echoes in schidmayer upright

[pbailey]

I will second Stephen's comments and suggestion; and further I will 
recommend tuning this instrument in a well temperament
or possibly even a 'mild' meantone, like  the Marsh 4/25 comma (see 
Jorgensen's  TUNING).

If the harmonic alignment  of the tones is organized in a well 
temperament,  ''residual echo'' will have quite a different effect. Try
it, you just might  like it.

The inefficient damping is a fault or a feature according to what you 
aim to achieve; but I think this instrument was designed to
sound as you describe, and an appropriate tuning would demonstrate this 
feature that amplifies the musicality.

They built it this way because they wanted it to sound as it does. Give 
it an appropriate tuning, and you might start to hear
what the builders had in mind.

										Paul Bailey
										Modesto CA


On Sunday, April 28, 2002, at 10:35 PM, Stephen Birkett wrote:

> Oren wrote:
>
>> I am an owner and player of a schiemayer upright, obligque strung 
>> underdamped piano.  It was made in
>> 1885 by J. and P. Schiemayer and has a highly ...
>> richer, dynamic and powerful.  The problem is that there is a residual 
>> echo in it.  Even when I talk near
>> it when the piano is closed it reverberates.  This is annoying given 
>> the excellent tone.  Whenever I move
>> from loud play into pianissimo the echo annoys. The restorer maintains 
>> that as a matter of design the
>> dampers are perhaps too small and too high up so thre are still live 
>> strings although the damping system
>> operates as best it can.
>
> Instantaneous tonal castration has not always been the ideal - the end 
> of the sound was once considered as important as the beginning and 
> middle. Dampers on early Viennese fortepianos, contrary to what you may 
> hear from some quarters, was actually _not_ instantly efficient. By the 
> 1840s, the Viennese fell in love with very hazy damping and after-ring, 
> having been exposed to the aesthetic of English pianos. I expect your 
> Schiedmayer was designed to sound the way it does because they liked 
> the effect and wanted it to sound that way. They would probably say 
> modern dampers are too efficient, while modern techs say theirs were 
> too inefficient. Learn to love it for what it is - it will grow on you.
>
> Stephen
>
> Stephen Birkett Fortepianos
> Authentic Reproductions of 18th and 19th Century Pianos
> 464 Winchester Drive
> Waterloo, Ontario
> Canada N2T 1K5
> tel: 519-885-2228
> mailto: sbirkett@real.uwaterloo.ca
>