[CAUT] 1098's

[Jim Busby]

Chris,

One "parting shot". The reason I used to hate 1098s had to do mostly (In my opinion) with lack of knowledge/skills/experience with them. Eric Schandall taught me some tricks for tuning, regulation, and voicing which opened them up to me. They require (my opinion, no endless rebuttals please!) more of the grand piano mentality; careful mating, voicing, etc. to help them reach full potential. In other words, if you just "tune" a grand piano, no mating of strings, no fitting hammers, etc. you know the piano won't sound like it should. !098s that have been fully prepped actually are not the unruly stepchildren I used to think they were.

Amen, and amen.

Thanks for the thread.

Jim Busby BYU

From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Christopher Purdy
Sent: Friday, December 05, 2008 11:14 AM
To: College and University Technicians
Subject: Re: [CAUT] 1098's

Thanks to everyone that has responded to my questions, both here and privately.  Considering the venom that we usually hear from piano technicians about these pianos, I was very surprised to receive more positive feed back than negative.  I still welcome any and all comments.

In some thirty years at this game, I admit that I have only had a hand full of customers with the 1098.  Despite the university, Athens is a small town and the only customer I had with one moved away a couple of years ago.  I also have to admit that I allowed myself to assume a fair degree of distaste for these pianos simply because other tuners always spoke so poorly of them.  I'm opening my mind to them now, so to speak, and I'm much less apprehensive about considering them.

I have been saving all comments I have received about this and plan to compile all the pros and cons to present to faculty and administration soon.  I would still like to hear from anyone out there.  I am especially afraid of being part of a decision that I will regret down the road.  Since these pianos will outlive me here at the school of music for many years, I don't want my "legacy" to come down to my successors asking, what was that idiot thinking?

Chris



Christopher D. Purdy R.P.T.

Registered Piano Technician

School of Music, Ohio University

Rm. 311, Robt. Glidden Hall

Athens, OH  45701

Office (740) 593-1656

Cell    (740) 590-3842

fax      (740) 593-1429

http://www.ohiou.edu/music



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