Great tips, Ben!
Unfortunately, I won't be in Grand Rapids this summer. I had to choose
from our School of Music budget. Kent Webb was able to give me the last
spot available for the NY Steinway 1st in the series of "official"
seminars next November, so I chose that. I'll miss the fun and education
in GR this summer. It was a difficult decision, but Steinway won this
time.... We have at least 60 our of 110 pianos as Steinways, so I put the
NY seminar ahead of the yearly conference. You know...
Good to hear of the damper techniques. They really work....especially on
those weird double doughnut bushed guide rails. That's what we really
dealt with that week. Good thing, too. we have at least 8 of those...Now
I can deal with them w/0 freaking out!!
Thanks
Paul
"Sloane, Benjamin (sloaneba)" <sloaneba at ucmail.uc.edu>
Sent by: caut-bounces at ptg.org
06/12/2009 03:48 PM
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Re: [CAUT] Harpsichord & Organ Maintenance Videos
Yeah, that’s Dad. One thing I lagged behind on was dampers, because he
loved regulating them, and we let him. He would debate about angling the
hammers front to back to prevent a “thunk” when you released the pedal his
damper timing was so good. He still is doing damper reg. on the concert
grands at Oberlin even though he got tired of concert work. He’s teaching
at Nationals this year. Not the damper class.
You do realize he is approaching the damper guide rail differently from
Steinway? Before I left Oberlin we were leaving no gap between the damper
wire and the felt, i.e. when replacing the damper and guide rail felt at
Oberlin, it was unnecessary to lean the damper to one side with the
pressure bend. The dampers got noisy otherwise. You do need to take that
into consideration when you are dealing with a new Steinway, so I would
say unless he mentioned that, you do need to know a little more about
dampers than he would tell you just doing things his way. It is also
possible that Steinway is not pre-lubing the damper wires, which we always
did before installation, and as a result, even though we did not leave a
gap, ours rarely failed to return to rest position, while quite a few of
the new Steinways at CCM are having this problem even with the gap. I do
not understand why Steinway won’t pre-dip the uninstalled damper wires
into some kind of lubricating solution, which would be very simple at that
stage, or if they are, why the solution is not working.
Maybe I’ll see you at Grand Rapids.
- Ben
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Paul
T Williams
Sent: Friday, June 12, 2009 4:22 PM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Harpsichord & Organ Maintenance Videos
Thanks, Ben
I take it your dad is Ken? Great man. I worked with him at the
Oberlin/Steinway seminar last summer...learned all I need to know about
dampers!!!! He's a true biking freak!! (in a good way!) Say hi to him!
Thanks again!
Paul
"Sloane, Benjamin (sloaneba)" <sloaneba at ucmail.uc.edu>
Sent by: caut-bounces at ptg.org
06/12/2009 01:09 PM
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Hello again Paul,
Jim is in Oregon now, vacationing, I think. He is local to Cincinnati.
He showed up to at least one monthly Cincinnati PTG meeting recently. I
believe his e-mail is jamesecampbell at fuse.net
Again, good luck!
- Ben
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Paul
T Williams
Sent: Friday, June 12, 2009 1:28 PM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Harpsichord & Organ Maintenance Videos
Where is Jim located? Is he in the Guild? How might I reach him? I might
be wanting to send one to him that is in need of more than I know how to
handle. Or, he could come here for a few days...Robert Murphy did that for
us a couple years ago and worked on our forte-piano. That was a great
learning experience for me!
Thanks!!
Paul
"Sloane, Benjamin (sloaneba)" <sloaneba at ucmail.uc.edu>
Sent by: caut-bounces at ptg.org
06/12/2009 12:20 PM
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Hello again Paul,
Jim Campbell is his name. Does good work, an interesting guy with a
multi-dimensional experience. Both him and Eric might turn you into a
harpsichord enthusiast; they built a few of them.
I will add that insects in general may sound very musical. Heitor
Villa-Lobos wrote tone poems based on the sounds of insects. Of course,
“Flight of the Bumblebee” by Rimsky-Korsakov is something we all are
familiar with. I am sure there are many others. This is it for digital
harpsichord:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=texzpFPJquI
I guess I might have to warm up to harpsichords more myself. Have fun!
- Ben
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Paul
T Williams
Sent: Friday, June 12, 2009 12:50 PM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Harpsichord & Organ Maintenance Videos
I'm not all that fond of harpsichords either. Our organs are in the "just
OK" catagory according to our organ prof. But Mr. Bedient of Bedient Pipe
Organ factory is located here in Lincoln, so they get pretty good
attention. It's a very small group of students who study it. We don't
really have any harpsichord profs, but several of the students and faculty
in oboe, flute, and voice use them often for recitals, so I must continue
to learn more about them. Buzzing flies is a good analogy! Who have you
contracted for outside repairs, rebuilding etc.? Nobody in Nebraska works
on them.
Best,
Paul
"Sloane, Benjamin (sloaneba)" <sloaneba at ucmail.uc.edu>
Sent by: caut-bounces at ptg.org
06/12/2009 11:09 AM
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Hi Paul,
Well, I am glad they are an inspiration to you. Keep looking.
However, I am hoping to steer things in the direction of an instrument,
the organ, that in this region seems to have fallen out of favor in the
eyes of the PTG, when counterpoised with the harpsichord, far as non-piano
endeavors are concerned for the PTG and CAUT. Maybe the climate is
different elsewhere. Perhaps a depiction of these in comparison to nature
will help me explain.
No matter how a harpsichord is voiced, it still sounds like buzzing flies
to me. I hope that does not sound too pejorative. Obviously, they have an
appeal of their own and there place here, and part of my job is to help
maintain them, though recently we have been contracting out some
harpsichord work, not including what for the most part is concert
maintenance. However, a well maintained organ sounds like thunder. If the
institution I work at needs to secure funding for continuing education in
what is called Performance Management here, I would rather get trained to
play with lightning, than to swat at flies. Either area would help with
the budget problems at CCM created with contract demands, and I see no
reason why to favor one over the other in that case at this school.
Good luck with the harpsichord projects!
- Ben
From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Paul
T Williams
Sent: Friday, June 12, 2009 10:36 AM
To: caut at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [CAUT] Harpsichord & Organ Maintenance Videos
Hey Ben,
Thanks so much for the harpsichord videos! I've learned something today
on plectra replacement and voicing!! :>) Now...off to some of our
harpsichords that are acting up! I'll leave the organ stuff to Mr.
Bedient!
Paul
"Sloane, Benjamin (sloaneba)" <sloaneba at ucmail.uc.edu>
Sent by: caut-bounces at ptg.org
06/12/2009 09:13 AM
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[CAUT] Harpsichord & Organ Maintenance Videos
Good morning all,
Thought somebody might find these videos interesting.
These are organ tuning, voicing, & repairing I believe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CPxaEfFhGI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdtLvHLqMT0&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrECqw6mHOE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xze5QRIAO-0&feature=related
And these harpsichord stringing, voicing, and I can’t remember what else
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uQnibdOdW4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_rTN7F5QUY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifaVED5q5Gs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BqRBYM4YxU&feature=related
Probably won’t start a conversation. Have a good day,
-Ben
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