[CAUT] Tone "contrast"; Was - The "new" S&S Hammers.

[Richard Brekne]

Hi Jim.

I wouldnt for a second say you are an idiot for getting bored with 
"pretty pianos".  At least as I think I understand you to mean by the 
term.  In my tenure with Andre Oorebeck as a voicing teacher he stressed 
this point very much.  His teaching echoed much of what Doug wrote in 
his post earlier today... that one needs to push the limits of the 
instrument and its enviroment... get the widest possible tonal colour 
variance.  One of the things Andre said time and time again was its very 
easy to create a <<beautiful>> tone that has no real power.  For him... 
power was the name of the game.   In any environment the response of the 
instrument is of course influenced by the acoustics of its 
surroundings... yet one can acheive (as Doug pointed out) a similiar (if 
not nearly identical) tonal response for finger input by appropriate 
voicing.

I do not wonder that Eric Schandell, and John Patton have very similar 
styles.  Eric learned much from John, at least thats what he tells me.  
I'm going to have the pleasure of working along side Eric on a limited 
basis soon as he is planning on moving to Norway soon.  I look very much 
forward to this as he will be a  fine instructor in the craft of voicing 
with lacqure.  And despite my preferences for non lacquered hammers... I 
will value gaining skill and knowhow in this approach.

That said... Steinway family folks are bound by <<the code>> as it 
were.  And tho they are more like guidelines then an actual code... they 
do provide a certain coherency to Steinway handled instruments. There is 
at least one very great strength in this fact.  That being that when one 
Steinway tech has to service a piano that another Steinway tech has 
handled for a while, there is a low probability of having to figure out 
what the heck the previous guy did.

But back to voicing... This idea that fff play has to be limited by some 
notion of distortion is a very fleeting concept at best.  The fact of 
the matter is that very very many folks like their fff screaming and 
downright nasty... and others ... well others dont.  I find in the end 
like I think you are saying, that a piano that is too tamed may sound 
beautiful... especially for those melodic low level passages that rely 
heavily on some form of tonality in the composition being played... but 
simply dont have enough expressive power to deal with something like say 
Griegs piano concert in A minor.  That opening line... and much of the 
more powerful passages simply require something far beyond <<pretty>> in 
my book.  Tho to be sure... others will think differently... and more 
power to them.  Point is... nobody is an idiot for their well considered 
opinions. It only gets idiotic when one begins to disdain others for theirs.

Cheers
RicB



    Hi Ric, others,

    At the same concert (original post) I mentioned to two Steinway techs in
    attendance that there seemed to be "no contrast of tone". (I won't
    mention their names). Both said the same thing... "That's right, and
    it's not really what we're after at Steinway".

    While there may be no "one way" to voice it's revealing to me that Eric
    S., Ron C., Scott J. and John P. have all voiced pianos I've listened to
    and they all are VERY similar. Vince is also of that school. John Patten
    and Eric both made the comment that all Steinway C&A techs pretty much
    do things the same way, or at least get to the same standard in tuning,
    voicing and regulation.

    Maybe I'm an idiot saying this but "pretty pianos" (like the rebuilds I
    mentioned at the convention) bore me after a while. I keep waiting for
    the ff sections to blow my hair back or move me emotionally, but they
    don't.

    Jim Busby BYU