Soundboard Thoughts (Kind of long)

[Delwin D Fandrich]

JIMRPT wrote:

> In a message dated 12/10/97 9:46:08 PM, jpiesik@arinc.com wrote:
>
> <<"I've heard no. The soundboard is replaceable without losing the "character
> Everything else being equal, if you have the plate, case, and rim of any piano
> the rest of the components are replaceable, and you'll be left with essentially the same piano as you started with.">>
>
> John, Andre, et al;
>     Any part can be changed on any piano...but it is like transplanting organs in
> people....it works but it's never the same.  Looking at a piano as just a
> collection of exchangeable parts rather ignores the fact that some pianos with
> equivalent parts are far superior to their like brethren.  They just have more
> "soul".
>     If you considered the case to be the skeleton of the instrument, the hammers
> the heart, the keys the appendages, and the plate and strings the sinew then
> the soundboard could be considered the soul. Change any other part in that
> piano and you can change the attack, the feel, and the harshness or softness
> of the tone........but not the basic character of that tone, that comes from
> the "soul", the sounding board.
>     We can't put in a new board without that realization and this realization
> should not keep us from doing so. The new piano will be a different entity
> from the old one because the "soul"......is....... different...........perhaps
> not better or not worse....just different.
>     We should not expect boards made from pressure treated, microwave dried, new growth timber to match those of boards
> made from old growth timber floated down the river, soaked in a mill pond for some period, then cut and air dried for a
> couple of years, to give us instruments with identical, or even close, character or "souls".
>     It's the Board guys.
> JMHO
> Jim Bryant (FL)

  ---------------------------------

Jim (& John, Andre, et al);

I agree with the above, but would like to add...

I continually hear this line about how we don't want to change the character of the piano by replacing that old, flat,
cracked up, wavy soundboard that hasn't worked properly for decades. We don't want to change the "soul" of the piano. We say
we want the piano to "sound like it did when it was new." The trouble with all of this lovely sentiment is -- we don't have a
clue as to what it sounded like when it was new. None of us were there when that piano rolled of the assembly line. And even
if we had been, our tone memory is simply not that good or that consistent.

I hear the same things about violins. Except with violins we get even sillier. We seem to be of the opinion that they get
better with age. Who knows? Can anyone out there prove that? Talk about sentiment overpowering reason! Antonio Stradivari (or
Stradivarius) died in 1737. Who of us was there to judge what any of his instruments sounded like when he finished them? Not
even Jim Coleman can remember that far back. Besides, violins are not pianos. How much tension is on a gut violin string? How
much downforce is there on a violin bridge? What is the frequency range of a violin? How does the violinist strike those
strings with that bass hammer? Etc. Etc. Etc.

>From the moment a piano soundboard is installed and the piano is strung its acoustic properties begin to change. And good,
bad or indifferent, there is nothing we can do about that fact. Whether these changes are for better or worse depends on a
whole range of factors that are way too complicated to go into here. What we do know is that after fifty or seventy-five
years no piano has the same character of tone that it had when it was new.

And, no matter what we do to that soundboard, that original tone character is not going to be restored to its original glory.
Not by shimming the cracks and scraping the compression ridges. Not by re-ribbing it. And, not by replacing it. It's not
going to matter if we finish it with shellac or lacquer or varnish. The tone character is going to be changed. It will not
ever be "restored" to its original quality. Whatever we do to "fix" an old, flat, damaged soundboard will improve the tone
quality of the piano. And if a new board is competently fabricated and installed, there is every chance that the tone quality
could be better than it was when the piano started out in life. But it would be truly serendipitous if it were the same.

There is nothing magical about a piece of wood. It has stiffness, it has mass, and it has a few other physical
characteristics that make it particularly suitable to function as a two-dimensional wave-carrying medium in a piano. But it's
not magical or mystical. If a seventy-five year old wood panel can be made to once again function effectively as a transducer
by replacing the ribs, then go for it. But let's not deceive ourselves. In no way are we "restoring" anything. We're simply
choosing one way of fixing it.

-- ddf