Choosing to Condemn

[Farrell]

WOW! What a difference between a pragmatic male (former scientist) and a female! I love it. I love the points you bring up. I'm perhaps not swayed big time, but definitely a bit. You don't see broke or working, you see colors and dreams! I truly think you have expressed a bunch of neat thoughts. If I ever wrote a book, it would be about science something - "just the facts ma'am". Your book would explore the universe of man's soul.

You rocked my boat!

Terry Farrell
  
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Susan Kline" <sckline@attbi.com>
To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Wednesday, November 27, 2002 2:31 AM
Subject: Re: Choosing to Condemn


> At 11:11 PM 11/26/2002 -0500, Terry wrote:
> >Yes, and I'm sure somewhere there is a Nobel Peace Prize winner that grew 
> >up in poverty in an abusive home, bla, bla, bla. Just my opinion then, but 
> >any very good condition console will be better to play than an old beater 
> >upright with bobbling hammers, tubby bass strings, zinging dampers (if 
> >they work at all), super inconsistent tone from note to note, etc. That's 
> >all I'm trying to say. Nothing too earth shattering here I should think.
> 
> It probably depends on which 'old beater' you're talking about. I think 
> that this point could be argued.
> 
> Bobbling hammers aren't that hard to get rid of, though if the action is 
> totally worn out one may have to pull some stunts to do so. Some zinging 
> dampers can be freshened just by rubbing a finger up and down them. Super 
> inconsistent tone from note to note -- sure, it's hard, but sometimes a 
> little voicing/filing/hammer spacing can help somewhat, especially since 
> the piano has never had any since it was born. Whether it's worth the 
> effort depends on whether there's any music left in the thing.
> 
> Sometimes the big old crates, with all their problems, still can provide a 
> better musical experience than a "properly" working console, because they 
> have the string length for a decent tone, and those tubby bass strings 
> sometimes have an air of mystery about them, particularly when the tone 
> sort of glows from those tiny little bass dampers with the weak tired 
> springs. And the cases are often interesting and full of character. The old 
> broken ivories and scratched finish and worn pedals have a sort of old shoe 
> comfort to them. A newer console seems sterile in comparison.
> 
> I'm not saying that the problems aren't problems, but given a little help 
> from "this was Grandma's old piano" and the deep mellow and somewhat funky 
> sound of these old things, an imaginative daydreaming sort of child might 
> well do better on them than on a console with a tight jangly false and 
> especially _uninteresting_ sound.
> 
> Some pianos, against all expectations, are just _fun_ to play. Sometimes 
> one plays a proper, regulated, even, nice new Asian piano, and then a 
> beaten up old Krakauer upright -- and the Krakauer somehow makes more 
> interesting musical ideas appear.
> 
> Well, I've condemned some old uprights, too, if they've been left in 
> garages, etc. How many need to be given up for lost depends a lot on the 
> local climate, too. In the last month or so, I saw two 5 foot grands which 
> had lived in Florida. Boards bad, so that the notes just bang. Rust and 
> moth everywhere. They play, but the soul has seeped out of them in the 
> humidity and heat.
> 
> I think that the ability to make SOME sort of music and to at least partly 
> understand the interaction between a piano and a musical imagination is 
> just as valuable for a rebuilder as for a concert technician. One needs a 
> certain feeling for the instrument to make the right choices in rebuilding 
> just as much as in concert work. Otherwise one may end up with a pretty, 
> proper, correct piano filled with shiny new parts, but somehow no one wants 
> to play on it.
> 
> Just MHO, as usual.
> 
> Susan
> 
> 
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