[CAUT] Performance piano usage

[A440A@aol.com]

Craig writes:
<<  question:  Approximately how many hours a week is your best piano played?
I answered< > Perhaps 5 hours of rehearsals, and 5 hours of performance.  <

Craig sez: 
>>Our best concert grand gets this much playing time in one day, not one week.
It's pretty tough to keep at "performance level" under that much use. >>

Our best piano is kept in the largest hall, which sees much less use than the 
smaller venue.  In the smaller hall, the best piano is played non-stop all 
day, and still used for perfomances in that hall.  It wears hammers out pretty 
fast, (and dampers, keybushings and knuckles, too). 
      Even so,  the "best" piano has original factory hammers, and even after 
light use, the brassiness of the lacquer is continually coming up.  I have 
been needling it back down, but the tone does deteriorate with this treatment.  
I do think the Steinway hammers can sound great, but their durability has been 
far less than the Renner hammers I often use.  I suppose it is like racing 
tires, the best grip comes from those that last the least amount of time.  If 
there is an unlimited budget for hammers, I would replace with the Steinway 
ones, but with a little more work(the Needles), the Renners do the job and do it 
longer.  
     As a sidelight,  all the concert pianos here are now in the Moore and 
Co. temperament except the "best" one.  That piano was put into a Coleman 11 for 
the Mozart/Schubert birthday concert presented by the Chair of the 
department.  Audience response was great!  (I didn't tell anybody that a change had been 
made).   Several said that they had never heard a more expressive rendition 
of the Schubert Sonata in Bb Major (D.960). During the second mvt. (Andante 
Sostenuto),  you could have heard a pin drop as the tempering began dialing up.  
I have never seen 600 people sit so stock-still.  
Regards,  



Ed Foote RPT 
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html