity instruments: the musical result is determined by how fast a key is pressed.
Tendens does not work that way.
Tendens responds to how the hammer is launched — the timing, acceleration, and release of energy — sharing the same physical language as a world-class acoustic grand. The instrument reacts to the pianist’s intent instead of correcting or abstracting it.
What you play is what the instrument receives.
Dialogue Between Artist and Instrument
At the core of Tendens is the restoration of true dialogue.
A musical instrument should not impose outcomes. It should respond.
You act, it answers — and that response meaningfully informs the next gesture.
Most electronic instruments offer a monologue: a pre-shaped result delivered to the player. Tendens allows real-time negotiation of touch, timing, resistance, and colour. This mutual sensing is what makes an instrument feel alive, turning mechanical input into musical expression.
An Active Soundboard, Not a Speaker
Conventional electronic instruments project sound by pushing air like a piston.
Tendens does not.
Its Active Soundboard behaves like a living acoustic surface, allowing complex wave behaviour to develop naturally — more like motion across a lake than a forced diaphragm. The result is an open, spatial sound that does not feel compressed or artificial, even in large halls or outdoor settings.
A Voice That Sings — and Speaks
Many modern concert grands favour immediate impact at the expense of sustain, turning musical lines into short-lived percussive events.
Tendens is built to sing.
It supports sustained, vocal phrasing while retaining the clarity and articulation required for fast and demanding repertoire. The instrument allows long musical lines without sacrificing precision or control.
Freedom from Inertia, Constraint, and Strain
By removing unnecessary mass and mechanical sluggishness, Tendens delivers an ultra-direct response with full authority. At the same time, it frees the pianist from the logistical, climatic, and maintenance burdens of immovable instruments.
Tendens can also be physically tailored — from keyboard geometry to action behaviour — allowing demanding repertoire to be played without the strain imposed by standardised concert grands.
This is not convenience as a compromise.
It is freedom as a consequence of better design.
A Serious Instrument for Serious Use
Tendens is built for pianists who require:
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uncompromised physical response,
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a sound that carries and sings,
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and an instrument that serves music rather than tradition for its own sake.
It is a concert piano rethought from first principles.
Active Sounboard Technology
The Active Soundboard is the system that allows Tendens to produce concert-scale acoustic sound without increasing mechanical inertia or delay.
In traditional pianos, sound projection is inseparable from physical size. Larger soundboards and longer strings increase mass and resistance, which inevitably reduces immediacy and control at the keyboard. Openness increases in larger halls, but responsiveness suffers.
Tendens removes this dependency.
By actively controlling the motion of the soundboard, acoustic output is no longer limited by the passive mechanics of the instrument. The soundboard behaves as a coherent acoustic surface that can be scaled without imposing additional load on the playing mechanism.
This allows Tendens to expand projection and tonal richness without compromising playability.
The keyboard and action remain fast and direct, while the sound maintains openness, clarity, and stability in large spaces.
The Active Soundboard is not a loudspeaker system, nor a simulation of an acoustic piano. It preserves the complex wave behaviour of a real soundboard, while eliminating the mechanical constraints that traditionally limit acoustic instruments.
Through this approach, Tendens achieves acoustic authority at scale without forcing the pianist to compensate for the instrument.
System Continuity
Tendens is conceived as a single instrument across multiple contexts, enabled through a deliberate system modularity.
Concert configurations and variants such as Tendens Pro Intimi share the same keyboard and action.
Through modular connection to the concert soundboard, the instrument can be used in compact configurations for daily work and extended seamlessly for performance, without changing the playing system.
This modularity is not about reconfiguration, but about continuity.
Technique, touch, and timing developed at home or in the studio transfer directly to the concert environment, without adaptation or recalibration.
System continuity is fundamental to Tendens:
one instrument, one response, one reference — independent of scale or setting.
This is what trying it does to you..
"Having played Horowitz’s Steinway, I know only too well how the magnificence of an instrument’s basic sound can inspire the artist to play way above his or her level. I had the same experience on the Tendens."
