1969 Steinway L CBS?

[Isaac OLEG SIMANOT]

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Terry,

Now that I begin to have a somewhat bigger back of tricks than , say 20
years ago, when I find an instrument that I feel is willing to give some
musical quality and pleasure to the owner, I am much more accepting a lot of
problems as lousy regulation, insufficient voicing, problems due to age or
bad condition (extra damp or dry), etc, and I will fight (well , not too
hard) to obtain an instrument that gives pleasure to me and the owner.

Happily, it is often a matter of a few hours, to shape a bit the hammers,
mate to strings, check regulation fast, give back some resiliency in the
hammers, tune, voice, and then all the remaining quality that was intended
to be there when the piano was build begin to show.

Sometime this work have never really been done, and the piano sound almost
as if it where new.

But I believe I know the feeling you have, it is mostly frustration of not
being able to have an enough good result while working on supposed good
pianos. Then you accuse the crown, down bearing, capo noise, bridge pins,
and so on ..
Don't take it bad, I've done the same before.

There is an only answer : learn to do the things at the best level possible.
You will see that all is much simple after that (but it still is hard work
sometime).

Take care ,

The best

Isaac OLEG


  -----Message d'origine-----
  De : owner-pianotech@ptg.org [mailto:owner-pianotech@ptg.org]De la part de
Farrell
  Envoye : samedi 11 mai 2002 14:23
  A : pianotech@ptg.org
  Objet : Re: 1969 Steinway L CBS?


  Comments below:

  Terry Farrell

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: "Richard Brekne" <Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no>
  To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
  Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2002 6:13 AM
  Subject: Re: 1969 Steinway L CBS?


  > Farrell wrote:
  >
  > > I have yet to run into a brand Y piano that regulates its own dampers!
  > > From the standpoint of a technician, I am not crabbing about brand X.
  > > I am simply stating a general observation regarding how they hold up
  > > over the years compared to some other pianos, most notably brand Y.
  > > From the standpoint of the consumer, having purchased a new brand X
  > > vertical before getting into this field, I am indeed crabbing. And I
  > > got something to crab about!   ;-0 With good intent throughout, Terry
  > > Farrell
  >
  > Hmmm... so you owned a Steinway upright that went bad.... for reasons
  > not completely understood to us others

  Yes, I bought a new 1098 about five years ago. I don't think "went bad" is
correct. If it "went bad", it occurred before Steinway sold it to me. IMHO,
it was made bad (1/4" reverse crown with lots of downbearing?).

  > ... you had some bad experience in
  > dealing with their service department as well ?? (seem to remember you
  > saying something about this a while back.. am I wrong ?)

  IMHO, very bad, rude ("you'll get used to that dinging noise"),
unsatisfactory (to put it mildly). Yes, this has been addressed in the past.

  > And from this
  > and from your experience base you feel justified in condemning what the
  > vast majority of pianists clearly recognize as the best sounding and
  > playing instrument available for purchase these past 120 years or so.

  This aspect of this thread started out addressing vertical pianos from the
1950s, 60s and 70s. I am only speaking of vertical pianos. MHO is based in
part on my 1098 that had serious defects and they were unwilling to fix
properly, but mostly MHO is based on the group of maybe 20 or 30 Steinway
verticals that I have run across over the past few years while servicing
pianos. Almost every one (and I can't recall one that didn't) had some
portion (some, multiple items) of a combination of cracked bridges, lots of
excessive string noise, poor hammer alignment (and other action components),
way out of regulation, poor string terminations, poorly performing dampers -
the type of things that one sees while tuning and lead one to feel that the
piano is quite worn out for its age. Yamaha verticals that I see from this
era are mostly in very good condition, with few if any of the aforementioned
problems, or at least to a significantly less degree.

  Again, I am strictly speaking to my own observations. Who knows, maybe the
brand Y are in such good condition because they are miserable to play and
sound bad so no one plays them, while brand X sounds so nice and plays great
so that everyone plays it day and night. I don't know that to be the case
though.

  Except for the few specific and well documented problems some Steinway
grand pianos exhibit (verdigris, Teflon action centers, poor action
geometry), I have much respect for their grand pianos.

  > I know people who CHOOSE not to buy a BMW..... not because they dont
  > think of it as a good car... but because its tempermental and needs lots
  > of looking after.  Then I also know people who think BMW's are lousy
  > cars..... because they are tempermental....

  Well, I guess if you want a piano that is often not quite working well,
and that has ".....faults in each one that can be discovered and cherished
over the years", then go for it!   :-)

  Again, all this seems to be clear from my observations based on a few tens
of pianos. I'm not a statistician. Perhaps that is not enough of a sampling.
If not, ignore everything I've said. You may choose that route anyway!   ;-)

  Terry Farrell

  > --
  > Richard Brekne
  > RPT, N.P.T.F.
  > Bergen, Norway
  > mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no
  > http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html
  >
  >

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