Grotrian lost it's singing tone

[Richard Brekne]

Greg

I deal with 3 Grotrian 220's which all have very very similiar 
qualities. These are not your most powerfull instruments IMO, and I find 
tendancies amoung many technicians to voice them very hard to try and 
get some punch out of them.  (This is the one of the kinds of voicing 
mistake Del was on about a bit back.)  I think you will find that if you 
voice down for a nice round full tone you will find a pleasant tone that 
carries well, and probably wont loose nearly the power you might imagine. 

After many many talks with my voicing << Professor >> and good freind 
Andre' I find very much sense in those words Del passed by us a few 
weeks back.... something like "most of what is done to increase power 
simply distorts the tone".  This is really true.  Power is often 
seemingly confused with "loudness"... which far too easily seems to get 
hung up in an over accenting of the high partials that comes from too 
hard (for not to say harsh) a voice.  Power on the other hand reaches 
its maximum independant of that. All the added harshness in the world 
wont increase the instruments power.  Thats found in a hammer made 
(voiced) to optimal resiliency and from the pianos sound producing 
efficiency itself.

I'll defer to Andre' for the best explanation of his voicing 
proceedures... but shortly said... a nice deep needled cushion down the 
shoulders that you can feel give and spring back when pinched is the 
basis... and the rest is medium to shallow voiceing up towards the 
crown.... closer to the crown then I think very many of us let ourselves 
want to go.  Let the sound mellow out...get up there close until it 
does.  And if you  are voicing very much down, take it two or three 
sessions at a time to avoid over doing it.  If you do things right then 
when you are done the voice becomes full and round and that initial 
attack <<bang>> with no sustain disappears and is replaced by a gentle 
initial swell and long decay..... and standing back in the hall... you 
find the sound will carry as well... perhaps in some instances even a 
bit better then before.

 All this said... ... thats a very interesting observation you offered 
about that new staple attached to the wire... I knew it was supposed to 
help clean up the sound... but increasing power... ???  some how 
increaseing the effeciency of they system ??... I'd like to hear more on 
this possibility.


Cheers
RicB



Greg Newell wrote:

> Greetings list,
>         I wonder if some or you wouldn't care to share your insight 
> about a weird issue I am having with a 7' Grotrian. Some time ago i 
> asked this list if money were not much of an issue which piano of this 
> size would you be most likely to buy. Many good responses came to that 
> query and the church's music director finally purchased 2 pianos. The 
> purchases were the aforementioned Grotrian and a 7' Pleyel. The Pleyel 
> found it's home in the choir room and the Grotrian is on stage in the 
> sanctuary of this rather large old church. The sanctuary has e x t r e 
> m e l y high ceilings.
>           Since the delivery of this piano the music director and I 
> have been going round and round trying to pin point and even find the 
> correct words to describe something strange which the music director 
> calls a loss of it's singing tone. I think that the best way he 
> recently described it to me was an initial strong attack but an 
> immediate drop in power with a less than original sustain. A thorough 
> examination of the piano found no problem with a loss of crown or 
> downbearing. There was no problem with the strings regarding false 
> beats or the like. The voicing was even and untouched from the dealer 
> prep it had received. In the space of 3 days after delivery the 
> character of the instrument changed. The one oddity we found after 
> some poking around one day was that after attaching a piece of wire to 
> 2 strings of a unison, ala the patented staple technology, the sound 
> was noticeably improved. While attaching the wire (temporarily) 
> knocked both strings out of tune, they did not exibit the lack of 
> power that is evident without the "staple".
>         I'd be interested to hear about any observations you all might 
> have had with freshly delivered instruments exhibiting a loss of 
> "singing tone" and what you have done about it. I'd also be interested 
> to hear what experience along these lines that you may have had with 
> the patented staple technology. The music director is getting no 
> response from his recent email to Grotrian although others prior to 
> this were answered almost immediately. It would be great to have a 
> replacement piano according to him but what if the new one exhibits 
> the same problems says I. The relative pitch in a drafty but otherwise 
> temperature constant hall is firm but the unisons don't stay all that 
> well. I usually don't have problems with stability but this one is 
> tough. It seems that the dealers tech, who was called out to try and 
> search out the problem too, also had trouble with pitch stability as I 
> went there days later and the unisons were not that clear. Thoughts?
>
>
>
> Greg Newell
>
> Greg's piano Forté
> mailto:gnewell@ameritech.net
>
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