Hi, Avery. Please be aware that my response to your question is highly personal, and is going to differ from most other that you recieve because by perspective is different. I am both a well-trained Classical pianist and a technician, playing from the time I was 5 and tuning from the time I was 13. Consequently I evaluate pianos from both sides of the keyboard, so to speak. Additionally, I grew up playing on an old Steinway B that spoiled me forever regarding my expectations as to how a piano should sound and play. Simply put, I am highly prejudiced in favor of the older instruments. That said, here are my thoughts on your model O. You have to consider the evironment in which it is going to be used. The reason it's in such poor condition right now is because over the years it's had the stuffins beaten out of it in an institutional setting. And, as soon as you return it to service, that's what's going to happen to it again. Given the beatinng that it will inevitably take, you probably just can't restore what's there, you're going to have to, in essence remanufacture the piano. That means that you probably will have to replace the soundboard and bridges and perhaps the entire action as well. 85 year-old action parts probably aren't going to be able to stand up to the demands of institutional usage. When you've finished rebuilding the piano, you will essentially have a new instrument in an old case. Economically you can justify the expense of doing so, because you can rebuild what's there for substantially less than the cost of buying new. Unfortunately, in the process of rebuilding it to meet your usage requirements, most of the original character of the piano will be destroyed. You may, indeed, still wind up with a fine quality instru- ment, but it will be a hybrid of old and new, and no longer an original by any stretch of the imagination. OTOH, if the piano were to go into an environment were it's usage demands were less severe, it could perhaps be restored, using the original, but now repaired soundboard and bridges and action, thus preserving much of the original character of the instrument. Speaking as a pianist, many of the old Steinways had a color, a dimension, a quality to their "voice" that is completely lacking in the newer instruments, and which is fre- quently destroyed in the rebuilding process. When I find this "voice" quality in an instrument, I seek to preserve it at all costs. An old model O Steinway, sitting on it's side, in the way, unused, it's voice silenced, is perhaps a metaphor for our times. Today the pianos, the pianists, the music and the sounds are much different from the way they used to be. Some call this progress. Not I. This is not the beginning, this is the end. The Golden Age of the piano was a century ago, when the likes of Steinway, Mason & Hamlin, Chickering, Knabe, Weber and the like ruled the world! Today, of all those great names, only Steinway remains, itself but a pale reflection of what it once was. Which is why, when I find a vintage Steinway like yours, I seek to restore it, rather than to rebuild it. Decades later, the sound of that model B from my youth still echoes in my ear and remains a benchmark against which I measure all other pianos. Sometimes after a day of working on modern Steinways, Yamahas, Kawais and the like, when I get home I sit down at my ancient Knabe concert grand, or the old Steinway sitting next to it, or the even older Chickering sit- ting next to that, and play a little Chopin, or Mendelssohn or Liszt. They remind me of how the great pianos used to sound and of why I became a tech- nician in the first place. That's something I never want to forget. Respectfully, Les Smith lessmith@buffnet.net
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