Soundboard Thoughts (Kind of long)

[Gregory Torres]

Del:

Bravo! I agree with your post whole heartedly.
Sincerely,
Greg Torres

Delwin D Fandrich wrote:

> 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