>>Well, so how was it? Did you all have a good time or what? Dennis Johnson<< Dennis, We are all sworn to secrecy. The tumultuous events of the week cannot be expressed openly. . . . 'Twas a good convention from my mostly exhibit hall view. I couldn't break away to attend David Stanwood's class, unfortunately. The receptions were great. My center pin / action friction class was well attended by mostly intelligent technicians (and one heckler). The Steinway concert was interesting, but I enjoyed comparing the 2 Ds myself better. They put a Hamburg D next to a New York D, and a Mr. Bayless played selections on each. Unfortunately the pianist wanted to angle the tails of the pianos away from the audience (I suppose because he wanted us to be able to see his fingers - ugh), so the treble tone was very weak from out in the seats. Comparing the pianos later didn't reveal this weakness. The New York D (I didn't make a note of the number) was one of those wonderfully huge sounding pianos. The Hamburg D was cleaner but not as big. The Fazioli 10 footer was impressive, and beautifully built also. It was hard to judge it's tone well in the exhibit hall - it was voiced up and quite bright, but seemed to break up and be harsh when played hard. The Fazioli class taught by Heiner Sanwald had some interesting insight into soundboard design and wood selection, romantically presented with Scarlatti playing during the slides of the northern Italian forests. They go out into this protected forest (according to Heiner, only musical instrument makers are allowed to purchase trees from this area) and whack the trees with a big mallet to listen to their tone quality. I am not making this up! Heiner is obviously a very intelligent man, and he does know his soundboards, so I'll have to take him at his word on this tree selection routine. I suggested to him that maybe Young Chang should try this technique - send a few hundred Koreans into the north American forests banging on trees full time! Sure wouldn't do the owls much good! (BG) ;-) Don_Mannino@yca.ccmail.compuserve.com ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Albuquerque 1995 Author: INTERNET:johnsond@stolaf.edu at CSERVE Date: 7/26/95 8:35 AM
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