Volume Reducing Ideas?

EricFrankson@AOL.COM EricFrankson@AOL.COM
Fri, 29 Mar 2002 19:28:58 EST


Dear Mary,

Digital pianos basically come in two shades, single-function and multi-function digitals.  After spending a year as an activity specialist at a nursing home, I found that anything that is both electrical and covered with buttons scares the Ensure right out of them.  A single function digital (Yamaha YDP-121, Kurzweil Mark-2, etc...) has only the basic instruments (piano, strings, pipe organ, etc...).  Besides the volume control, a nursing facility might be pursuaded by the weight and movability, allowing the use of the piano on other wings.  A multi-function would be a waste of the facility's money (except if they were planning on using the instrument as a player piano).  

The other possibility of adding amplification seems more economical.  On T.V. they advertise "Sonic Ears", and they really work.  And they  only cost $20 a piece.

I once visited a professor at Julliard that had two Steinway grands (a 'B' and and 'O' series) in a small Manhattan apartment.  His solution was to pile rolls of carpet under the piano till the pile reached the bottom of the sound board.  Under the lid he laid a 3" thick wool mat.  Though muted, the piano's really sang.

Good Luck,
Eric Frankson
Desert Piano, Rancho Mirage, CA 


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