Antares in Bergen

[David Love]

Hello Richard:

It would be interesting to hear you chronicle Andre's procedure.

David Love


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard Brekne" <Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no>
To: "PTG" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: March 11, 2002 12:38 PM
Subject: Antares in Bergen


> Hi there guys and gals.
> 
> The rush this past month has settled down now and I get to re-join the
> throng here for a while. I have had an unusual time of it with lots of
> more then usual demanding work and tunings around western Norway, and we
> here in Bergen have been preparing for a special little event that to my
> knowledge has never happened here before.
> 
> I have always wanted to get a closer look at some real down to earth
> voicing, by someone who has had lots of factory experience, and a good
> deal of no-BS concert work and so I got the University to aggree with
> bringing in Andre' from Amsterdam up for a weekend to show myself and 4
> other western Norway techs what he can do. We bought a set of excellent
> quality hammers and shanks from Renner... of Andre's personal choice and
> preference, and our newest Norwegian RPT Nils Henrick Jansen and myself
> did our best to install them. Nils taught me a method of hammer hanging
> I had not experienced before, and I introduced him to basic Stanwood
> principals of evening out and balancing the actions SW, FW and leverage.
> 
> Andre came then to Bergen friday afternoon and was given the task of
> voicing this brand new set of hammers on a little used and quite nice 10
> year old Steinway B from Hamburg. The action was pretty well regulated,
> but not better then was necessary for the job at hand. Perfectly useable
> as it was, but rough by any really fine regulation standards. In other
> words, the perfect situation for this class of ours.
> 
> Students and teachers were involved and were invited to play the piano
> before and after Andre's work. On Saturday and Sunday we five were
> privileged enough to watch a real master at work, and he was absolutely
> fabulous at explaining his personal voicing philosophy, his knowledge
> and experiences from factory work at S&S Hamburg, Yamaha Japan,
> Bosendorfer, and Bechstein, and keeping us entertained at the same time
> with plenty of humor and kidding around. And the result was just great.
> We all got to watch this master job at work from the first stitch to the
> final product in an intensive experience that we will all benefit from
> in our further work.
> 
> Thanks Andre, and the other western Norway techs involved for a
> fantastic seminar experience. Lets hope this is the first of many such
> events to come in the future.
> 
> --
> Richard Brekne
> RPT, N.P.T.F.
> Bergen, Norway
> mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no
> http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html
> 
> 
>