Richard,
I don't know about those showrooms perched in tiny towns on the Pacific or
those in the windy wilds of Kansas, devoid, relatively, as they appear mostly to
be, of people, or how new pianos would sell there, but here in the Dallas-Fort
Worth area, where, among the nearly six million people are a very many
high-quality pianists and musicians practically hitchhiking on every corner, new
and used pianos aplenty, dealers abounding and concerts in abundance every night,
GUESS WHAT, there are almost no complaints about the so-called tonal defects of
these new pianos, including Steinways, as is so often portrayed here on the list by
a singular, tenditious few. The complaints that do occur, at least regarding
sound, are usually due to the overly soft, or over lacquered hammer, or an overly
hard one of poor design, and are only rarely limited to anything that might only
marginally be related to another of the many shibboleths of the redesigners, the
so-called killer octave, among others.
There are, no doubt, many things to be complained of from my point of view,
particularly regulation, hammer design, voicing, terminations, etc, as any
technician knows. These however, seldom are given voice other than in a cursory
fashion.
As I have said before the generalities regarding the so-called killer octave,
compression failure of boards which, along with the compression set theory, are
complete exaggerations, the spring theory of soundboard function, the
misconstruction of impedance, etc which appear no where else but here on this list
seem to me to be thoroughly in error.
North, South, East and West, to the front and behind of every practicing
technician, except those locked in their shops pretending to design or redesign
pianos, is a continuous stream of old pianos with old boards (Oh!, the horror of
it all!) stretching into the past and the future which don't display the
deteriorated characteristics this small group so ardently professes to exist
practically everywhere. The large majority of technicians, of course, already know
this, but then, I guess they, like we, are fools- we just don't know a defect when
we hear it.
I think we need to go to defect larnin" skul and get real ejoocated. But
then, again, I am a pianist and I listen as a musician when playing. My view of
sound may be quite different than those who wish to sell a new soundboard for the
fun or profitability of it, as I suggested in a recent post. These gents
obviously have no concept of this use of sound, at least to my mind. They confuse
ringtime with tonal desirability, among other things and appear to use commercial
objectives as a paradigm for scientific analysis. This is normal in the commercial
world but should not be tried here.
Having worked for several Steinway dealers in years past, among others, and
being incidentally associated with the present one in the area who, at times, is
the largest selling dealership in the country, I say the claims about these
so-called defects, particularly regarding the so-called killer octave area and just
so much bull if they claim that the public in general takes notice of such things,
or that the volume is particularly limited in the compression failure sort of way
so incessantly repeated here, although this may be different from the two or three
pianos sold in a good year on the Pacific or in Kansas. Today, I retuned a new M
which was delivered.and tuned just afterwards by myself three months ago.
Although, as I say, I have all kinds of things to complain of in the entire
Steinway approach to hammers and tone building, which is one reason I now attempt
to keep some distance, there was no significant weakness where the redesigners
routinely claim to be likely to exist. Yesterday, it was a new B, still owned by
a dealer and placed for a concert. Comments similar. Three or four days ago, in
the Bass Hall it was a Steinway D, comments similar. This could go on and on. The
point is: PEOPLE DON'T MAKE COMPLAINTS DESCRIBED BY THE REDESIGNERS - THEY MAKE
THEM FOR THEIR OWN PURPOSES.
We are just evaluating two B's in the shop, one a 1903, the other 1889.
Neither, with original boards, have any kind of area that can even remotely be
described as a killer octave, or a general failure of sound. On the contrary,
unrebuilt, they both sound better, after tuning, and with all the usual strungback
deficiencies (older strings, cracks-although not a lot, likely loose bridge pins,
possible need for a downbearing adjustment, loose ribs), than new ones, nor are
they deficient in volume. This is frequently the case with old Steinways and
indeed, many older pianos. Whoops! I guess the theory went a little astray
there!. Well, let's just keep on overlooking all of the thousands of pianos around
us and just keep saying over and over "We can make it better even if they don't
know - for a price". This, ultimately, is where this line of bull comes from and
please excuse me for saying it but such appears to be the case.
Rather than risk the odium which some attach to the contributor of an overly
long post which seems to be the measure of capability for intelligent criticism of
the points I make by those who attach such odium, I will take this up again later
this weekend in greater detail.
Regards, Robin Hufford
Richard Brekne wrote:
> Delwin D Fandrich wrote:
>
> >
> > >
> > > Well, I certainly see your point. But then I am not trying to establish a
> > rule.
> > > Rather, I am forced to be too skeptical to accept one. Simply because
> > there are
> > > too many exceptions for the rule to.... rule :)... if you get my meaning.
> > >
> > > RicB
> > >
> >
> > So when you go into a showroom and look at ten brand new pianos, seven of
> > which already have significant tonal problems in the killer octave region,
> > you want to use the three to claim there can be no principle established.
> > Interesting.
> >
> > Del
> >
>
> Those are your numbers and your claims of significant tonal problems, not mine,
> and evidently not those of all those folks out there happy with their
> Steinways.
>
> --
> Richard Brekne
> RPT, N.P.T.F.
> UiB, Bergen, Norway
> mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no
> http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html
> http://www.hf.uib.no/grieg/personer/cv_RB.html
>
> _______________________________________________
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