Apropos

[Farrell]

State your opinion. State her options. Tell her that her approach is not
common/typical. Tell her anticipated costs, and what it will be worth when
done. That's all you can say to her about it. And if she still wants to roll
with it AND you are interested (or desparate) in doing the work, go for it.

Terry Farrell

----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Brekne" <rbrekne@broadpark.no>
To: "PTG" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2001 4:46 PM
Subject: Apropos


> 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
>
>