At 14:34 +0000 7/8/08, Anne Acker wrote: >Yes, your instincts are good. This is a recipe for disaster for a >young girl's hands and arms. Her piano's downweights sound just >fine. Nor do I find that well prepared concert pianos are any >heavier! I would advise the girl's parents to consult with injury >prevention specialists and talk with other performers. A huge >number of conservatory pianist students are injured each year. I quite agree. And I'd also say that piano teachers, even if they are adequate performers as well, very often have no idea what they are talking about. About 18 months ago I had a woman who teaches piano and singing at two well-known music schools come to hire a small grand. She played all of Brahms intermezzi without a break and then beamed and declared herself enchanted with the piano ... but since she wanted to develop her technique she would prefer a heavier touch. I told her to take the piano for a couple of weeks and then, if need be, I could add weight to the touch, which I considered correct. After two weeks she confirmed she wanted more weight. I added two Jiffy leads to each key, telling her that if she found it too heavy I could easily take one off. The result was entirely to her effusive satisfaction. Quite soon she phoned me to say that she had begun to work up Chopin's 4th Ballade and was finding her hands tiring very quickly. I expressed no surprise and simply went and took off one lead from the keys. Same response : perfect! After another ten days or so she found she was still getting tired and I took off all the added lead, to her complete satisfaction. She seemed not to realise that the piano was now in precisely the same condition as when she had first tried it. The next thing was a "ping" that needed to be sorted out, which I guessed was a technical expression for a high partial but pleaded ignorance. Having given her a short lecture on piano terminology I suggested that since she had a tiled floor and a ceiling of barely 8 feet in the converted stone dairy which is her living room, it might be a good idea to close the top instead of keeping it at full prop 24 hours a day and letting the dust in and the "ping" out. This was out of the question. I first isolated the casters and then toned the piano -- to her complete satisfaction, of course. The next time I saw the piano was when it came back to me a few months ago, full of dust and with the keys as filthy as I'd expect from 50 years' use. But worse than that, without consulting me, she had had my tuner tone the piano down to such an extent that it is now lifeless and will need new hammers. She has now hired a newish Bechstein B from a London firm for 4 times what she was paying for mine, but I'd like to see their faces when that comes back to them! JD
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