Rescaling

[Ron Nossaman]

> How can an instrument be described as 'better' or 'worse' when it can play 
>sounds well enough to bring tears to the eyes and a lump in your 
>throat........oh some pianos do it differently than others but if the result 
>is the same....... who gives a big rats about whether it is "state of the 
>art'??? :-)
>Just some thoughts.
>Jim Bryant (FL)

Absolutely right Jim, except for the pianos with the same name on the
fallboard, and the same model designation on the plate which bring tears to
your eyes for an entirely different reason than their musical beauty. This
is all well and good when talking about one singular, individual piano
which by a serendipitous accident of cumulative happenstance is a
demonstrably wonderful instrument. How about it's twin that remains a toad
despite the best efforts of the most princely field technicians of the
realm, or the unfortunately wretched sounding piano that the owner raves
about because of the name on the fallboard? The fact that even an old blind
sow occasionally finds an acorn is probably what kept most of us in
business through the early years, but being able to occasionally luck into
a miracle isn't a real comforting sort of philosophy for the long haul. We
endeavor to accumulate education, update our methods and attitudes, admit
our shortcomings with an eye toward overcoming them to the degree we are
able, and generally improving our understanding and our product. How can we
not morally expect the same attitudes and efforts from piano manufacturers?
Insisting that authenticity be maintained in a piano that sounds lousy
enough to be rebuilt, to the extent that it is nearly as authentically
lousy sounding after the fact just doesn't meet the criteria. If the
original designs and methods were all that sacrosanct, shouldn't rigorous
adherence to these designs and methods produce nearly universally wonderful
instruments? So why doesn't it, even by the original owners of these
designs and methods? How many piano models can you name that every
instrument of that brand and model designation was an extraordinarily good
sounding instrument? If not every one, what's the highest percentage, would
you say? How many manufacturers would make the cut? How many model
designations? Clearly, there is more to be learned than infinitely
repeating what has gone before in the hopes of producing, one time, that
extraordinary result. If hoping to get lucky at the same rate the original
manufacturer did is the best we had to hope for, I could probably make more
money and get more job satisfaction with a Roto-Rooter franchise.

This elusive quality of beauty these multi toothed instruments are capable
of is the whole point of sweating the blood, doing the R&D, pursuing the
education, and trying to improve upon the deficiencies we encounter. We are
closer collectively to understanding how these wee beasties work than we
have ever been strictly because of the tools at our disposal and our
ability to share information and learn from one another. We can surely
appreciate the extraordinary individual instrument of a particular genre
without the unwarranted deification of the entire class, too many of which
don't exhibit particularly desirable musical performance characteristics. A
wonderful sounding Steinway B in a controlled skid is pretty much
indistinguishable from a terrible sounding one in the same situation, but
the differences become apparent when music is attempted on them.

Just a few thoughts of my own.

Ron N