[pianotech] Pianos from the past

[Jim]

Chuck

Thanks for sharing your family memory . . You're not alone in appreciating 
the older pianos.

I have many customers with pree-1900 pianos, which have been disparaged by 
other tuners, who have refused to return to work with them.
These folks are amazed that I would consider what others have termed a 
waste of space.

First, it's true that some are just not repairable, but most have 'some' 
life left in them, and though perhaps tuning below pitch is the only way to 
keep them stable, it is worth the attempt to the owner.
After all it seems to me, that the service we bring to a family should be 
just that . . service . . and if their piano is playable when we're done, 
then we've accomplished our 'mission.  Not all pianos  are Concert hall 
quality.

I have a 1903 transposing Heintzman, that eventually will get overhauled, 
in my living room. Such tone . . or maybe I should trade it in for a 
Whitney???

Jim Kinnear

Here's another example of cabinetry that you don't see coming out of China 
these days . . . .

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Chuck Behm
  To: pianotech at ptg.org
  Sent: Saturday, April 11, 2009 9:26 AM
  Subject: [pianotech] Pianos from the past


            My dad died of Alzheimer’s at the age of 95. The last several 
years of his life were spent in a nursing home in Mason City, Iowa. He 
spent most of his time in a silent world of contemplative reverie. Few 
things could penetrate the fog that enveloped him.


              I found two things that worked. One was to start reading from 
the Journal aloud to him. He had 20 years worth in binders on his shelves. 
I would pick an issue at random, open it up and begin reading.

              Slowly, dad’s eyes would seem to focus a bit. He would begin 
to nod slowly, as if to himself. I would finish  the article and wait. 
“Krefting,” he would say softly. “Jack Krefting.”

              I would flip to another issue and read something else. “Susan 
Graham,” he would say, smiling slightly.

              Another article. “Lyon’s Roar,” he would say.

              He was right more often than not. For some reason, these 
articles were there in his mind where he could grasp them. It was as if for 
the moment the fog would lift a bit, and for a short time he was on a 
firmer ground.

  The other trick concerned pianos from his past. Dad was born in ’06, and 
when he graduated high school went to Chicago to live for several years. 
There he worked in a paint store matching paint samples by day, and played 
piano in various dance halls at night. He remembered, to his dying day, a 
number of the pianos that he played on.

  After warming up with the Journal, I would stop and ask him, “Remember 
that Haddorff, dad?

  He would be silent for a moment, and then would smile. “Yeah, yeah. At 
the Paradise. Big sound!” he would say.  “Filled the hall. Great piano!”

  Again a long lapse of silence as he thought back. “How about that J. 
Bauer, dad, do you remember that one?”

  “Sure,” he’d say, without hesitation. “Don’t remember the place that was 
at. Built right in Chicago, though. Had a sostenuto pedal. Great 
instrument. Wish I had that piano here now.”

  So did I. The home had a Wurlitzer console in the activity room. Dad 
never played it.

  That was usually as far as I could take dad towards a lucid conversation. 
When I would try to steer things in any other direction he would again 
become quiet, lost in a place that was beyond finding.

  Perhaps this explains somewhat my prejudice towards pianos from that 
bygone era. I realize that many of them have problems that sometimes are 
beyond fixing. They’ve weathered many decades of wear and tear, and have 
not gone unscathed. But I have a deep appreciation for the integrity of 
their construction.

  Pianos built during my youth (born in 1950) somehow just aren’t the same. 
Imagine in a few short years, when I’m sitting in a nursing home, one of my 
grown children saying to me something like, “Remember that Story and Clark, 
dad?”

  My eyes would clear for a moment, and I would say, “Yeah, yeah. The one 
with the fable Storytone soundboard! That was a piano!”

  Or, more likely perhaps, “That was a piano?”




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