Reaching new heights - a man and his piano | Dāvids Kļaviņš | TEDxRiga

There is no sure way to success but creating the absolute best of something is not the worst place to start. This was Dāvids Kļaviņš epiphany after a random encounter with a stranger in a café, starting a long journey to create the world’s best-sounding piano that has consumed him for over 30 years. But how does one go about doing this? Where do you even start? Every principle or convention for how something should be done is often taken for granted, but in order to do something truly special you need to question everything. Just because it has been accepted to do things one way does not mean that is the only way. And if you can ask the right questions, then you can reframe the outcome, figuratively and literally. Dāvids Kļaviņš is a musical engineer, pushing the boundaries of how pianos are made. He builds vertical concert grand pianos, which are the largest in the world. His forray into building musical instruments started at the age of 15, when he quit school to do something more hands-on and ended up as an apprentice at the Schimmel Pianos factory. Uninspired by the status quo of piano building, Dāvids set out to discover improvements to the already globally-accepted grand piano. In 1987 he presented his first creation – 3.7 meter high piano the ‘Giant'. Though it took another 20 years to find the market and financial support to continue this endeavour. In 2018 in Berlin he presented a 4.5 meter high vertical piano, which served as a kickoff point his growing business. Now his pianos are used in studio recordings, digital sound libraries, and are being built into concert halls around the world. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx