Fw: It won't be a Steinway anymore!/soundboards improving with age?

[Delwin D Fandrich]

----- Original Message -----
From: <JIMRPT@AOL.COM>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: June 04, 2001 5:04 AM
Subject: Re: Re: Fw: It won't be a Steinway anymore!/soundboards improving
with age?


> We do "know for sure" that some boards 70/80 years old, or more, are in
> excellent shape and performing their function superbly.......but are they
> performing like they did when new? We can't really say......can we? After
all
> if a board is 80 years old, and the oldest active tech I know of is 87
years
> old, we would be depending on a 7 years olds 80 year old memory for that
> 'subjective' declaration.

Sure we can -- at least within some reasonable limits. We don't have to be
older than the piano to understand the characteristics of wood under
prolonged stress. Any original soundboard in a 70/80 year old piano that is
today 'performing superbly' must certainly have started out exceptionally
stiff. While we, perhaps, cannot tell exactly how the piano sounded we do
know it must have sounded like a piano with a very stiff soundboard. That
is, it would not have been very responsive to the (relatively) low frequency
energy within the wave envelope. The sound would have been some thin and
shallow.



> Since there is no 'objective' measurement possible for an 80 year old
board,
> between old and new, the 'only' thing that matters is the 'current'
> performance of the board...all other considerations aside....either it do
or
> it don't....if'n it don't replace it...if'n it do then leave the sucker
alone
> cause another 20 years ain't gonna bring much, if any, change .....all
other
> things being equal.

Within some limits this is true. The problem, of course, is that all other
things don't always stay equal. Which is why a board that has been working
well for, lo, these many years, can rather suddenly deteriorate when it is
shimmed, refinished and reloaded with string bearing once again.



>  Golly I certainly hope there is "potential in aging" since I am an
unwilling
> participant! :-)

So, we're not getting older, we're getting better?

Del