US made Yamaha upright

[Delwin D Fandrich]

----- Original Message -----
From: "gordon stelter" <lclgcnp@yahoo.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: July 30, 2002 10:02 PM
Subject: Re: US made Yamaha upright


> Dear List,
>      I just tuned a new 48 or 50" Yamaha upright at a
> church ( forget what model ).  It was clean, shiny and
> new, and had a uniform  action.   But, frankly, the
> tone lacked "depth". The words "Two Dimensional"
> and "Superficial" come to mind. For all of their other
> problems, a nasty, clunky, filthy old American upright
> from the teens still has more "depth" of tone, more
> resonance than this thing does!  That is my subjective
> opinion. Can someone put it into objective, scientific
> terms and offer an explanation or remedy?
>      Respectfully,
>      Gordon Stelter

The simple answer is:
    Welcome to the heavy and stiff soundboards/hard hammer world.

The more complex answer is, well, more complex. One could easily present a
three to six hour class--and I have--on the subject and not but scratch the
surface. Suffice it to say that you are hearing the result of a variety of
mass-production techniques and materials all working together to give the
sound you are hearing. Precisely and beautifully built but musically flat.

Changing this would not easy--indeed, well-nigh impossible. There is no easy
fix. Newton has suggested Ronsen hammers and this will certainly take of the
hard edge but you may well lose so much power in the process the results may
not be acceptable. That scale and soundboard were not designed to
accommodate hammers that soft. Besides, the piano was probably, at least in
part, sold on the basis of its great and wonderful power and it wouldn't do
to take that away, now would it?

Please repeat after me:
    Power is good! Dynamics are bad!
    Power is good! Dynamics are bad!
    Power is good! Dynamics are bad!.....

The real solution would be to swap out the soundboard with one that is a bit
more flexible and probably a bit lighter, back off on the scaling some and
then use a more resilient hammer; all of which working together are better
suited to the type of dynamic sound you find so endearing. This would take a
bit more time and effort on the soundboard work and on both hammer making
and the voicing, of course, but what you would end up with would be a real
pianoforte instead of a FORTE.

Regretfully,

Del