<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On Sep 15, 2007, at 12:42 PM, Richard Brekne wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; ">All this goes back to my origional post on this matter. Get your own voice and voicing style down pat. And select the hammers that YOU prefer working with to get it. It is not IMHO even remotely neccessary to adhere to someone elses idea of what any given piano should sound like. The window for acceptable voicing is actually quite large... which means for every 10 pianists you wow.... there are at the very least another 10 who will be less then impressed.<BR><BR>My take.. :)</SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Ric,</DIV><DIV>I'd like to ask a question regarding this philosophy: </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>What if the factory installers took this approach and advice? What identity, if any, would then be associated with the NY Steinway or any other manufacturer where there was no control over the manufacturing process? What then, could be attributed to the instrument that would make it a NY Steinway or a Hamburg Steinway or a Bosendorfer or a Bechstein or a Yamaha or a Kawai? What would the name on the plate and fallboard mean? What would that name be worth?</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I don't think anyone on this list can argue with the idea that most all of us are accomplished artists in our very own right. We each have earned reputations for our work that has built our careers. We all take pride in our work -- our art, our <<brand>> if you will.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>But in this area, here is where I take my pride out of the equation. It is not my name on the fallboard. I have not been building pianos since 1853 or whenever. I have not spent 150 plus years developing an identity that is uniquely mine, that has come to represent something to the world. When a performer walks up to a piano with a certain name on the fallboard, he or she has a certain expectation for what kind of sound and performance it has based on that name and their previous experience with other examples of it. If a performer finds a NY Steinway, there is a certain expectation that comes from that. If one finds Hamburg, there is another expectation. If one finds Yamaha, Kawai, Bechstein, Bosendorfer, etc., again each has built a reputation for something different and I personally had nothing to do with it. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>With that in mind, I don't think I have one iota of credibility to infuse my own personal taste to make a sweeping change of the tonal/response characteristics of any manufacturer's product. That product is the very identity of the company, and I don't feel I have the right to infuse my own preferences beyond working with the parts that make up the formula of that identity, whether it be an improvement in my opinion or not. So, with my limited experience and knowledge, I try to rely on the maintenance/rebuilding processes -tone building/voicing in this case- as taught by that manufacturer so that it maintains or mimics as closely as possible, the character of tone/response - identity - that manufacturer has built a reputation for. If that means learning how to use NY Steinway hammers and lacquer, so be it. If that means stabbing 100,000 holes in a new set of hard pressed Yamaha hammers, so be it. It isn't my name on the fallboard, and I don't feel I have the right to choose the kind of sound that piano should have just because I prefer a different method. It is the artist/buyer/owner who has the expectation based on the name on the fallboard, whether I like it or not. To change the overall characteristic of the instrument to suit my preferences does injustice to both the buyer/owner/artist and the owner of the name on the fallboard.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Yes. The NY Steinway hammer, properly lacquered, creates a different palate of tonal offerings from any other hammer. That is NY Steinway's signature. Other hammers can sound "nice" and "pretty" in a Steinway. But that sound is missing something. It isn't just about loud and soft or bright or mellow. It is about the felty strength of the lioness gently carrying her cubs in her mouth to the graceful, mysterious stalking to the raucous, meaty, bloody gore of the lion's kill. It is the romantic sensuality of estrogen and the chest beating insensitivity of testosterone. One cannot describe with words the description of the actual sound, but you know when it is there and when it isn't.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>And most every performer I've worked with knows. I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with artists regarding expectations from a Steinway that have contained the phrase "you know what I mean". That is not a question. It is a description of tone.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Viva la difference? Yes. If not an affordability issue, different tone and touch characteristics are why many choose other manufacturer's pianos. And agreed, Steinway has a reputation (perhaps overexaggerated by promoters of its competitors) of manufacturing pianos with slightly different personalities. And it isn't that the personalities vary so awfully much -- there is usually a strong resemblance between all of them. But the differences don't occur because one installer in the factory chooses to use Tokiwa shanks and Wurzen hammers and another Renner shanks, with assist wippens and Abel hammers, and yet another Hamburg wippens, NY pre-84 shanks and Isaac hammers. They occur simply because all of them are imperfect in slightly different ways, despite the increasingly reliable consistency of the stock factory parts.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>On Sep 19, 2007, at 11:40 AM, johnsond wrote:<BR><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "> I'm not so sure I care for this new "process improvement" of pre-soaking, as it takes too much of the tone building process out of my control (in this last case, all of it) but we can deal with it if necessary.</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I'm not trying to be crass, but I really don't think it is up to us whether we care for it or not. I see it as NY Steinway making an effort to protect their own identity and reputation from technician "error", as they have called it in reference to teflon bushings. They have that right. They have earned it. The pre-soaking takes our own personal preferences out of the equation to an extent and puts the hammer on a path to something that with little more work should produce the sound they want instruments with their name on them to produce. If nothing else, it gets the note in the box that erases all doubt that Steinway hammers do indeed require lacquer. Steinway is taking back control of the tone building process. It is an attempt to make it easier for us to achieve that signature NY sound if we are only open minded to it. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>It wasn't teflon bushings that created Steinway's reputation for clicky actions during those years. It was technicians in the field who didn't know how to work with them. But that was what allowed other manufacturers to make claims that Steinway was somehow inferior and stake claims to market share. If not for their tradition rich reputation and Steinway's C&A artists working with world class performers using bona fide Steinway techniques during those times, it is very possible Steinway could have wound up on the chopping block over it. Is that what we want? Look, they're trying to help us out guys. Let's at least listen to what they have to say without our eyes closed and our hands over our ears.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>If technicians have a legitimate complaint about the quality of their finished parts, that is one thing. But what right do we have to complain about the quality of Steinway parts if it is our own ignorance of their processes, or infusion of our own individual preferences that is the cause of the dissatisfaction? Steinway's technicians seem to use the parts quite well for the world's most demanding performers, in the factory, in the C&A department and in the restoration center (which, by the way, I was told almost always uses the same prehung hammers/shanks they send us with rare exception). If I don't know how to make Steinway parts work on a Steinway, how is that Steinway's fault? If I can't make them work (or just don't want to), what does that say to my client about my competence? Blame Steinway? Wanna see some eyebrows go up in a hurry around here?</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I think it is a step in the right direction for them. For their brand. For their identity. For their future.</DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>And ours.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>My thoughts,</DIV><DIV>Jeff</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR><BR><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV>Jeff Tanner, RPT</DIV><DIV>University of South Carolina</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN> </DIV><BR></BODY></HTML>