Apropos

[Richard Brekne]

Ran into a lady today...quite an interesting one really. She had a
piano she wanted me to look at.. Krauss and something or another..
was more taken by the woodcarving and various veneers on the case,
and our discussion about her piano, which at this point is still in
the "I gotta think about it" stage... so didnt really get the name
in my head.

Any ways... I was to check out this piano and tell her what it
needed... and of course the thing was pretty much shot. Not that old
really, if their information was correct... 1930's or so.. but
soundboard all split up.. not pulled from the ribs yet tho.. no
crown to speak of, a bit negative string bearing in the bass. Action
was in pretty bad.. tho every note made a noise to be sure... some
were really sluggish, others really loose. Tuning pins were
loose...didnt get a chance to take out a few samples and see if I
could find a problem with the block... I had basically enough to
start telling her she was in for a large expense if she wanted this
fixed.

After a bit she told me that she was very interested in getting the
piano funtional... but she didnt want the sound changed. She liked
the way this old clunker spoke. She said she had been in and heard a
selection of different new pianos and didnt like them ...saying new
pianos all sounded allike... all the sound was up front.. bang...

Now this got me a bit interested... and we ended up talking for a
long time. She has an affinity for old things and said several times
that she wasnt looking for a concert instrument. I explained that I
understood this, and that there was little chance of doing that kind
of damage to this old beater, but that there were certain issues
that simply had to be dealt with if she was going to be able to
depend on this being tuneable and playable.. At the very least this
would involve re-pinning and a good deal of action work... and at
least makeing sure the cracks in the board werent going to cause any
buzzes. So she had to figure on at least some expense here. I
recommended that she think carefully about investing any money in
this thing...but she kept comming back to how much she liked the
basic sound picture..and what a beautiful case it was.. I pointed
out options about perhaps buying  different old piano that didnt
need so much work.... and a few other options.. But I left unsure of
just how much she really indeed liked the sound of her piano...visa
vi whether it was just her liking for old things that attracted her
to this.

Ok... so you can glue this thing back together... fill here and
there with epoxy... force it to be functional structurally...
without changing the sound of it much... not really a problem.. tho
there is some time and effort involved. The action work is pretty
usual stuff... nothing special there really... but its all going to
cost more then what we useally consider the piano to be worth when
its done.

So what do you tell this kind of person... you try and make sure
they know what they are doing...what they are getting into...for
sure... But I would be really interested in anyones opinion who
wants to have a go at putting themselves in these shoes... what do
you do ?



--
Richard Brekne
RPT, N.P.T.F.
Bergen, Norway
mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no