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Hi all,
Today I tuned a circ. 1953 D at one of our leading Sydney
universities. I've previously mentioned this instrument and its near
impossible tunability. But today I had a digital camera with me, so I
couldn't resist the temptation to post an image to the pianotech
list. See image below.
The rest of the piano has been 'rebuilt' to similar standards of excellence.
This piano has a severely collapsed board in the killer octave area.
Clearly it was already long dead when it was last rebuilt (1992) by a
local expert, since the cuts in the stringing pillows are an attempt
to restore some measure of downbearing despite the sunken board. The
fact that several of the unisons are riding on top of the stringing
pillows (center and left unisons of the center note in the image for
example), while their neighboring unisons are sitting in the grooves
as intended, seems to have escaped the attention of our 'expert' at
the time of restringing the instrument. I can't describe how
difficult this makes tuning the unison strings to each other.
Some years ago a leading international pianist found herself
attempting to perform on this instrument. She got so vocal about the
lack of tone that the technician who tuned the piano for the concert
(a fine local technician and colleague) was called back to rectify
his 'shoddy' work. When he tried to explain that the piano had a
number of shortcoming that prevented him from getting a decent tone
out of the piano, the 'real expert' who rebuilt the piano in 1992 was
subsequently called in. Of course, he immediately put the University
staff at ease. The problem was clearly the tuner, who was trying to
shift the blame onto the condition of the instrument to mask his own
incompetence. I don't share his 'smoke and mirrors' opinion and the
image speaks for itself. We've been looking after this university's
piano inventory for some years now. Whenever we are booked to tune
this particular piano by someone who is unknown to us, we always
inform he/she that we will do what is possible, but we cannot make it
sound like a musical instrument.
It is one of those pianos for which tuning is a most unrewarding
experience. We've all got a few of them. But you just don't expect to
encounter such 'trash' within the hallowed halls of one of the most
prestigious universities in the land.
Ron O.
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OVERS PIANOS - SYDNEY
Grand Piano Manufacturers
_______________________
Web http://overspianos.com.au
mailto:ron@overspianos.com.au
_______________________
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