Boston front scale noise

Dean May deanmay@pianorebuilders.com
Mon, 27 Sep 2004 08:39:43 -0500


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Mike B. wrote:
He called me a couple of days after the tuning and complained that when he
plays middle c and holds it for a long time the sound becomes "discordant".

Hi Mike,

I find this to be characteristic of many Kawai pianos. And I’ve seen it on
the few Bostons I’ve played as well. Play and hold most any treble note and
the sustain of the pitch will quickly fade into white noise. You’ll still
hear sound but you won’t be able to easily discern the pitch of the note you
just played. Try running an arpeggio all the way up the scale and you find
the same thing. The sustain quickly fades into white noise and the you’ll
have a hard time discerning what scale you just played.

If you dampen the front scale noise on that piano you are going to be making
a major change in the tonal characteristics of it, a change the customer may
not like.

I would explain to the customer that what he is doing is not the normal way
one plays and listens to a piano. There are lots of extraneous noises one
can find and accentuate in a piano that are undesirable. He picked that
piano because he liked the way it played and sounded. The characteristic he
is complaining about is part of the overall characteristics of that piano’s
particular sound that he picked. It is a characteristic of Asian pianos,
Kawai in particular, to have a quick attack and short sustain. There’s
nothing you can do about it (beyond normal seating/leveling of strings and
voicing) short of major soundboard reconstruction and scale redesign. He
should just play it normally and enjoy it for what it is.

Blessings,

Dean
Dean May             cell 812.239.3359
PianoRebuilders.com   812.235.5272
Terre Haute IN  47802


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