Bill points to a serious problem: how best to preserve the fast-evaporating heritage of the piano in America. For example, Kalman Detrich's collection was dispersed after his death because he made no provision for it, so his effort was mostly wasted. Past and current piano manufactureres have done a lousy job of organizing and preserving their records--much of Steinway's material, for instance, is lost or widely scattered--and what has been saved isn't easily accessible. Only now is Allen Wright doing brilliant research on Steinway's London factory, which hardly anyone else knows about. All this is important not just for history generally, but also because piano builders and techs a hundred years ago had answers to many practical questions that keep appearing in this forum. And as interest in the piano's development continues to grow among performers, irreplaceable evidence is being lost for lack of a place to keep it and even inability to recognize it. This isn't just an abstract academic issue; your profession needs all the ammunition it can gather to promote its aims in the face of increasing public indifference. American organ builders and organ historians, far fewer in number, have done a much better job (see www.organsociety.org). Laurence ----- Original Message ----- From: Bdshull at aol.com To: caut at ptg.org Sent: Sunday, February 20, 2011 4:57 PM Subject: Re: [CAUT] saving hammers "I would like to suggest that when a set of interesting hammers is replaced, a representative sample (at least highest and lowest and middle C, preferably more) be saved, identified as to source and characteristics, and sent to a museum where they can be preserved for future study. The loss of old hammers (and other parts) seriously impedes understanding of historical voicing trends. Old, worn-out hammers might seem like junk, but such junk from the 19th century and earlier offers priceless tangible evidence, for example as a guide to replication. Thank you for considering this effort. Laurence" Thank you, Laurence. I know you've done your share of this, in your many years at the Metropolitan Museum. This is exactly the kind of thing I've been advocating for several years within the PTG, since our colleague Ken Eschete got hold of me and set me on this path. I've begun this with the Period Piano Center www.periodpianos.org, we've received donations or purchased such artifacts from the early Steinway period - piano parts plus a few complete pianos. I will exhibit at WESTPAC with an 1866 Erard Vertical in original condition, fully functional, original wire with extraordinary period sound. I usually travel to exhibit and teach with sample hammers from an 1878 Steinway, and have other examples. I wish there were existing museum resources dedicated to archiving, cataloging and exhibiting piano technology artifacts. I have not been able to identify which museums might be willing to accept and catalog such artifacts. The PTG Foundation's Jack Wyatt Museum has not established any formal guidelines beyond Jack's personal choices (very interesting and informed ones), and his repeated statement that the museum is "by piano technicians, for piano technicians." The Museum is, to a great extent, currently the result of his huge personal investment of time and resources. The future depends on you. I encourage PTG members to write the Foundation with clear ideas, you can write any or all board members (the current President is Jim Birch and you can write him at jimbirch at aol.com or you can write the board at ptgf.board at ptg.org. It has been my belief that a museum relating to the PTG should concentrate on archives and artifacts relevant to the history of piano technology (as distinguished from the history of piano service, obviously relevant to a PTG museum also). There is no "history of piano technology" museum anywhere that I know of. And today an important component would be digital archives and an online, uploadable database, in order to be able to obtain and make available the greatest amount of information. This is actually a huge undertaking, requiring human resources as well as the appropriate facilities. My idea has been to establish the Period Piano Center (dedicated to the above goals) and a related "Piano Historical Society" which requires a small annual membership fee. All members can contribute and benefit from the digital database (there should be a limited public web interface too), and the Society will have board representation on the Period Piano Center. The first is getting off the ground now, the latter is still in the talking stages. There are two great needs. One is to have a real museum. A real museum actually has the resources, trained personnel, physical plant designed for museum needs, etc....The other is for a museum to be dedicated to piano technology. Finally, a great value of such a museum is the centralizing of knowledge and resources in piano technology. At various times in the history of the PTG Foundation, it has had different missions (I just reviewed and organized the documents at the HO in January). It has encouraged and published books on both piano technology as well as piano history. Clearly designers of the pianos of the present and future have one foot planted in a knowledge of the past; If the resources are there, the PTGF can promote new publication and design, as well. I know of two fully qualified individuals who want to publish a guide to building a piano in a small facility, one of whom is actually 100 pages into the writing, the other hasn't begun but I know could pull it off. Collective resources through Foundation donations could help make these kinds of projects come to fruition. My own particular vision of the PTG Foundation is that it should exist to provide the largest financial base possible for the various piano technology related activities beneficial to piano technicians. It should provide resources for research, writing and historical study. It should support a museum. It should promote and support training and education in piano technology. And if it followed the lead of some other trade association foundations, it could even aid the PTG in strategic planning. For all this to take place, the first goal should be to develop sources of significant financial revenue. If the vision is inclusive, the financial income must be equal to the need. If you want to archive hammers, you want to archive documents, soundboards.....and pianos. Significant, climate controlled storage is needed. I've begun in my own small way by writing and researching, and by establishing the Period Piano Center, which occupies a portion of my shop/store facility. I've been researching and writing with intent to publish (The Early Steinway; the Chickering), and will present a paper at the AMIS* Conference in May surveying the serial number books of the five leading manufacturers in American history (Steinway, Chickering, Mason and Hamlin, Knabe and Baldwin). This requires travel to DC, Rochester NY, Trumann AK and Queens NY, sometimes depending on friends and colleagues in those areas for lodging, and squeezing income-earning activity into a shorter time frame. The Steinway study includes a major emphasis on the objects themselves, so with the help of Larry Buck and his great photographic skills, we've documented many historical Steinways and have more to do. If someone conducts a study assaying representative historic Steinway hammers we'd want to include this in our publication. We're compiling string scales, action data, soundboard data....Have you tossed an early Steinway soundboard? Did you take detailed measurements and photographs first? Did you consider donating it to Period Piano Center instead? (Thanks to those on this list who HAVE contributed!) The study includes an anthology of the scales/models, complete with sets of representative plan view photographs of the belly top and bottom and the action. Most early Steinways are rebuilt or modified, it's work to find original condition Steinways; We have the same challenge with Chickering. So we're still locating pianos (and sometimes we're trying to persuade owners of original-condition pianos that while they're trying to sell them for millions, the real value is in the design history story - may we please document the piano? And while the owner might have no trouble with having the piano moved, they often react with horror if we ask for permission to place the piano on its side for plan view photographs. So in the meantime I'm accepting all photographs and artifacts relating to these pianos you're willing to share. And while some on this list actively take technical photographs, most of us don't know how to set up and photograph an object in order to actually obtain data from the photo. Larry and I have considered offering a class in how to take high quality technical photographs, but again, we're not sponsored until the money rolls in, so the class hasn't happened, either.... And as for documents....document study is essential, and some of this work is tedious and expensive. For example, the manufacturer serial number books. The Smithsonian has both Steinway and Chickering books (if you know where Chickering book 10,000 to 15,000 is, please arrange for a loan to the SI so that it can be copied and returned). But these and others could be made more available to researchers if the books were digitally scanned. The digital scanning equipment is expensive (possibly $40k) and skilled human resources are also required, but if the PTGF were involved it might also be a beneficiary, having a digital set of serial number books on site would be huge. (Don't forget to visit the museum this year in KC, and look at the Krakauer serial number book on exhibit to get an idea of the incredible history contained). OK....I've got some real deadlines....writing and garage cleaning....wife is calling from the garage right now.... Needless to say, I have my own collections of all vintages of hammers, mostly Steinway. What to do? Bill Bill Shull, RPT, Mus. Director, Period Piano Center PTGF Board Member CAUT Committee Member www.periodpianos.org bdshull at aol.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20110221/276b1068/attachment-0001.htm>
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