violins and age

[Susan Kline]

Don Rose wrote:
>It has been thought for many years that a violin *plays* in after about ten
>years of being *played* 3 to 6 hours per day. I do know that my violin which
>is rarely played now does not sound as well *even* when played by another
>violinist as it once did.

It might be hard to prove in any objective way, but I have experienced the
same thing. Instruments that have not been played for awhile give me the
feeling of having a tone that is stodgy, tight, and thin. I don't think that
it takes as long to get back the responsiveness as Don describes. Big, open,
free playing brings it back pretty quickly (a few hours), is my experience.
Do any other string players have observations about this?

Now, do pianos exhibit the same trait? I recently (last year) replaced parts
on a 1941 Steinway A that had sat unplayed for a long time. It was in a
private home, and was seized with verdigris, then got donated to the Arts
Center. I noticed a big change when, months after I got it playing, it was
_finally_ given some good, loud (even _very_ loud) use by some composers
during a symposium. I suspect it had never been played so much and so hard
in its whole life as it was that week. The tone opened out a lot, especially
in the "trouble" octave.

We talk about voicing, and we use needles on the hammer shoulders to "open
the tone", and we beat in concert tunings, and we play very loud when
voicing to see which notes need what. We know that the tone gets brighter as
the felt packs in from heavy use, but do you suppose that the very act of
playing loud also opens out the tone all by itself, through action not on
the hammer but on the soundboard and ribs and rim?

Does anyone else have any experience with long unplayed pianos coming back
into heavy use?

Susan

Susan Kline
P.O. Box 1651
Philomath, OR 97370
skline@proaxis.com

"I'm glad that there are at least some things somewhere that I don't have to
do today."
			-- Ashleigh Brilliant