String breakage

[Susan Kline]

At 08:56 AM 2/24/2003 -0800, Jeff wrote:
>I reassured her the piano was quite powerful out in the
> > sanctuary (a wonderful place to play music!) and had her go out and listen
> > while I played a few scales at pp, mf, and ff (neither am I a trained
> > player).  By Sunday, she had learned to trust the piano and wasn't beating
> > so hard, and the sound was absolutely lovely.
>
>Reminds me of a church I used to tune for. They had a quite nice Baldwin
>L--sweet pianos, but not a whole lot of 'power' and the pianist was beating
>the poor thing to death. It was not an overly large church and the piano was
>more than adequate, we just couldn't tone the pianist down. We ended up with
>a mike and amplifier all sent to a monitor speaker aimed just at the
>pianist. The more we cranked up the amp the softer--and better--he played.
>
>Del


Hi, Del and Jeff --

I notice that our Baldwin SD-10, a big strong piano with a very full
sound, also doesn't react at all well to being forced, unless the
player has a lot of resilience. Leon Bates, for instance, got a HUGE
tone out of it, and the tone never broke -- yet if people attack it
with a brittle touch, the sound just blocks up. Ironically, it sounds
less powerful than if they moderated their demands. It's not the
force used, but the feeling in the muscles that they still have some
spring left in them, instead of being locked. Russians seem to do
this well. A big bear-paw WHAM instead of a nasty hard WHACK. The
tuning also seems to hold up better. I've learned to dread little
Asian ladies who look like they weigh 90 pounds soaking wet --
they somehow manage to attack the piano in ways which will find
any possible weakness in the tuning.

It's hard, with all the bright and tinny pianos out there these days,
to convince pianists that the tone and definition really are there,
even though they don't hear the harsh edge they are used to. I
really should learn to play something big and full and loud, so
I can prove to them that the sound is bigger out in the hall.
Demonstrating isn't quite in our job description, but maybe it
should be.

Susan