Fred Not discounting your opinion but my question remains. Did you hear any of them in their classroom setting? The experience was way different and that's my point. Are you, discounting that? FWIW Honesty works for me. Dale S. Erwin www.Erwinspiano.com Custom restoration Ronsen Piano hammers Join the Weickert felt Revolution 209-577-8397 209-985-0990 -----Original Message----- From: Fred Sturm <fssturm at unm.edu> To: caut at ptg.org Sent: Thu, Feb 24, 2011 7:26 am Subject: Re: [CAUT] Should performers rule? (Was Lacquered hammers) On Feb 23, 2011, at 11:44 PM, Dale Erwin wrote: Did you actually attend each class and hear each instrument when it wasn't in the hall itself? If not its not an apples to apples comparison. Because, there is no way a person could have been very impressed with much in that hall. It was night and day. Deadest hall I have ever experienced. It was scary and disappointing for me as I hauled one of the nicest sounding Ds I have ever laid ears on. I say that as objectively as possible and so many unsolicited comments by the techs there added affirmation. And later it now resides in The Arkely center for the arts in Eureka, Ca. Its first outing there....Jim Brickmans tour. A Yamaha artist. The tuner Greg Granoff reports he said, " Best Piano on my entire tour". Richard Glazier, Gershwin artist, at the Sac convention Sacramento ran to the back of the hall after he performed filled with superlatives. You can't pay people to do that. Its either real or the emperors new clothes and I'm not fond of that type of apparel. Let me clarify that I did not find that all the rebuilt and/or redesigned pianos at Rochester were dogs. But I did not find them special, either. I'll be perfectly honest with you: I thought every one of them needed at least a good day worth of meticulous prep, to start with, some more than others. But I have done that kind of prep many, many times, and I have a pretty good idea of what the potentials are. I heard some potential, but nothing extraordinary. None of the instruments in that row stood out particularly (Overs was out of the row, as his wasn't a rebuild). Reasonably solid rebuilding skill is what I saw (the word "reasonably" thrown in to cover all the instruments, some more than others). If you want to discount my opinion, decide it was due to conditions of the room, whatever, you are welcome to do so. Or you can ascribe it to taste. I am quite upfront in saying that I prefer a lively, bright piano, with a great deal of contrast. So if that isn't what you are aiming at, you are unlikely to blow me away. I've been in this game for a good while now, and I am pretty confident of my ability to pick out a piano that will work in performance. 40 years as a serious pianist, 30 as a tech, all with day in, day out time in concert halls, either taking care of the pianos or playing them, gives one at least fairly good chops. In any case, no ill will intended. I think that unvarnished truth stated clearly is far friendlier than flattery. In my dual positions as performer and tech, I see lots of both, and I prefer the former even if it hurts. Not to say that the feedback you got from Eureka wasn't honest. It probably was. Regards, Fred Sturm fssturm at unm.edu http://www.createculture.org/profile/FredSturm = -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20110224/696dfb73/attachment.htm>
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