Sustain was Re: 1974 M & H B

Richard Brekne Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no
Mon, 24 Mar 2003 16:39:36 +0100


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Ron Nossaman wrote:

>
> And techs' ideas of what constitutes a viable or dead soundboard are
> similarly diverse everywhere you go.
>

A little off the subject line here, this quote reminded me of something I heard a
few weeks back from an eminent harpsichord builder in Northern Europe. Bear in
mind the fellow is a piano forte' lover, dislikes the Steinway sound intensly, and
in general dislikes the modern piano.

His point was that this whole sustain issue is misunderstood from the get go. That
is to say that there is no need for nearly the sustain levels modern pianos offer,
... that there is virtually no music written from any time period that requires
more then half of this sustain level.  Never heard that argumentation  before.

His position was that older instruments of the modern variant sounded better (read
mellow) as they lost some of their power and sustain through the years.

Just a bit more for the mesh

Cheers

--
Richard Brekne
RPT, N.P.T.F.
UiB, Bergen, Norway
mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no
http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html


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