[CAUT] beginning luck

[Brent Fischer]

Hi Ron,
   I'll take the blame for you finding it necessary to post your message and I certainly had no intention to back you into a corner.  I don't have to see or hear your work to know thatit's done with care and craftsmanship, that comes through loudand clear. Doesn't take long to figure out whose "workmanship" iscompetent whether re-designed or not. Mr. Busby's statementthat he "de-regulated" to manipulate pianists to change to yourre-build was just too outrageous to ignore, I think he said a halfinch of let-off, so it borders on unethical management and probably stupidity to even mention it was done.
   Whether large or small, university administrators depend on alevel of trust through the chain of command. A head tech shouldbe making wise decisions that reflect the overall musical consensusof the keyboard faculty first, and probably percussion last. When youspeak of the decision makers I assume you mean the chair of thedepartment, who should be able to rely on the technician to steerthe funding in a way that gives a high chance of predictable success.
   There's loud in a piano and there's opened up, the latter takes timeand combines volume and harmonic clarity when accurately tuned.If that's what happens to your pianos or others who don't rebuild bythe book then I wouldn't hesitate to say it's a quality sound.    
Sincerely,  Brent Fischer    
--- On Mon, 2/28/11, Ron Nossaman <rnossaman at cox.net> wrote:

From: Ron Nossaman <rnossaman at cox.net>
Subject: Re: [CAUT] beginning luck
To: caut at ptg.org
Date: Monday, February 28, 2011, 12:12 PM



While I have no delusional hope it will make any difference, being ignored the first time, I'll make one more attempt.

Jim Busby had been talking to me for a couple of years about doing a redesign/rebuild on one of the BYU pianos. His idea. He's played my B at Rochester and liked it. We talked about it again at Grand Rapids, and I pointed out that local voicing tastes at BYU were very loud and bright sitting at the piano, and there's no way he would voice one of my pianos to match. No problem, according to him.

A couple of years later. when the piano was about to come in to the shop, I brought it up again. I told him and Keith Kopp that I was concerned with the way the piano would be received, and offered to do them a more conventional rebuild that would sound more like everything else they had. "No, no, we want one done your way" was the answer. The customer's call.

We eventually worked out an estimate that would fit their allotted budget, so we brought the piano in.

The belly was pretty straightforward, with no surprises, and I stripped the inner rim while I had it apart to facilitate later refinishing. That wasn't in the budget or on the estimate, but I thought it advisable and offered to do it. I needed the work, and was glad to get the job, so it seemed like a nice gesture.

The action was really ugly. We were reusing the wippens, as a cost concession, but someone had bent the rep springs up badly, so I spent half an uncompensated day taking the wips off, straightening springs, centering the screw adjustments, rough calibrating the springs, and reinstalling the wips. No prior warning about this.

We elected to recover the backchecks rather than replace them because it was a little cheaper. As it turned out, these had been replaced with long heads, and were 10mm too high, with the hammer tails strangely contoured to make them work. I replaced them, so I could do the hammers right. No prior warning about this.

Key leads had been removed, and others partially drilled to adjust weights. Capstans had been moved, and, as I recall, the action ratio was almost 6:1. Re-balancing and re-engineering the action wasn't in the estimate, so I got it to work with hammer weight. I had no prior warning about this.

The keys were very badly eroded throughout most of the keyboard. I asked about it, and was told "Do what you have to do". I couldn't send it back like that with my name on it, so I ate another couple of days filling key sides. No prior warning about this.

The key ends were chopped up, and all different heights. I have no idea why, but someone had chisel split them to random heights, and shimmed the lifter felt up to somewhere near level. One more thing I had to fix that wasn't on the estimate. No prior warning about this.

 When I do work for a small educational institution, I get to talk directly to the people making the decisions, and we can discuss pros and cons directly and thoroughly so everyone knows what's what. Doing work for a large institution, I'm at the mercy of the tech who arranges the thing. I don't get to talk to the decision makers directly, and have to rely and trust in the in house tech to pass on my information and concerns to the appropriate people. I have to rely on the tech to accurately and honestly represent not only my proposed work to the administration, but also the piano to me for an accurate estimate, so everyone knows where they stand going in. To date, the only instance in which this has failed utterly is at BYU.

The remaining problem is political. The piano is as loud and projects as least as well into the hall as the bright one it was compared to when I was there. It just doesn't sound as loud sitting at it. This is all as I described it to Jim and Keith before the work was done. They did have prior warning of this, more than once, and were fine with it before the fact.

So you folks press on with your witch hunt as you will, but at least you now have a few facts to work with.
Ron N



      
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