Ethics for parsimonious customers

David Boyce David at piano.plus.com
Thu Jul 5 19:19:49 MDT 2007


Well I tuned the piano today. In fairness, I would say it has in the past 
been tuned with reasonable regularity.  I was given a slip of paper with the 
bride's name and address to send the bill.

The piano turned out to be an 1898 Bluthner grand.  It is the first time I 
have encountered one with the famous Bluthner aliquot scale, with the 
unstruck octave-higher fourth string for every note from G4 up.

I don't know what the piano was like new, of course, but I can't say I 
thought the aliquot strings did much for the sound.  They were all horribly 
false, too, when I tuned them by plucking.  It struck me as odd that the 
non-speaking length should be so much longer than the speaking length for 
most of them, and also that the non-speaking lengths had only a thin cloth 
strip interwoven to mute them.

I felt for any movement of the unstruck strings on playing the note, and 
there was some, certainly, but I don;t think it contributed much to the 
tone. I couldn't really tell a differnece when I sounded the note with the 
aliquot string muted.

I loved the old wooden music stand beside the piano. 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Bluthner Aliquot 1.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 84102 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20070706/edd0761d/attachment-0003.jpg 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Bluthner aliquot 2.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 60634 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20070706/edd0761d/attachment-0004.jpg 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Music stand 2.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 61706 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20070706/edd0761d/attachment-0005.jpg 


More information about the Pianotech mailing list

This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC